He reviewed her case, in digest, as the prosecuting attorney might present it to a jury: from the very start there was that contrary fact of her having telephoned for the police. Why? On the slender ground of a pencilled note that might or might not have been a threat, and an instinctive premonition that her husband was in danger. The prosecution would thereupon interpolate a smart crack or two on the general subject of premonitions, fortune tellings, and the Ace of Spades. They would point out that people who committed crimes which were bound to be shortly discovered occasionally got in touch with the police in order to use the gesture as a premise of their innocence.
There were her definite admissions of intent to kill her husband—her having left her bedroom immediately upon his having knocked and said goodbye—and her recent most damaging actions in regard to the narcotic and having been on the balcony.
Motive?
The prosecuting attorney could offer a thousand. The most prominent ones would include a jealous rage at her husband’s easily proved peccadillos with other women and her own rather significant attitude toward Hollander. Yes, it would be only too possible for the prosecuting attorney to get a conviction against Mrs. Endicott, and to rope Hollander in as an accomplice. He’d want the weapon, though, to make the case complete. Lieutenant Valcour had forgotten about the weapon. He stood up, went to the door, and opened it. Hansen was standing outside, having taken his post there until Cassidy should come back from letting out Dr. Worth and the nurses.
“Hansen,” Lieutenant Valcour said, “I want you to search the backyard for a revolver that may have been thrown there from the balcony. If you can’t find it, search the two adjoining backyards, and the three in the rear as well. Don’t wake up the people in the other houses, just get a stepladder and cross the party walls.”