n to the bridge, our
eyes at once caught sight of a tall maple tree, on the right-hand side
of the road and about two hundred yards from it.

As he saw it the coroner gave a grunt of satisfaction.

"There's our tree."

We stopped the car and scrambled through the thorny bushes that lined
the road. The ground was hard clay with only burdock and weeds growing
on it. There was nothing that would lead us to believe that any one
had been there before. When we reached the tree, the coroner examined
the ground around it carefully. When he arose he seemed disappointed.

"What did you expect to find here?" I asked.

"I didn't know what we might find. If the man who fired those shots
used this tree, I thought we might find an empty cartridge or two.
There ought to be at least some broken twigs or something to show that
he was up there, but I find nothing at all."

"Still, the fact that the tree is where it is, makes the theory
plausible."

He shook his head. "No. Now that I've seen how far we are from the
road I don't think it does. Those bullet holes in the back of the car
were fired from above and behind the machine. They slanted down but
not sidewise. If a tree had been at the very side of the road, our
theory would be acceptable, but if the murderer used this tree, two
hundred yards from the road, he would have started firing before the
car came opposite, with the probability that the holes would have been
found in the side of the car. I'm sorry, for when I saw this tree, I
thought we'd struck the right track."

"There's one thing I can't make out," I stated, "and that is the
strange cry of my sister in her delirium. 'Look out, Jim! It's going
to hit us,' she called out, and I would be willing to swear it had
something to do with the murder."

The coroner thought a moment, then turned to me.

"What else did she say?"

"Nothing that seemed to refer to the accident. All the rest was
apparently delirium. She begged forgiveness for some fancied wrong,
and repeated that a certain man was not guilty of dishonesty. But her
first weird cry had to do with the murder, I'm sure."

We walked back toward the road together. High overhead we heard the
droning of an aeroplane and we both stopped to gaze at it. Suddenly
the coroner clapped me on the shoulder.

"I've got it!"

"What do you mean?" I asked, bewildered.

"An aeroplane, man! Who owns an aeroplane around here?"

"I don't know. There are seve