as many shares in their enterprise as possible before the time came to exercise their options. Then they intended packing up their bags and disappearing. Whitacre hadn’t much nerve, and he had a clear remembrance of the three years he had served in prison for forgery; so, to bolster his courage, Ogburn had told his partner that he had a friend in the Post Office Department in Washington, DC , who would tip him off the instant any official suspicion was aroused.
The two partners made a neat little pile out of their venture, Ogburn taking charge of the money until the time came for the split-up. Meanwhile Ogburn and Mae Landis—Whitacre’s supposed wife—had become intimate, and had rented the apartment on Greenwich Street, meeting there afternoons when Whitacre was busy at the office, and when Ogburn was supposed to be out hunting fresh victims. In this apartment Ogburn and the woman had hatched their little scheme, whereby they were to get rid of Whitacre, keep all the loot, and clear Ogburn of criminal complicity in the affairs of Ogburn & Whitacre.
Ogburn had come into the Continental Office and told his little tale of his partner’s dishonesty, engaging Bob Teal to shadow him. Then he had told Whitacre that he had received a tip from his friend in Washington that an investigation was about to be made. The two partners planned to leave town on their separate ways the following week. The next night Mae Landis told Whitacre she had seen a man loitering in the neighborhood, apparently watching the building in which they lived. Whitacre—thinking Bob a Post Office Inspector—had gone completely to pieces, and it had taken the combined efforts of the woman and his partner—apparently working separately—to keep him from bolting immediately. They had persuaded him to stick it out another few days.
On the night of the murder, Ogburn, pretending skepticism of Whitacre’s story about being followed, had met Whitacre for the purpose of learning if he really was being shadowed. They had walked