Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/211

Rh the public to-morrow morning in the papers, attested by the signatures of the scientific men who witnessed the test. It has been photographed by this time, and the photographic copies are distributed in safe places, to be produced with the original on the day when the Government brings criminal proceedings against you. If I had it here I would show you how complete, how merciless, is the evidence that you knew what was being done. I would show you how at the point marked 1 on the record your pulse and breathing quickened with alarm under my suggestion; how at the point marked 2 your anxiety and fear increased; and how at 3, when the spring by which this cheating had been carried out was before your eyes, you betrayed yourself uncontrollably, unmistakably. How the volume of blood in your second finger suddenly diminished, as the current was thrown back upon your heart; how your pulse throbbed with terror; how, though unmoved to outward appearance, you caught your breath, and your laboring lungs struggled under the dread that your wrongdoing was discovered and you would be branded—as I trust you will now be branded, Mr. Welter, when the evidence in this case and the testimony of those who witnessed my test are produced before a jury—a deliberate and scheming thief!"

"— — you!" The three words escaped from Welter's puffed lips. He put out his arm to push aside the customs officer standing between him and the door. Dickey resisted.

"Let him go if he wants to!" Trant called to the officer. "He can neither escape nor hide. His money holds him under bond!"