Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/52

32 and the real thief, struck Dr. Lawrie dead in his office, burned the raised notes, turned on the gas and left him to seem a suicide and a thief!"

For the second time within twenty-four hours, Trant held Dr. Reiland and the president of the university astounded before him. But Branower gave an ugly laugh.

"If you could not spare me, you might at least have spared my wife this last raving accusation! Come, Cora!" he commanded.

"I thought you might control yourself, Mr. Branower," Trant returned. "And when I saw your wife wished to stay I thought I might keep her to convince even President Joslyn. You see?" he quietly indicated Mrs. Branower as she fell, white and shaking, into a chair. "Do not think that I would have told it in this way if these facts were new to her. I was sure the only surprise to her would be that we knew them."

Branower bent to his wife; but she straightened and recovered.

"Mr. Branower," Trant continued then, "if you will excuse chance errors, I will make a fuller statement.

"I should say, first, that since you kept his relationship a secret, this Harrison, your wife's brother, was a rascal before he came here. Still you procured him his position in the treasurer's office, where he soon began to steal. It was very easy. Dr. Lawrie merely signed notes; Harrison made them out. He could make them out in erasable ink and raise them after they were signed, or in any other simple way. Suf-