Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/219

Rh man and hold him under a legal warrant that would be valid and unquestioned.

He explained that he must leave at three o'clock in order to reach the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in time, and requested that he be permitted to go at once before the grand-jury, which he had learned was now in session.

The prosecuting attorney listened in astonishment, but he was a man familiar with the startling surprises of criminal investigation, and he set himself to act with the expedition which the matter required. He went at once to the grand jury with the detective, and explained that he had just received information tending to the conclusion that Brown Hirst had been murdered; that the witness with him was John Bartlett, a detective from New York, who had worked up the case and would give full information concerning the facts of the crime. He then added that as Mr. Bartlett would be compelled to leave within the hour, he would return to his office and prepare an indictment for murder. In the meantime the grand jury could determine whether the information was sufficient to sustain the charge,