“Yes,” said Merrick, enigmatically, “Barton & Barton are undoubtedly men of great ability in their professions but that ‘clerk’ of theirs who has come over with the party,” with peculiar emphasis, “is the smartest man in the whole crowd!”

“The clerk! why I thought he seemed rather an insignificant sort of a fellow; what do you know about him?”

For reply the detective only gave a short, unpleasant laugh, and, touching his cap, turned abruptly down another street.

“Hold on!” cried the attorney; “you haven’t told me anything about yourself yet.  What have you been doing? and how long are you going to be in town?”

“A day or two, perhaps, possibly a week; I cannot say.”

“How are you getting on?”

But the detective was lost in thought and apparently did not hear the question.  “I suppose you read of the arrest of Brown, the coachman?” he remarked, abstractedly, after a moment’s silence.

“The coachman?  No! you don’t say that he was really concerned in that affair?” the attorney exclaimed, excitedly.

“What affair, the Mainwaring murder?  I don’t know that I have said that he was concerned in that,” Merrick answered, suddenly coming to himself and evidently enjoying the attorney’s expression of blank perplexity; “he was mixed up in a shooting affair, however, which occurred about that time, and by holding him in custody we hope to get on to the principals.  Oh,” he added, carelessly, anticipating another inquiry from Mr. Whitney, “I’m getting there all right, if that is what you want to know; but I won’t have somebody else dogging my tracks and then claiming the game by and by.”

“Man alive! what in the dickens are you driving at?  You are in one of your moods to-night.”

“Perhaps so,” Merrick replied, indifferently, then added quickly, “There is a sensation of some sort in there; see the crowd of reporters!”

They were standing on a street corner, near a large hotel, and glancing through the windows in the direction indicated by the detective, Mr. Whitney saw, as he had said, a crowd of reporters in the office and lobbies, some writing, some talking excitedly, and others coming and going.  Just then one who was leaving the building passed them, and Merrick stopped him.

“What is going on?  What’s the excitement?”

“Suicide!” the young man replied, hastily.  “That woman who was mixed up in the Mainwaring case has suicided by poison.”

The attorney and the detective exchanged startled glances, then both entered the hotel.

CHAPTER XXIII

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

An hour later, the attorney and the detective reappeared, and, threading their way through the crowd still lingering about the hotel, walked rapidly down the street, arm in arm, conversing in low tones.

“A case of suicide, undoubtedly,” said the attorney “and scarcely to be wondered at, taking all the circumstances into consideration.  Do you know, I am now more than ever inclined to the belief that she was in some way connected with Hugh Mainwaring’s death, and that, after such a revelation of her character as was made in court this morning, she feared further disclosures.”