CASE AGAINST FRANK MERRILL
There is a great detective lost in him, Inspector."
"It is lost, all right," said the detective laconically. "Wiseman is very certain that Merrill committed the crime, and I think you are going to have a difficulty in persuading a jury that he did n't. You see Merrill's story is that he came and saw his uncle, that they had a few minutes' chat together, that his uncle suddenly had an attack of faintness, and that he went out of the room into the dining room to get a glass of water. While Merrill was in the dining room he heard the shots, and came running back, still with the glass in his hand, and saw his uncle lying on the ground. I saw the glass, which was half filled.
"I was also there in time to examine the dining room and see that Mr. Merrill had spilled some of the water when he was taking it from the carafe. All that part of the story is circumstantially sound. What we cannot understand, and what a jury will never understand, is how, in the very short space of time,
209
