to
the other. His eyes shot mute appeals for help, but no answering gleam
of compassion came from the others. They regarded him with cold, stolid
faces, expressionless as death masks.

"Why can't you leave me alone?" pleaded Collins. "I didn't kill
Whitmore."

The denial was uttered in the tone of a fervent plea, but it made no
visible impression on the detective.

"If you didn't do it, why don't you establish your innocence?" Britz
pursued relentlessly.

"You haven't proved me guilty!" Collins fired back. Evidently something
which Luckstone had told him flashed across his mind, for he seemed to
come out of his bewildered state, and again he adopted an air of
resolute opposition. "I won't say another word."

Britz met this altered attitude of Collins with a swift transformation
of his own. His face contracted until every line seemed to harden into
an expression of stern determination.

"Do you know why Julia Strong killed herself?" he snapped.

"Yes," said Collins weakly.

"Why?"

"She threatened to do it a dozen times. She wanted me to permit my wife
to obtain a divorce so I could marry her."

Collins had been taken off his guard and Britz found it easy to follow
up his advantage.

"You promised to marry her?" he inquired.

"I never told her so."

"But you led her to believe you would?"

"I wasn't responsible for what she believed."

"Now I'll tell you something," pursued the detective in a firm, subdued
voice. "An hour before Julia Strong committed suicide she was in my
office at Police Headquarters."

Collins started as if jarred by a hateful sound.

"I--I--don't believe it," he faltered.

"She was there," said Britz, ignoring the other's remark. "Moreover, she
accused you of having killed Whitmore. She did it in the presence of a
witness, and, although she was unaware of it, her statement was taken
down by a hidden stenographer."

"Then why did she commit suicide?" blurted Collins, as if her death
contradicted the detective's statement.

"She betrayed you because you had betrayed her. She thought you and your
wife had become reconciled. Then, when she received your note--the one
that Beard brought her--she believed you meant, after all, to marry her.
In a fit of remorse at having betrayed you, she killed herself."

"Why do you tell me this?" asked Collins suspiciously.

"To show you what an overwhelming mass of evidence we have against you.
And to give you a last opportunity to explain.