Both Britz and Manning were skilled in the art of concealing their emotions.

Their brains might be working furiously, their hearts throbbing with excitement, they might be laboring under the greatest stress of mind, yet they were able to command a placid exterior, unruffled as polished ivory.
Their conduct as they entered the Police Headquarters the following morning gave no suggestion of the strain which they were undergoing.
Their faces reflected none of the anxious expectancy with which they looked forward to the enactment of the great climax in the Whitmore case.
But the trained newspaper man, as well as the skilled police officer, is endowed with a peculiar instinct by which he seems to detect, without apparent reason, the presence of impending excitement.

He seems to smell it in the air.

So that even before Britz began issuing instructions to his men and sending them scurrying out of the building, the reporters at Police Headquarters appeared to know that something of the utmost importance was about to transpire.
That it concerned the Whitmore case became evident when Mrs.Collins was escorted to the building and ushered into Britz's office.

She was followed in a few minutes by Collins, Ward and Beard, all of whom had been summoned by Britz.
Next, Luckstone was seen to jump out of an automobile and tear up the steps as if afraid that his ultimate fate depended on the moments required to reach his clients.