ad 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.

It was a misshapen, steel, "32" rifle bullet.

In the floor of the car, near where Jim's feet must have been, I found
two more splintered holes, apparently made by the same rifle from which
the shots had been fired into the back of the car.

Two thoughts flashed through my mind, exuberant assurance that this
latest discovery cleared Helen completely. She couldn't have fired a
rifle from the rear seat of the automobile, nor could she have put
those bullet holes into the back of the car. In my joy that I had
found proof of my sister's innocence, I forgot to speculate on who
could have committed the murder. My second thought was really a
continuation of the first, that I must bring the coroner and Simpson at
once to confirm my discovery.

I carefully locked the door of the garage, as th