Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/266

236 his fur cap upon Trant's flat-topped desk before him and slapped his heavy gloves, one after the other, beside it.

"You mean that you have private information that your brother was not shot accidentally?" Trant leaned over his desk intently.

"Exactly. But I've not come to mince matters with you, Trant. He was murdered, man,—murdered!"

"Murdered? I understand then!" Trant straightened back.

"No, you don't," his client contradicted bluntly, "I haven't come to ask you to find the murderer for me. I named him to the police and ordered his arrest before I called you this morning. He is Jim Tyler; and, as I know he was at his club, they must have him by this time. There's mighty little psychology in this case, Trant. But if I'm going to hang young Jim, I'm going to hang him quick—for it's not a pleasant job; and I have called for you merely to hear the proofs that Chapin and the Indian are bringing—they've sent word only that it is murder, as I suspected—so that when we put those proofs into the hands of the state's attorney, they can finish Jim quick—and be done with it!"

"Tyler?" Trant leaned quickly toward his client again, not trying now to conceal his surprise. "Young Tyler, your shooting-mate and your partner in the new Sheppard-Tyler Gun Company?"

"Yes, Tyler," the other returned brusquely, but rising as he spoke, and turning his back upon the pretext of closing the transom. "My shooting-mate