"Yes?" I prompted as he paused.
"There's entirely too much evidence against her. Why, man, it's overwhelming! One quarter of it would be sufficient to establish her guilt! Just go over it calmly. The quarrel, the change of will, the letter—any one of which would be ample motive. Her presence in the room when the shot was fired, your testimony that she held the weapon in her hand, the finger-prints on the pistol, the handkerchief, the closed room—It's much too much and thereby proclaims her innocence."
"And the second thing?" I asked.
He did not answer for he was employed in making what looked like a series of hieroglyphics on a page of his notebook. As I shifted closer to watch his occupation, between the traffic signals, he tore out the page and turning it over made four letters on it and handed it to me.
Keeping one hand on the wheel, I accepted the page with the other, and stole a quick glance at it. The letters he had made were capitals and were arranged in two sets. In the first group the L and the R were written with a flourish, so that the first stroke of the R resembled that of the L. In the second set the first stroke of the L was looped while that of the R was straight.
"Well?" I questioned, decidedly puzzled.
"I wish I knew whether Darwin made his capitals with a flourish," returned McKelvie. "The initial letter of the name on the scrap Jones so obligingly showed me had been burned away, leaving only the first stroke of the letter visible. If Darwin made his capitals like the first set on this sheet," tapping the paper I still held, "then the will might have been in favor of either the wife or the nephew and there is no way of proving which, except by taking Cunningham's statement as truth. If, on the other hand, Darwin made his capitals like the second set, then the will he destroyed was in favor of Lee Darwin, and Lawyer Cunningham was guilty of prevarication at the inquest. It makes a nice little problem to think about. I must find an answer to it as speedily as possible."
"Ruth would know Darwin's hand," I said eagerly.
"But the prison authorities aren't going to let us run in and out of the Tombs every time we happen to think of something we should like to know about," he replied dryly.
Piqued by the irony in his voice I remained silent, for I was not yet sufficiently accustomed to his manner to let his sarcasms pass unnoticed, and the remainder of the drive was accomplished in unbroken silence on both our parts.