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Page 33
"That eliminates Phelps, then, too. He nearly owned the company."
"Yes, unless something happened to outweigh financial
considerations in his mind also."
"But, good heavens! Kennedy," I protested. "If you go on that way
you'll not eliminate anyone."
"I can't yet," he explained, patiently. "It's just as I said.
We're fishing in the dark, absolutely. So far we haven't a single
basic fact on which to build any structure of hypothesis. We must
go on fishing. I expect you to dig up all the facts about these
people; every odd bit of gossip or rumor or anything else. I'll
bring my science to play, but there's nothing I can do except
analyze Stella's stomach contents and the spots on the towel;
that is, until we've got a much more tangible lead than any which
have developed so far."
"Is there anything I can do to-night?"
"Yes!" He looked at his watch. "There are two men who were very
close to Miss Lamar. Jack Gordon was engaged to her, Merle
Shirley seemed to have been mixed up with her seriously. All the
picture people have night haunts. See what you can find about
these two men."
"But I don't know where to find them offhand, and--"
"Both belong to the Goats Club, probably. Try that as a start."
I nodded and began to hurry my dessert. But I could not resist
questioning him.
"You think they are the most likely suspects?"
"No, but they were intimately associated with Miss Lamar in her
daily life and they are the two we have learned the least about."
"Oh!" I was disappointed. Then I rallied to the attack for a
final time. "Who is the most likely one. Just satisfy my
curiosity, Craig."
He took a folded note from his pocket, opening it. It was the
memorandum from Manton's desk which I had mentioned. In a flash I
understood.
"Werner!" I exclaimed. "They said he was mixed up with her, too.
He was the first back and out of the car and he had time to clean
a needle on the towel, had a better opportunity than anyone else.
More"--I began to get excited--"he was lying on the floor close
to her in the scene and could have jabbed her with a needle very
easily, and--and he was extremely nervous when you questioned
him, the most nervous of all, and--and, finally, he had a motive,
he wanted to get Enid Faye with Manton Pictures, as this note
shows."
"Very good, Walter." Kennedy's eyes were dancing in amusement.
"It is true that Werner had the best motive, so far as we know
now, but it's a fantastic one. Men don't commit cold-blooded
murder just to create a vacancy for a movie star. If Werner was
going to kill Miss Lamar he never would have written this note
about Miss Faye."
"Unless to divert suspicion," I suggested.
He shook his head. "The whole thing's too bizarre."
"Werner was close to her in the dark. All the other things point
to him, don't they?"
"It's too bad everyone wasn't searched, at that," Kennedy
admitted. "Nevertheless, at the time I realized that Werner had
had the best opportunity for the actual performance of the crime
and I watched him very closely and made him go through every
movement just so I could study him. I believe he's innocent--at
least as far as I've gone in the case."
I determined to stick to my opinion. "I believe it's Werner," I
insisted.
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