Kennedy turned them over with his stick. Then he picked one up and examined it attentively.
“H-m—a blown can,” he remarked.
“Blown?” I repeated.
“Yes. When the contents of a tin begin to deteriorate they sometimes give off gases which press out the ends of the tin. You can see how these ends bulge.”
Our next visit was to the district attorney, a young man, Gordon Kilgore, who seemed not unwilling to discuss the case frankly.
“I want to make arrangements for disinterring the body,” explained Kennedy. “Would you fight such a move?”
“Not at all, not at all,” he answered brusquely. “Simply make the arrangements through Kahn. I shall interpose no objection. It is the strongest, most impregnable part of the case, the discovery of the poison. If you can break that down you will do more than any one else has dared to hope. But it can’t be done. The proof was too strong. Of course it is none of my business, but I’d advise some other point of attack.”
I must confess to a feeling of disappointment when Kennedy announced after leaving Kilgore that, for the present, there was nothing more to be done at East Point until Kahn had made the arrangements for reopening the grave.
We motored back to Ossining, and Kennedy tried to be reassuring to Mrs. Godwin.
“By the way,” he remarked, just before we left, “you used a good deal of canned goods at the Godwin house, didn’t you?”