Kelly and the other uniformed policeman had left the office, which now held McTighe, O’Gar, Cara Kenbrook, Tennant and me. Tennant had crossed to my side, and was apologizing.
“I hope you’ll let me square myself for this evening’s work. But you know how it is when somebody you care for is in a jam. I’d have killed you if I had thought it would help Cara—on the level. Why didn’t you tell us that you didn’t suspect her?”
“But I did suspect the pair of you,” I said. “It looked as if Kelly had to be the guilty one; but you people carried on so much that I began to feel doubtful. For a while it was funny—you thinking she had done it, and she thinking you had, though I suppose each had sworn to his or her innocence. But after a time it stopped being funny. You carried it too far.”
“How did you rap to Kelly?” O’Gar, at my shoulder, asked.
“Miss Kenbrook was walking north on Leavenworth—and was halfway between Bush and Pine—when the shot was fired. She saw nobody, no cars, until she rounded the corner. Mrs. Gilmore, walking north on Jones, was about the same distance away when she heard the shot, and she saw nobody until she reached Pine Street. If Kelly had been telling the truth, she would have seen him on Jones Street. He said he didn’t turn the corner until after the shot was fired.
“Either of the women could have killed Gilmore, but hardly both; and I doubted that either could have shot him and got away without running into Kelly or the other. Suppose both of them were telling the truth—what then? Kelly must have been lying! He was the logical suspect