Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/306

274 said the younger man finally, "as to what will be done in the matter. I may tell you that the case had already given me independent confirmation of Mr. Findlay's remarkable statement in the important last particulars. So it will be no surprise to me, and I shall not mention it, if I am never called on by you to bear witness to the very full confession we have just heard."

"Confession?" Sheppard started. "Findlay does not regard it a confession, Mr. Trant, but as his defense; and I—I rather think that during the last few minutes I have been looking at it in that light."

He led the way toward the automobile, and as they stepped into it, he continued: "You have proved completely, Mr. Trant, all the assertions you made at my house this morning, but I am still guessing how the means you used could have made you think of Findlay as the man who killed Neal—the one whom I would have least suspected."

"You know already," Trant answered, "what led me to the conclusion that your brother was killed in the dark; and that it was certainly not a murder, but a duel, or, at least, some sort of a formal fight between two men, had occurred to me with compelling suggestiveness as soon as the Indian showed to me the intact shells—all with full metal-patched bullets, though these were not carried by you for game and no other such shells were found in your brother's belt. And not only were the intact shells with steel-patched bullets, but the shots fired were also steel-patched bullets, as the Indian noticed from their holes through the