Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/76

 swept from his mind; he knew now what Randall's "proof" was—it was to come out after all, to come out almost ironically. "Doctor Merton always carried the key with him."

"You expected, then, to find it locked?"

"Yes."

"And that night when you went to it, was it locked or unlocked?"

"Locked."

"How did you open it?"

"I pried it open with the fender bar."

"This one here, that has been put in evidence?"—Randall pointed to where the bar lay on the table.

"Yes."

"Where did you find the bar when you went into the room?"

"In its usual place—before the fireplace."

"Was it bent then, or straight?"

"It was straight."

Randall's voice rose suddenly, caustically.

"If you deliberately, premeditatively started out to burglarise a receptacle that you knew, or, amounting to the same thing, expected would be locked, doesn't it seem a rather strange thing that you went unprepared with any tool or implement with which to open it?"

A low sound, indescribable, more like a deep, prolonged sigh than anything else, swept through the courtroom. The jury, as one man, leaned forward more intently.

"I knew the fender bar was there—I intended to use that," answered Varge.

"Ah, I see!" said Randall smoothly. "You stole