“Well, well! you have stolen a march on us.  But, if I may ask, why don’t you bag your game?”

“I am using him as a decoy for larger game.  Whatever Brown is mixed up in, he is only a tool in the hands of older and shrewder rascals.”

Before the attorney could say anything further, Merrick rose abruptly and stepped to a table near by, returning with a package.

“What do you think of that?” he asked, removing the wrappings and holding up the rusty, metallic box.

“Great heavens!” ejaculated Mr. Whitney, springing forward excitedly.  “Why, man alive, you don’t mean to say that you have found the jewels!”

“No such good fortune as that yet,” the detective answered quietly, “only the empty casket;” and having opened the box, he handed it to the attorney.

“Where did you find this?” the latter inquired.

“Fished it out of the lake.”

“Ah-h!  I should like to know when.”

“While you were snoring this morning.”

“Great Scott!  They’ll catch a weasel asleep when they find you napping!  But, by George! this rather confirms my theory about that woman getting possession of the jewels and hiring Brown to help her, doesn’t it?”

Without replying, Merrick handed over the revolver which had been brought to light that morning.

“Where did you get this rusty thing?  Was it in the lake, also?”

The detective nodded affirmatively, and Mr. Whitney examined the weapon in some perplexity.

“Well, I must say,” he remarked at length, “I don’t see what connection this has with the case.  The shooting was done with Hugh Mainwaring’s own revolver; that was settled at the inquest-”

“Pardon me!  It was only ‘settled’ that the revolver found lying beside him was his own.”

The attorney stared as Merrick continued, at the same time producing from his pocket the revolver in question, “This, as you are doubtless aware, is a Smith and Wesson, 32 calibre, while that,” pointing to the rusty weapon in Mr. Whitney’s hands, “is an old Colt’s revolver, a 38.  On the morning of the murder, after you and the coroner had gone, I found the bullet for which we had searched unsuccessfully, and from that hour to this I have known, what before I had suspected, that this dainty little weapon of Mr. Mainwaring’s played no part in the shooting.  Here is the bullet, you can see for yourself.”

Mr. Whitney gazed in silent astonishment as the detective compared the bullet with the two weapons, showing conclusively that it could never have been discharged from the familiar 32-calibre revolver.

“Well, I’ll be blessed if I can see what in the dickens that revolver of Mainwaring’s had to do with the affair, anyway!”