For a long time John McNabb spoke no word but sat staring at his desk, pecking at the blotter with his pencil.  He prided himself upon his ability to pick men.  He knew men, and in no small measure was this knowledge responsible for his success in dealing with men.  He had been certain that Jean and Hedin would eventually marry, and secretly he longed for the day.  He had watched Hedin for years and now, despite the improbability of the story, he believed it implicitly.  And it was with a heavy heart that he had watched the studied coldness of each toward the other.  McNabb was a man of snap decisions.  He would teach these young fools a lesson, and at the same time find out which way the wind blew.  With a clenching of his fists, he whirled abruptly upon Hedin.

“What did ye do with the coat?” he roared.  “It’ll go easier with ye if ye tell me!”

“What do you mean?” cried Hedin, white to the lips, meeting McNabb’s gaze with a look of mingled surprise, pain, and anger.

“I mean just what I say.  Ye’ve got the coat—­where is it?”

Hedin felt suddenly weak and sick.  He had expected McNabb’s anger at his foolish whim, and knew that he deserved it—­but that McNabb should accuse him of theft!  Sick at heart, he faltered his answer, and in his own ears his voice sounded strange, and dull, and unconvincing.  “You think I—­I stole it?”

“What else am I to think?  What will the police think?  What will the jury think when they hear your flimsy yarn—­an’ the straightforward evidence of my daughter?  They’ll think that the coat she wore to the show, an’ that she still has, is the coat she wore from the store, an’ that you’ve got the other.  An’ when Kranz tells of your midnight visit to the store, what’ll they think then?” McNabb finished and, reaching for the telephone, called the police headquarters.  A few minutes later the chief himself appeared, accompanied by the night watchman, Kranz, whose story of the nervous and agitated appearance of Hedin on his midnight visit to the store forged the strongest link in the chain of circumstantial evidence.

After the watchman had been dismissed, Hedin was subjected to a bullying at the hands of the burly officer that stopped just short of personal violence, and through it all he stubbornly maintained his innocence.

After another brief telephone conversation, the three visited the private room of the judge where, waiving a preliminary hearing, the prisoner was bound over to await the action of the grand jury, and his bail fixed at ten thousand dollars.

X