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 from the maid that mother had been asking for me. I went quickly to her room. She was lying in bed and at first I thought she was asleep, but she turned as I approached her.
"Is that you, Warren?" she asked softly.
"Yes, mother. Stella said you wanted to see me." I bent down and kissed her lightly. She reached up and put her thin weak arms around my neck.
"Warren, is there anything wrong? If there is you must tell me." "No, mother. What made you think that?" I asked.
She slowly withdrew her arms and let them fall at her side.
"I don't know. I seemed to feel that something had happened. Just lying here, I felt afraid for you children—and then there were so many people ringing the bell and the telephone, I was afraid that some accident had happened to you or Helen." I patted her wan cheek. "It's just your imagination. The only thing wrong is that my dearest, little mother isn't as well and strong as her good-for-nothing son." I kissed her again, and she smiled up at me. "I'm so glad," she whispered. "I was worried." I almost choked when I got outside. If Helen should recover and be put on trial, it would kill mother, I felt sure. And I would be left alone in the world. Down-stairs, I asked Stella who had called, and she told me the reporters had been trying to find me all day.
During the drive to the hospital, I tried to focus my mind on Helen's defense, but all the force seemed to have been sapped out of me. I felt weak and miserable and unutterably lonely.
At the hospital, they received me with the quiet sympathy that strengthens you in spite of yourself and gives you hope. Doctor Forbes, who had operated on Helen the night before, was in the office. He had just come from Helen's room and he reported her condition to be "extremely satisfactory." "There is only one thing that worries me," he said. "Your sister seems to have something on her mind that keeps her from resting as quietly as I could wish. It is some real or fancied danger that repeats itself over and over in her delirium. If we could only hit on something that would ease her mind of those fears, I should have every reason to believe she'd get well. I say this to you because you are her brother and are no doubt acquainted with what has happened to her in the last few weeks, and may be able to suggest what it is she fears." "Perhaps it is the accident itself," I offered. He shook his head. "It may be, but I think not. However, suppose you step into the room and listen to what she says. If we can only rid her of her fears and get her to rest quietly, I am positive she will recover." I shook his hand warmly and went upstairs to Helen's room. I knew what it was Helen feared. The consequences of her crime. The terrible fear of public prosecution for the murder of her husband was torturing her poor delirious brain. For a moment I forgave her everything and pitied her from the depths of my heart.
The smell of ether lay thick in the air as I walked down the long corridor to Helen's room. I knocked softly at the door and a white-capped nurse opened it a little way, her finger to her lips. I beckoned her outside and told her Doctor Forbes wished me to find out, if I could, what troubled my sister's mind. As we entered, I saw Mary sitting by the bed, holding the hand of the poor white figure that lay, death-like, beneath the sheet. Helen's head was swathed in bandages, except for the oval of her face. She looked quite like some fair nun who had said her last "Ava." It was impossible to believe that it was her hand that had fired the shot that killed Jim, and if she lived, that she would have to face the world a murderer.
Mary only glanced up at me for a moment and then turned her eyes again to Helen's lips to catch any sound that might pass them. As I watched her sitting there so patiently, a little pale from her cramped vigil by the bedside, a great tenderness welled up in my heart, for her. Just then Helen's lips began to move. At first the words were inaudible, although Mary leaned forward to catch them. Then with a half-cry, in which there was a perfect agony of fear——
"Look out, Jim! It's going to hit us! Oh-oh-oh——" The voice died away and was succeeded by moans, low and trembling. Mary glanced up with a startled look in her eyes. The nurse went quickly to the bedside and soothed the impatient hand that was plucking at the sheets. As for me, my forehead was bathed in sweat and tears were running down my cheeks, but a joy throbbed and sang through my heart till I felt that I should suffocate unless I left that ether-filled room for the open air.
I tiptoed toward the door and caught a nod from Mary as I passed, which said she would join me later. For a second, after I closed the door, I couldn't move. My legs failed me and I felt I was going to faint. Gathering all my strength, I stumbled over to a chair by the window and sat down.
I think I should have dropped to my knees and thanked God right there, if I hadn't feared that my prayers would have been interrupted. That cry, "Look out, Jim!" proved not only that Helen had nothing whatever to do with Jim's death, but that she had tried to warn him of his danger. "It's going to hit us!" What could that mean but that my first theory was correct, that the men in the black limousine had recognized Jim's car and had tried to run him into the ditch? Schreiber and Zalnitch were at the bottom of it, after all, and Helen was innocent.
As I had hoped she would die, when I thought her guilty, now I hoped and prayed she would live. I recalled Doctor Forbes' words: "If we could only hit on something that would ease her mind of those fears, I would have every reason to believe she would get well." I could at least tell him the cause of the fear and leave it to him to find a remedy. With Helen well, ready to testify as to the details of that tragic night, we would certainly bring Jim's murderers to trial. The door opened and Mary came out. I rose and walked over to her, my eyes still betraying the emotion Helen's words had roused in me. "You heard what she said?" Mary breathed.
"We knew she didn't do it, didn't we?" "But, Warren, the things she says are all so weird and mixed up. Sometimes she talks of things that happened just recently and then again she babbles of things that took place a long time ago when we were kids. Once when the nurse came into the room, Helen began crying as though her heart would break and begged that we wouldn't think too harshly of her. Again she repeated over and over, 'He didn't do it—He didn't do it!'" "Her other fears," I replied, "probably had to do with Woods. But that cry to Jim to 'Look out!' is a real clue and I'm going to sift it to the bottom." "What are you going to do?" Mary demanded.
"I'm going to accuse Zalnitch of Jim's murder—going to accuse him to his face." "Oh, be careful, Bupps! Nothing must happen to you!" The tone she used, her sweet anxiety for my safety, went to my head and I reached out to take her in my arms, but with a little protesting gesture she stopped me.
"Please don't be foolish, Warren!" Then as she saw my spirits droop, she added, "Not till Helen is well."
