Half an hour ago, Stuart had been driving for Massachusetts, intending to stop in Philadelphia for the night. He had no enemies; he anticipated no danger.
Now, his car wrecked beyond repair, he was wandering, alone and unarmed, upon a lonely island in a Maryland river, alive only because a chance stranger whom he had picked up had been mistaken for himself!
In the midst of vague theorizing, Stuart remembered what Jefferson had said about the bridges — that they were not unsafe. The peculiar circumstances of the accident impressed him.
Had that bridge been deliberately weakened? It seemed likely. Ordinarily, a car would have crossed it slowly. Only the speed of the coupe had saved it.
A definite thought now ruled Stuart's mind. The murderer had simply completed work which had been intended, but which had failed.
It must be — it could only be — that some other car had been expected to cross that bridge.
Purely through an oddity of circumstances had Stuart been thrust here. Jefferson's advice to follow the short road had led to the disaster, but the hitch-hiker had been the one to suffer.
Still, the thought that the slayer was crazed persisted in Stuart Bruxton's brain as he began his labored limping once more. The inhumanness of the deed made it seem incredible that anything else was possible.
Stuart felt sure that he would obtain immediate aid from the first place he encountered -
but that might be far away.