The Governor wearily drew his hand across his face.
"The first memo.," went on the Governor, referring to the printed case, "relates to page 121."
Morehead found page 121 and his face reddened perceptibly. The Governor had touched a sore spot: page 121 contained the first bit of damning documentary evidence against Wilkinson. Morehead ran through the other pages indicated on the memorandum; and closing his eyes for a few seconds, he pressed his hands against them and thought hard. The Governor had burnt midnight oil to some purpose: he had located every weak place in Wilkinson's armour--and Morehead knew it.
"I merely want to find out what Wilkinson's explanation of all these things is," remarked the Governor, grimly.
"I'll tell you," said the Colonel, glibly; "that's easy, Eliot. Or, perhaps," he suggested in order to gain time, "we might get Wilkinson down here, and have him go over these things with you and me." Already his hand was on the telephone; but the Governor stayed it.
For two hours the Governor listened to Morehead's explanation. At the end of that time the Governor was still leaning forward studying every expression in the other's face; but the lines were deeper in his own face, while on the Colonel's lean countenance small beads of perspiration stood forth.
"That's the explanation of it, is it, Colonel?" asked the Governor.
"That's the whole thing in a nut-shell," returned Morehead.
Hurriedly the Governor took his departure. He was nervous, anxious, worried.
"It seems to be the kind of an explanation that doesn't explain ..." he told himself. Now he went back to his old office on Nassau Street and telephoned to Murgatroyd for the original exhibits. At the Barristers' Club, behind locked doors, he examined the documents for hours. All night long he studied them; then he rose and gazed out into the grey dawn.
"Wilkinson is guilty!" he cried out; "damnably guilty! Why didn't I see it all before?"
There was a reason: Colonel Morehead had been right when he told Wilkinson that Beekman was partisan. And so long as his duty lay that way, Beekman was partisan. But now he was Governor; his duty in this case had become judicial; he saw with impartial eyes; and what he saw and what he read was not the mere testimony of witnesses, not evidence that depended on veracity, but documents whose genuineness was undisputed, and whose significance had strangely escaped him until now. In his own words, over his own signature, Wilkinson had convicted himself over and over again.