“You can see her tracks?”
“Here they are on this diagram. She jumped out of the luggage compartment. That’s right where the luggage compartment would be located. Right there. She hit the ground and started running. You can see she was going just as fast as she could leg it, straight for this road. There’s a graveled surface on the road so we can’t pick up her tracks any more after she got to the road. But she couldn’t have gone very far. She must have stood there waiting. It was right about that time, the way I get Fleetwood’s story from listening to what the officers said before they kicked me off the job, that Fleetwood called to her that her husband was out like a light and everything was all right.”
Mason nodded.
“Now then, you can see her tracks just as plain as day. She went down to the road, walked down the road some distance — no one knows just how far, probably never went out of earshot or out of sight of the car. She was thinking things over. She turned around and came back. Here are her tracks where she came back, and you can see them heading just as straight as a string for the place where the car had been left. She was headed right toward the left-hand door on the car — the driver’s seat.”
“Then what happened?” Mason asked.
“Then she got in the car and drove it away.”
“How do you know she did?”
“Figure it out for yourself,” Humphreys said. “I’ve studied the tracks carefully. This diagram shows you just what happened. She got out of the car, ran down to the road. She came back and got in the car. Fleetwood got out of the car and walked along to Overbrook’s house. Those are the only tracks. The car was in soft ground. No one could have got in that car or left the car without leaving tracks. If Fleetwood had returned to the car, he’d have left tracks.”
“And Overbrook’s tracks?” Mason asked.
“They were made this morning. You can follow them clearly, a steady, unbroken line of tracks. He walked down from his house, just as I’ve shown his tracks here. He started to cut across the tracks made by the automobile, then thought better of it when he appreciated their importance, made a swing, and walked back to the farm road. Then he went and got his tractor and put the boards down.”
“You don’t think a person could have got to the car or left the car by carefully picking the ground, and...”
“Not a chance,” Humphreys said. “The ground is so soft that you can even see the tracks made by Overbrook’s dog when he was putting the boards down. I’ve just made a lot of little dots to show where those dog tracks are. I didn’t sketch each individual track. But the point I’m making is that the ground is so soft that even the dog left very plain, deeply indented tracks.”
“And there’s no question but what these are Fleetwood’s tracks?”
“None whatever. You can see them getting out of the automobile, walking around the car. There’s where he stood when he looked back at Mrs. Allred. There’s where he stood when he swung around and threw the gun away. There’s where he resumed walking and you can follow the tracks right up to within eight or ten feet of the roadway to Overbrook’s house.”
Mason studied the diagram thoughtfully. “You’re sure you’ve got everything on here?”
“Absolutely everything.”
Mason said, “If this evidence is true, it’s important as hell.”
“It’s true. The thing is right there on the ground. No person could have entered that automobile or left it without leaving tracks.”
“Isn’t there some way a person could have approached that automobile without leaving tracks?” Mason asked.
Humphreys shook his head doggedly.
“Not by finding some way over hard ground?”
“There wasn’t any.”
“Or by... Wait a minute,” Mason said. “How about a rope? Are there overhanging tree limbs, or...”
“There aren’t any trees for a hundred feet. Then there are some big spreading oaks. But those trees are so far away they couldn’t possibly enter into the picture. No, Mr. Mason, you can take my word for it. I looked the situation over carefully. A person couldn’t possibly have entered that car or left it without leaving tracks, and the tracks I have on this map are every single track that is there on the ground. When the car drove up and stopped, there were at least two people in it. One of them was the woman who was evidently in the baggage compartment, and the other was a man who was either in the driver’s seat or who got out of the car on the left-hand side where a driver would naturally alight. That man walked around the car, stood in front of the headlights and moved his feet in the position that would indicate, first, he was looking toward the back of the car, second, that he was throwing a gun away. Then he kept right on walking in a beeline for Overbrook’s house. The woman came back, got in the car, and took the car away. That’s the only way the car could have been taken away. That woman came back, got in the driver’s seat and drove it away. The tracks tell the whole story. Whoever else was in that car when it was parked there, stayed in the car.
“You can see where the car was backed. The ground was a little soft here, and there was just a little skidding when the car backed around. Then it was driven back to the gravel surfaced road.”
Mason studied the diagram, drumming with the tips of his fingers on the edge of the desk.
“Well,” Drake said, “I guess that does it, Perry.”
Mason nodded.
“Of course,” Mason said after a moment, “I don’t suppose it’s possible to check these tracks as to a means of identity. In other words, a woman was in the luggage compartment. This woman got out, walked to the road, turned back and returned to the car and drove it away. The tracks don’t identify Mrs. Allred, merely some woman.”
“Fleetwood’s story identifies Mrs. Allred,” Drake said.
“And Fleetwood has lied at every turn of the road so far,” Mason pointed out.
“But on this angle he had corroboration,” Humphreys said.
Mason said, “I don’t trust that Bernice Archer, Paul. She might have been the one who was locked in the luggage compartment.”
“Not a chance,” Drake said. “Remember that Bernice Archer was in town Monday night. She got that call from the service station out by Springfield. She had a girl friend spending the night with her. They sat up and talked until about one or two in the morning and then slept together. There was only the one bed. I’ve checked Bernice Archer up one side and down the other. She was in her apartment all night Monday. Remember that Mrs. Allred stopped at that service station around seven o’clock and the attendant remembers her, remembers the car, and remembers Fleetwood. Then the car went over the grade sometime around eleven o’clock. It could have been sometime around half past ten, probably about half an hour before the clock on the dashboard stopped and Allred’s watch stopped.”
“The police don’t figure the car was driven over the grade at eleven o’clock when those clocks were stopped?”
“No, they figured Mrs. Allred set the clock and Allred’s watch ahead so as to give herself an alibi.”
Mason got up from his chair and started pacing the floor.
“You’ve got to take this evidence into consideration when you go before a jury,” Drake said, tapping the paper.
“I know I have.”
“This evidence,” Drake went on, “is the controlling factor in the entire case. Whatever story your client tells, Perry, has to coincide with the evidence of these tracks.”
“Her story doesn’t coincide with it, Paul.”