The Final Deduction

16

She not only wasn’t dead within the hour; she’s not dead yet. That was three months ago, and last week a jury of eight men and four women stayed hung for fifty-two hours and then gave up. It stood seven for conviction of first-degree murder and five for acquittal. Whether this report gets published or not depends on the jury at the second trial. If it hangs too, or acquits, the script will have to go into a locked drawer in my room, with several others to keep it company.

If you care about whether I took another trip to White Plains, I did — Tuesday noon, escorted by Ben Dykes. By then Mrs. Vail had been taken to the District Attorney’s office, but everyone was too busy to worry about me. I was out on bail by five o’clock, but I had had my fingerprints taken for the nineteenth time. It took a week before the charge was quashed, and the cost of the bail cut Wolfe’s hundred grand down to $99,925. Even so, I’m having plenty of time to go for walks, getting angles on people and things. Having reached that bracket by the first of May, Wolfe relaxed and has stayed relaxed. If you offered him ten thousand bucks to detect who swiped your hat at a cocktail party yesterday he wouldn’t even bother to glare at you.