Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/398

364 to death, and given the Oriental alternative of committing suicide before eleven o'clock on Sunday night, or else the company would take the carrying out of the sentence into their own hands. Now whether it will be possible to convict all four of the Chinamen we had here for complicity in his murder, or whether Sin Chung Ming, who fired the shot will be the only one tried, I do not know. But the others, in any case, will be turned over to Mr. Ferris for prosecution for their evasions of the exclusion laws."

"Exclusion laws!" exclaimed the giant inspector—"Mr. Ferris can look after his exclusion laws if he wants. What we want, Trant, is to convict these men for the murder of Walter Newberry; and knowing what we do now, we will get a confession out of them some way!"

"I doubt whether, under the circumstances, any force could be brought to bear that would extort any formal confession from these Chinamen," the Government agent shook his head. "They would lose their 'face' and with it all reputation among their countrymen."

But at this instant the door of the room was dashed open and the flushed face of the desk sergeant appeared before them.

"Inspector!" he cried sharply, "the chink's dead! The last one, Sin Chung Ming, choked himself as soon as he was alone in his cell!"

The inspector turned to Trant who looked to Ferris, first, in his surprise.

"What? Ah—I see!" the immigration officer comprehended after an instant. "He considered