And I don’t mind saying that it was that check, which we found in his box, which completed the case against him.
He couldn’t bring himself to destroy that check.”
He looked at his watch.
“Now—I’ll hurry over this—I’m going to Walter Somers again.
His father’s death drove him frantic.
Again he had no proof, but Mary Martin was certain.
She had broken the glass and raised the windows—there’s an odor to cyanide—and she felt pretty sure it was murder.
And if murder came out, the whole story came out.
You can see why she tried to prevent that.
“She called Walter on the long distance phone and told him, and he about went crazy.
But a confession then was a very grave matter; here were three deaths as a result of that conspiracy, and one of them his own father.
“He compromised with himself.
He would see that Jim Blake got off; but if he was acquitted he would let things ride.
“But the verdict was a foregone conclusion.
He had to come clean to save Jim, and Norton had to confess.
For he knew now that Norton had got the records. He had been over this house and he knew the cabinet.
When the clock dial cipher was read in court all Norton had to do was to come here and get them.
“When Walter left the club, that night before the day when he was to go on the stand, he had in his pocket a full confession of the murders.
He had taken it with him to force the murderer to sign it.
He had determined to get that signature, at the point of a gun if necessary.
But he hoped to get it, by letting Norton have a chance to escape.
It looked reasonable to him; if Walter went on the stand the next day it was all over anyhow. As to the will, I mean.
“But I ought to say this.
He and Norton were definitely out.
There had been furious trouble between them, and of course there was the time when Walter had knocked Norton cold. Walter hated the very sight of the other man, and he knew it.
“Walter picked him up in his car; and they drove out of town, Walter talking, the other man listening. Walter was going on the stand the next day, to tell all he knew.
He was wary enough; he had his revolver.
But Norton, too, was prepared for trouble that night. He was too quick for Walter.
“He knocked him out and nearly killed him, and then he took him to an abandoned farmhouse out on the Warrenville road and left him there, tied. But it wasn’t to his advantage that Walter die.
He drove the car over the hill where we found it, and he carried off Walter’s revolver and locked him up.
But he went back now and then, although Walter was in pretty poor shape when I found him.
“With Walter dead, Mary would tell the story, and he was through.
He went back now and then, looked after him a bit. Not much.
Just enough to keep him alive.
But he had not been there for three days when we found him, and he was mighty close to death.
“Of course it’s easy to say this now, but the case against Blake never had satisfied me.
You know that. I gave you my reasons before.
All along there have been some things that didn’t quite fit.
Why would Jim Blake invent a man in evening dress?
Well, the answer to that is easy.
He was not inventing it. He saw a man in evening dress.
But he said this man’s face was turned down the hill.
Now that’s not possible.
A man doesn’t run rapidly along a bushy hillside in the dark without looking where he is going.
“So I decided that this man, conceding that Mr. Blake saw a man, was some one he knew and wouldn’t mention.
And after Howard Somers’ death, I began to wonder if it wasn’t Somers.
“But that didn’t get me very far, and to add to the confusion, Joseph is shot.
Jim Blake is in jail, Mr. Somers is dead and Walter’s missing. And still Joseph gets shot!
I’ll admit that I thought it possible at the time that Walter had done it.
There was some underneath story, and Joseph either suspected or knew something.