"What I tell you is confidential--you understand?"
"Yes, yes," she said impatiently; "but tell me about it--the real
facts--that is, if you can."
"There's no reason why I shouldn't, I suppose," said the prosecutor of
the pleas. "The real facts as we have them ... as we have them, mind,
are simple. Challoner quarrelled with Colonel Hargraves----"
"What about?" asked Shirley impulsively.
Murgatroyd flushed.
"That makes no difference," he answered with some confusion; "the point
is that they were enemies. It was a quarrel in which the passions of
each were roused to the utmost. To make a long story short, Colonel
Hargraves won ten thousand dollars at Gravesend--the men met in
Cradlebaugh's--another quarrel followed----"
"And then?"
"Then," went on the prosecutor, "they parted. That was all--save at two
o'clock next morning Hargraves was found in the street back of
Cradlebaugh's with a bullet through his heart."
Shirley was quivering with suppressed excitement; nevertheless, she
managed to ask:--
"What does that prove?"
"Nothing--only a man named Pemmican of Cradlebaugh's witnessed both
quarrels--and Challoner has run away. Looks bad for Challoner, I should
say."
"But," persisted Shirley, "surely that evidence is not conclusive...."
"One moment, please," went on the prosecutor calmly; "Hargraves had the
ten thousand dollars in cash with him, and----"
"That is conclusive," she commented. "Surely you don't think Lawrence
would steal?"
Prosecutor Murgatroyd paused for an instant and placed finger-tip
against finger-tip, then he answered slowly:--
"Frankly speaking, I do. I believe," he went on, speaking as though with
conviction, "that Challoner would do anything."
Shirley shook her head.
"It's impossible! Why, the Challoners have any amount of money!"
Murgatroyd shrugged his shoulders.
"Challoner's wife has, but----"
"It's the same thing," Shirley protested; "and she just adores him--you
do not know how much she adores him, Billy!"
Again Murgatroyd shrugged his shoulders.
"But how about him?"