All the papers agreed that his testimony was unsatisfactory and made much of his manner, which, under an effort to be calm, showed a spasmodic, nervous violence.
A day later he was arrested at Firehill and taken to Bloomington jail to await indictment by the Grand Jury.
A day later he was arrested at Firehill and taken to Bloomington jail
That night—shall I ever forget it! I heard the sounds in the street dying away and then the silence, the deep, lovely silence that comes over the village at midnight. And in it I could hear my heart beating, and as I lay with my eyes wide open, I could see on the darkness like a picture drawn in fire, Jack Reddy in the electric chair.
[XI]
Looking back now I can remember dressing the next morning, all trembly and with my hands damp, and my face in the glass, white and pinched like an East Side baby's in a hot wave. But there wasn't anything trembly about the thinking part of me. That was working better than it had ever worked before. It seemed to be made of steel springs going swift and sure like an engine that went independent of the rest of my machinery.
And, thank God, it did work that way, for it had thought of something!
The idea came on me in the second part of the night, flashed out of the dark like a wireless. I'd been wondering about the man who made the telephone date with Sylvia—the Unknown Voice they'd got to calling him. People thought as Jasper had said, that Reddy had found her with this man and there had been a terrible scene. But whatever had happened the Unknown Voice was the clew to the mystery. The police had tried to locate him, tried and failed. Now I was going to hunt for him.
My plan was perfectly simple. From what I had seen myself and heard from Anne Hennessey I was sure I knew every lover that Sylvia had had. I was going to call each one of them up on the phone and listen to their voices, and I wasn't going to tell a soul about it. Everybody would say—just as you say as you read this—"but all those men gave satisfactory alibis." I knew that as well as anyone, but it didn't cut any ice with me, I didn't care what they'd proved. I was going to hear their voices and see for myself. If I was successful, then I'd tell Babbitts and have him advise me what to do. I'd heard Jack Reddy had retained Mr. Wilbur Whitney, the great criminal lawyer, but I wouldn't have known whether to go to him or the police or the District Attorney and if I did it at all I wanted to do it right.