Flummers waved Whittlesy into oblivion, and continued:  “Old Witherspoon gave up his check for twenty thousand, and there the reward stops, for Mrs. Brooks won’t give anything for having her husband caught.  It has been whispered in the Star office that Henry Witherspoon had something to do with the detection of Brooks, and made Stavers promise that he would give half the reward to charity.  But I don’t believe it.  Why should he want to give up ten thousand?  But there’s a mystery in it somewhere, and the first thing you know papa’ll get on the track of it.  Here, boy, bring that drink.  What have you been doing out there?  Have I got to drink alone?  Well, I’m equal to any emergency.”  He shuddered as he swallowed the whisky, but recovered instantly, and with a circular movement, expressive of his satisfaction, rubbed his growing paunch.

Witherspoon remained three days at home and then resumed his place at the store.  With a promptness in which he took a pride, he sent a check to the detective.  He did this even before he went down to the Colossus.  The physician had urged him to put aside all business cares, and the merchant had replied with a contemptuous grunt.  He appeared to be stronger when he came home at evening, and he joked with Ellen; he told her that she had narrowly escaped the position of temporary manager of the Colossus.  They were in the library, and a cheerfulness that had been absent seemed just to have returned.  Witherspoon went early to bed and left Henry and Ellen sitting there.

“Don’t you think he will be well in a few days?” the girl asked.

“Yes, now that his worry is locked in jail.”

“That isn’t so very bad,” she replied, smiling at him.  “But suppose they hang his worry?”

“It may be all the better.”

“Mother and I went this afternoon to see Mrs. Brooks,” said the girl.  “And she doesn’t appear to be crushed, either.  I don’t see why she should be—­they wouldn’t have lived together much longer anyway.  Oh, of course she’s humiliated and all that, but if she really cared for him she’d be heartbroken.  She used to tell me how handsome he was, but that was before they were married.  I think she must have found out lately what she might have known at first—­that he married her for money.  Oh, she’s a good woman—­there’s no doubt of that—­but she’s surely as plain a creature as I’ve ever seen.”

“If I had thought that she loved him,” said Henry, “I should have hesitated a long time before seeking to fasten the murder on him.  I may have only a vague regard for justice, for abstract right is so intangible; but I have a strong and definite sympathy.”

“We all have,” she said.  “Oh, by the way,” she broke off, as though by mere accident she had thought of something, “you superintended the Colossus for two whole days, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t exactly superintend it, but I stood about with an air of helpless authority.”