"So," he went
on, with somber menace in his voice, "you did it, young man." He
nodded toward the detective. "Well, Cassidy, you can take 'em
both down-town.... That's all."
The command aroused Dick to remonstrance against such indignity
toward the woman whom he loved.
"Not her!" he cried, imploringly. "You don't want her,
Inspector! This is all wrong!"
Now, at last, Mary interposed with a new spirit. She had
regained, in some measure at least, her poise. She was speaking
again with that mental clarity which was distinctive in her.
"Dick," she advised quietly, but with underlying urgency in her
gently spoken words, "don't talk, please."
Burke laughed harshly.
"What do you expect?" he inquired truculently. "As a matter of
fact, the thing's simple enough, young man. Either you killed
Griggs, or she did."
The Inspector, with his charge, made a careless gesture toward
the corpse of the murdered stool-pigeon. For the first time,
Edward Gilder, as his glance unconsciously followed the officer's
movement, looked and saw the ghastly inanimate heap of flesh and
bone that had once been a man.
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