anyhow and
bound to come to a bad ending."

"How soon do you suppose he will be tried?" he added, turning to me
again.

I said I did not know, but I thought very soon. At which they all
expressed satisfaction.

Then he began once more: "There is nothing like swift and sure justice,"
he announced, "and there now remains in the Winters case only the
formality of a trial. The work of the Inspector has left nothing more to
be found out."

He would apparently have gone on in this strain indefinitely, had he not
been interrupted by Littell, who had come in unobserved, and now
quietly asked the speaker's opinion as to what the Inspector might have
done with the other three fifty-dollar bills that had been left in the
room.

"And pray what has the Inspector to do with them?" was the rejoinder.

"I don't know, I'm sure," Littell answered, "but you said the Inspector
had exhausted every clue and left nothing more to be found out and I
thought perhaps that if the tracing of one bill was sufficient to
convict a man, the whereabouts of the other three might be of
importance, too. When found, you see," he continued, "they might convict
three more men."

A dead silence followed this explanation, and I fear I rejoiced
maliciously over the evident discomfiture of the crowd while at the same
time I was gratified by the apparent confirmation of my own views.

"Then you don't think Winters guilty?" some one timidly asked, after a
while. I listened eagerly for the answer.

"I didn't say that," Littell replied, "I only wanted to find out if
there might not possibly be something that the Inspector did not know."

He refused to be drawn into further discussion, rather suggesting by his
manner that he did not think it worth while; and after an awkward pause,
the party moved across the room to a more congenial atmosphere, whence
in a few minutes I heard them with recovered assurance again telling one
another all about it. Evidently side remarks were not in order,
particularly if they savored of incredulity.

After they had gone I took the opportunity to ask Littell if he thought
the missing bills a serious defect in the case.

"I think it is important that they should be found, if possible," he
said, "though I doubt if it would alter much the present status of the
case. I only suggested their absence to these men, to show them how
little they really knew about it, and that the police are not
infallible."

I turned away disappo