Page:Edgar Wallace - The Man who Knew.djvu/215

 you that they related to a fraud of which he was the author, and they were in themselves all the proof which the police would require to obtain a conviction against him. He was obviously the man who struck down Mr. Cole, and whose light the constable saw flashing in the upper window."

"In that case he cannot have been the murderer," said the detective quickly, "because the shots were fired while he was still in the room. They were almost simultaneous with the appearance of the flash at the upper window."

"H'm!" said Saul Arthur Mann, for the moment nonplussed.

"The more you go into this matter, the more complicated does it become," said the police officer, with a shake of his head, "and to my mind the clearer is the case against Merrill."

"With this reservation," interrupted the other, "that you have to account for the movements of Mr. Rex Holland, who comes on the scene ten minutes after Frank Merrill arrives