“The most painful act of my life,” Offitt murmured.

“Of course.  But duty before everything.  I will have to ask you to wait a little while in the adjoining room till we see whether this man can be found.”

Offitt was shown into a small room, barely furnished, with two doors; the one through which he had just come, and one opening apparently into the main corridor of the building.  Offitt, as soon as he was alone, walked stealthily to the latter door and tried to open it.  It was locked, and there was no key.  He glanced at the window; there was an iron grating inside the sash, which was padlocked.  A cold sweat bathed him from head to foot.  He sank into a chair, trembling like a leaf.  He felt for his handkerchief to wipe his wet forehead.  His hand touched one of the packages of money.  He bounded from his chair in sudden joy.  “They did not search me, so they don’t suspect.  It is only to make sure of my evidence that they keep me here.”  Nevertheless, the time went heavily.  At last an officer came in and said he was to come to the police justice’s for the preliminary examination of Sleeny.

“They have caught him, then?” he asked, with assumed eagerness and surprise.  “He had not got away?”

“No,” the man answered curtly.

They came to the court-room in a few steps.  Sam was there between two policemen.  As Offitt entered, he smiled and slightly nodded.  One or two men who had been summoned as witnesses were standing near the justice.  The proceedings were summary.

One of the policemen said that he had gone to Matchin’s shop to arrest the prisoner; that the prisoner exhibited no surprise; his first words were, “Is Mr. Farnham dead yet?”

Offitt was then called upon, and he repeated, clearly and concisely, the story he had told the chief of police.  When he had concluded he was shown the hammer which had been picked up on the floor at Farnham’s, and was asked, “Is that the hammer you refer to?”

“Yes, that is it.”

These words were the signal for a terrible scene.

When Sleeny saw Offitt step forward and begin to give his evidence, he leaned forward with a smile of pleased expectation upon his face.  He had such confidence in his friend’s voluble cleverness that he had no doubt Offitt would “talk him free” in a few minutes.  He was confused a little by his opening words, not clearly seeing his drift; but as the story went on, and Offitt’s atrocious falsehood became clear to his mind, he was dumb with stupefaction, and felt a strange curiosity wakening in him to see how the story would end.  He did not, for the moment, see what object Offitt could have in lying so, until the thought occurred to him:  “May be there’s a reward out!” But when the blood-stained hammer was shown and identified by Offitt, all doubt was cleared away in a flash from the dull brain of Sleeny.  He saw the whole horrible plot of which he was the victim.