“I thought it enough for a starter, Nick, at least,” Phelan bluntly asserted. “I reckon I have not shot very wide of the mark.”
“Why so?”
“Because Kennedy has phoned me of other facts.”
“Namely?”
“He met Dennis Regan, a detective from the precinct station, just before he arrived at the Gordon residence,” Phelan proceeded to disclose. “He told Regan what had occurred and whom he was after. Regan decided he would not butt in, knowing I was on the case, but he waited in the grounds south of the house while Kennedy went in to see Gordon.”
“Well?”
“While he was out there, pacing up and down the gravel walk, he noticed that one of the small branches of a clump of shrubbery was partly broken off and hanging down, as if something had recently been thrown in among the shrubs, disturbing the dry leaves that had fallen from them.”
“He went to examine them, I infer.”
“That’s what. He found under the dry leaves a double-jointed jimmy. It was parted at the socket each section being about eight inches long, and both were badly stained with blood.”
“Quite a remarkable discovery,” Nick observed, with brows knitting slightly. “Anything more?”