"If only I knew where that second bullet had lodged itself! The physician declares there was only one wound and only one bullet; therefore, it's not in Darwin's body. Also, I have searched every square inch of this room—walls, ceiling, floor, carpet and furniture. There's not a trace, nor even the faintest shadow of a trace of that bullet!"
He shook his head despairingly, but I had hardly listened to his harangue. My mind had leaped to a sudden joyful conclusion.
"McKelvie," I cried, "we have evidence to refute their arguments! Let's go before the district attorney and tell him what we have learned and insist on his releasing Ruth at once!"
"What evidence do you refer to?" he inquired a bit coldly. "Do you take me for a mere calculating machine without any human feelings and consideration for others? Don't you suppose that if I had any valuable evidence I should have used it to advantage long ere this?"
"Why," I stammered, all the wind taken out of my sails, "what about the—the secret entrance?"
"As to that, it may or may not have been used upon that fatal night. We conjecture because we are proving Mrs. Darwin innocent, but we do not positively know anything about it," he put in imperturbably. "Mr. Darwin may have lost or misplaced his key."
"How do you account then for the lighting of the lamp from the safe?" I persisted.
"Again, we do not know it was so lighted. Often, if a connection is loose, a jar or shock will light the lamp of itself."
"But the shot in the dark?"
"Ah, the police don't believe for a second that the room was ever in darkness at any time. They believe that you and Mrs. Darwin concocted that bit of evidence."