“And remember, no more than ten minutes this first time.”
I nodded and opened the door. Helen was propped up in bed and showed unmistakably the great suffering she had been through. She was pale and wan, but smiled when she saw me and gave me her cheek to kiss.
“Good morning,” she whispered. “The flowers were lovely.”
“I'm glad you liked them, Sis, dear,” I said, sitting down by the side of her bed.
I asked her the usual questions, how she felt and if she wanted anything, and then tried to lead up to the only question that was of any consequence to either of us.
“Helen, dear, there are certain questions about your accident that have puzzled us. The doctor said that you could talk for ten minutes this morning and I want to ask you some questions.”
“Wait a minute!” she interrupted. “Did the doctor say I might really talk this morning?”
“Yes, dear.”
“There are a hundred questions then that you must answer me. I want to know so many things.” She looked away and passed a thin hand over her forehead. Finally she turned her big brown eyes toward me and said:
“First, tell me who I am!”
For a brief second I felt numb all through. My brain whirled until I thought my head would burst.
“Helen, dear, what did you say?”
My speech was thick, as though my tongue was swollen. Still keeping her gaze fixed on me, she continued:
“They call me Helen, and I gather that you are my brother. There is a beautiful girl who comes here every day. She and I seem to be great friends, but I don't know her, I have heard them call her Mary; tell me who she is!”
If I could have run from the room I should have done so. A horror gripped me such as I never felt before. Then I saw two large tears tremble in Helen's eyes, overflow and course down her cheeks and I gathered all the strength that I could muster for the task of trying to awaken a memory that had apparently ceased to function.
“Helen, dearest little sister, I am your brother. The beautiful girl you speak of is Mary Pendleton, one of the best and truest friends you ever had. She was your bridesmaid, don't you remember?”
Helen shook her head weakly.
“I have been married, then?” she asked.
“You were married to James Felderson. Can't you remember him?” I begged.
Again she shook her head. “No. It's all gone.” She thought hard a minute, then she asked: “He is dead—my husband?”
“Yes,” I muttered, trying to keep the tears back, “he was killed in the same accident—”
“What was he like?” she interrupted.
“Helen, think!” I cried, fighting blindly against the terror that was choking me. “Little sister. You must think—hard. Jim. Don't you remember big handsome Jim?” I snatched my watch from my pocket and opened the back, where I carried a small picture of Jim, taken years before. I had put it there in boyish admiration when I first knew him. I held it up in front of her eyes. “You must remember him, Helen!”
She gazed at the picture with eyes in which there were tears and a little fright, but not a spark of recognition. Fearing that I was over-exciting her, I sat close to her and drew as best I could a mental picture of Jim. I was only half-way through the recital when the door opened and Doctor Forbes came in.
“The ten minutes are up, Mr. Thompson.”
I stooped and kissed Helen.
“Promise that you'll come back to-morrow,” she whispered.
I promised and hurried from the room. Outside the doctor awaited me questioningly.
“Her memory is completely gone!” I gasped.
The doctor patted me on the shoulder sympathetically.
“We suspected that day before yesterday. I would have told you before, but thought that your questions might start her memory functioning.”
I gripped him by both arms. “But, Doctor, can nothing be done? Will she have to—have to begin all over again?”
“I can't say yet. There may be some pressure there still. We'll have to wait until she is much stronger before we can tell.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. WE PLAN THE DEFENSE
Helen's loss of memory was the last straw. The shock of finding her unable to remember the most familiar things was bad enough from a purely physical standpoint, but when I realized how completely it swept away all my plans for Helen's defense, how it fastened the guilt on her poor shoulders, I felt that our case was hopeless indeed.
I drove to the offices of Simpson and Todd and was lucky enough to find both of them in. Simpson, a slender man with steel-gray hair and eyes, at once ordered a closed session to thrash out the whole affair. He first made me repeat everything I knew about Jim's murder, from the beginning. Several times he interrupted me, to ask a question, but for the most part he sat with his back to me, gazing out of the window, the tips of his fingers to his lips. Half the time I thought he wasn't listening, until a quick question would show his interest. Todd, on the contrary, was the picture of attention. He took notes in shorthand most of the time I was talking. When I had finished, Simpson rose and came over to me.
“Let's examine this thing from the start. You have three people who had a motive for killing Felderson—Zalnitch, Woods and Mrs. Felderson. Let's take Zalnitch first, for I think suspicion falls the slightest on him. You say that Felderson helped to convict Zalnitch in the Yellow Pier case and that he made vague threats against those who had put him in prison, after he was released. Good! There's a motive and a threat. He was seen on the same road that Mr. Felderson traveled, a short time before the murder. All those facts point to Zalnitch's complicity. But—the bullet that killed Felderson was fired from behind and above, according to the coroner's statement. Knowing the average juryman, I should say that we would have to stretch things pretty far to make him believe that a shot fired from one rapidly moving automobile at another rapidly moving automobile would ricochet and kill a man. That's asking a little too much. Also, it is hard to believe that Schreiber, who was driving the car, would risk a smash-up to his own car and possible death for himself and party, in order to try to make Felderson go into the ditch. Then, too, if Zalnitch recognized Felderson's car, why didn't he fire point-blank at Felderson instead of waiting till he got past? No! The case against Zalnitch falls down. We can strike him off the list.”
I hated to give him up, but I had to admit Simpson's logic was faultless.
“Now let us take up the case of Woods. Here is a man who threatened Felderson's life unless he gave his wife a divorce, which you say Felderson did not intend to do. There, again, is a motive. Woods knew that Felderson was in possession of certain papers that would ruin him. There is a stronger motive.” He turned to me. “By the way, you have those papers, haven't you?”