Godfrey Lowell at once moved for an appeal, but he warned us that lacking fresh developments there was little to be hoped from a new trial, if it was granted.
We were stunned.
Katherine took to her bed, not as a refuge but out of sheer necessity, and Doctor Simonds saw her daily.
Judy went about, a thin and pale little ghost of herself, thinking eternally of the mystery, as convinced as ever of Jim’s innocence.
“He’s protecting somebody,” she said.
“He saw that man on the hillside.
He was twenty feet from the path, and that precious Dennis pair saw him well enough to know he had on a golf suit and was wiping his hands. And this man he tells about; he almost ran over him.
Uncle Jim saw him, and he knows who it was.
He knows and he won’t tell.
And Wallie knows.
Wallie ran away so he wouldn’t have to tell.”
She looked as though she had not slept for days, and I myself took a sleeping tablet every night and then lay awake until morning.
I was alone once more, for Laura had had to go back to her children.
She had wept noisily on the way to the train, and had promised to come back as soon as possible.
Of our small family group then only Katherine, Judy and I remained, for Wallie was missing.
That defection of his had angered me almost beyond words.
He had known something which might have saved Jim, and he had gone away.
Somewhere he was hiding until everything was over.
And then, on the twenty-eighth of June, the steward called up from Wallie’s club. Wallie had not been seen since the night of Wednesday, the twenty-second, and this was on the following Tuesday.
“We would like to know where he can be found,” he said.
“We have a number of messages for him, and one that seems to be urgent.”
“Urgent?”
“Yes.
A lady had been telephoning every day.
Today she made me go up and look at his room.
She seems to think there’s something queer about his absence.
She asked me to call you and tell you.”
“Queer?” I said, with that now familiar tightening around my chest.
“What did she think?
Did she give any name?”
“No.
A young woman, I imagine.
I don’t want to alarm you, but she seemed very nervous.
As a matter of fact, she said something about notifying the police.”
“She gave no reason for that?”
“No, but I’ve just been up to his room.
It doesn’t look to me as though he had meant to be gone for any length of time.
His clothes are all there.
And his car’s missing.
Still, I don’t think you need to be particularly alarmed; he was erratic at times, as you probably know.
If this girl hadn’t seemed so excited—”
“His car is gone?”
“It’s out of the garage.
Yes. Has been since last Wednesday night.”
It was Tuesday then, and he had been gone for six days.
Of course that might merely bear out Judy’s theory that he had simply “beat it,” as she put it, but I myself was not so certain.
It was hardly conceivable that he had taken himself off for an indefinite stay without extra clothing, or even a toothbrush.
The thing worried me.
Who was it who had telephoned?
Was it Mary Martin, and if so why had she suggested the police?