ree cartridges left in this clip."

"Do you mean to say that my sister fired more than one shot?" I asked
sarcastically.

"Not at all, not at all," the little man responded airily. "There were
probably only four cartridges in the gun in the first place. You're
gettin' all excited over this thing. Of course, I don't blame you, Mr.
Thompson, for tryin' to fight against facts, but it certainly looks bad
for sister."

I got into my car and started home, my heart dead within me. It
certainly did look bad for Helen.

CHAPTER NINE

LOOK OUT, JIM

A good general realizes when he is beaten and changes his tactics
accordingly. Where I had been certain of Zalnitch's guilt before, and
had planned his prosecution, now, with the sickening certainty that it
was my sister herself who was guilty, I began to plan her defense.
Yes, I'll admit right now, the gun convinced me. I had been certain
that Jim had not been killed through careless driving, that is why I
had been so insistent that Inspector Robinson should hunt down those
responsible for his death. Now that it was too late, I cursed myself
for not having let well-enough alone and aided the coroner in giving a
verdict of accidental death. My suspicions against Zalnitch had been
based on the knowledge that he hated Jim and would have done anything
to put him out of the way. Coincidence had brought him over the same
road that Jim had traveled a few minutes before his death. This had
strengthened my suspicions, but the case would have been hard to prove,
while the evidence against Helen was too pronounced to be disregarded.
Woods, too, had gained my suspicions, and yet he was miles away from
the murder. I realized suddenly that I had been refusing to look at
the obvious in order that I might place the guilt where I wanted to
believe it lay. Yet it did seem the irony of fate that the two men
benefiting by Jim's death should have had nothing to do with it.

Helen did it! As the awful realization of what that meant came over
me, I hoped, for a brief second, that death would take her and so spare
her the consequences of her act. It would be such an easy way out. I
felt sure that if she died I could hush the whole thing up. _The Sun_
could be bought, if enough money was offered.

These gruesome thoughts carried me into the city almost before I knew
it. I stopped at the house to change my muddy clothes, before going to
the hospital to get Mary, and learned fr