Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/294

 retorted, showing a disposition to argue, which caused McManus a nervous irritation he could not conceal. "From my experience, that's just what he would do. He'd hesitate to take the plunge; he'd wait to shape a phrase and then, at the last moment, when it had to be done, he'd throw it off in any form it presented itself. Actually, I'd give more to know what was said in that two minutes, before the stranger jumped for the train, than for all the talk of the whole evening."

"Well; have your own way," said McManus brusquely; "but you can't know. Let it rest there, and let's go on to what happened next—if you know."

Trafford watched him intently, as he was speaking, but when he had finished seemed to find nothing in the speech, so he went on:

"After the train pulled out, the man behind the storehouse waited some few minutes, till the station was closed, and the men had left, and then he stepped out and picked up something that he saw lying on the ground and had watched from the moment it had caught his eye. It was a revolver, one chamber