I hadn't thought of them until that very minute.
“I don't know where they are right now, but I'm pretty sure I can find them.”
He nodded.
“Get hold of them by all means! They may be important to us.” He lit a cigar and threw himself into a chair.
“Well, let's go on. Woods had all the motive necessary for killing Felderson. He made a definite engagement with Felderson on the night of the murder, to meet him at a certain time and place specified by Woods. That's important. Everything up to that point is as clear as crystal, yet you say you have positive testimony that Woods was at the country-club waiting for Felderson at about the time the murder took place, and Woods claims that he has an absolute alibi. If that is true, it lets him out.”
“But I'm not sure he was at the country-club at the time the murder took place,” I explained. “I only know he was there just before and just afterward.”
“What do you know of his movements that night?” Simpson asked.
“I know he dined there at seven-thirty or thereabouts and that he ordered a drink at eight twenty-five.”
“And what time was the murder?”
“Probably about a quarter past eight—the bodies were found at half past, they say,” I answered.
Simpson shook his head. “I'm afraid his alibi is good. It's cutting things too fine to think that he could have run six miles and back in less than half an hour and committed a murder in the bargain. It would have taken a speedy automobile. Do you know whether he had an automobile that night?” he queried.
“I think he did. I can find out in a minute,” I added, going to the telephone.
I called up the country-club and finally succeeded in getting Jackson on the wire. Jackson thought Mr. Woods did not have an automobile that night, because he had gone to town in Mr. Paisley's car.
“He might have used somebody else's car,” Todd suggested.
Simpson shook his head again. “We're getting clear off the track, now.”
An idea came to me suddenly and I called Up Pickering at the Benefit Insurance Company.
“This is Thompson speaking, Pickering,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Do you remember if an automobile passed you on the night of the Felderson murder, going toward the country-club?”
“No.”
“Do you mean you don't remember?”
“No, I remember perfectly. There was only one automobile passed us and that was the black limousine.”
“You're sure?” I asked.
“I'm positive, old man. We only saw one car from the time we left Blandesville, until we reached the city.”
I put up the receiver and sank back in my chair.
“Well?” Todd flung at me.
“I'm out of luck!” I responded.
Simpson rose. “Let's go on. We have crossed off two of our suspects from the list, let's see—”
“I'd rather not go on,” I interrupted, looking out of the window to escape Todd's searching eyes. There was a moment's silence, then Simpson spoke.
“We'll do our best but it will be a hard fight. If Mrs. Felderson could only recall what happened that night and before, we might have a chance, but every woman that has come up for murder during the last few years, has worked that lost memory gag.”
“But my sister really has lost her memory!” I exclaimed.
“I know, my dear boy,” Simpson soothed. “That is what makes it so difficult. If she were only shamming now, we could—. But with your sister as helpless as a child, the prosecuting attorney will so confuse her, that our case will be lost as soon as she takes the stand.”
“Why put her on at all?” I asked.
“Because we have to, if we hope to win our case,” he replied. “The one big chance to win your jury comes when your beautiful client testifies.”
For a few minutes he was silent, obviously thinking, and thinking hard.
“Of course, our defense will have to be temporary insanity,” he declared at last.
“Oh, not that!” I begged.
“It's our only chance,” Simpson argued, “and I don't mind saying that it's a pretty poor chance at that. Three years ago it might have been all right, because a conviction only meant a few months at a fashionable sanitarium, and then freedom. But when that Truesdale woman went free, an awful howl went up all over the country and I'm afraid the next woman who is found, 'guilty but insane,' will be sent to a real asylum.”
A shudder of horror ran through me. For Helen to be sent to an asylum while her mind was in its weak state might well mean permanent insanity.
“You talk to your sister as often as you can and try to help her recover her lost memory. Of course you'll have the best specialists examine and prescribe for her. In the meantime, we'll investigate both the Woods and Zalnitch cases to see if they are hole-proof.”
“You might get those papers on Woods, if you will,” Todd reminded me.
I thanked them and left, greatly depressed but ready to fight to the last ditch to save Helen's life. The papers dealing with Woods had not been among Jim's effects when I had looked them over at the office and I was confident they had not been picked up on the night of the murder, for they would have been returned to me. Thinking they had probably been left in one of the pockets of the automobile, and overlooked when the machine was searched, I decided to run out to the Felderson home the first thing in the morning.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. BULLETPROOF
Jim's car had been moved to his own garage the morning after the accident, and as I had a pass-key to the place I found it unnecessary to go to the house at all. Wicks and Annie were taking care of the establishment until Helen should come home, or the house be sold.
I opened the door of the garage and shuddered involuntarily as I caught sight of the wrecked Peckwith-Pierce. It had been more badly smashed than I had at first supposed. On the night of the murder I saw that the chassis was twisted and the axle broken, but I had not noticed what that jolting crash had done to the body of the car. The steering rod was broken and the cushions were caked with mud. One wheel sagged at a drunken angle like a lop-ear and the wind-shield was nothing but a mangled frame. One long gash ran the length of the body, as though it had scraped against a rock, and this gash ended in a jagged wound the size of a man's head. In the back were three small splintered holes.
I examined these with particular interest, wondering what could have caused them. Evidently the police had neglected to examine the machine. The sight of what looked like the end of a nail caused me to drop to my knees and to begin digging frantically at the wood with my pen-knife. At the end of five feverish minutes I held the prize in my hand.