“Carlotta left the house about nine, did a few errands in town, got down to the depot a little early, right around eleven, and then got the report that the train would be in at twelve-fifteen. She then rang up the Belder house to tell her sister the train was late, and got no answer. She tried to phone twice. Now figure that out. That was around eleven. According to the way we had the case doped out, Mrs. Belder was sitting at the phone, waiting for that call from the writer of the poison-pen letter. You know she was there in the house — yet, when Carlotta rang, she didn’t answer the phone. Why?”
“Good Lord!” Bertha exclaimed, “there’s only one reason.”
“Yes? Let’s see if you figure it the same way I do.”
“At that exact moment she must have been murdering Sally Brentner.”
Sellers nodded. “Exactly.”
“So what did Carlotta do?” Bertha asked.
“She concluded that Mabel had left early before the twelve-fifteen bulletin on the train was released. Carlotta was already there at the depot. There wasn’t time to go back uptown and do anything, so she simply sat around the depot, waiting for Mabel to show up. Then the train didn’t get in until after one o’clock. Mabel didn’t show up and didn’t try, so far as anyone knows, to communicate with Carlotta. Now, you put that together and tell me what the answer is.”
“There isn’t any,” Bertha said. “Only way to dope it out is that murder was being committed there in that house at eleven o’clock.”
“That’s the way it looks to me,” Sellers said moodily. “Mrs. Belder must have rung up and got the report that the train wouldn’t be in until twelve-fifteen. She was anxious to get this eleven-o’clock call from the writer of that letter, yet she didn’t answer the phone at eleven. Carlotta tried to get her. The other party must have tried calling, but didn’t actually get her until around eleven-fifteen.”
“Why do you place it at eleven-fifteen?”
“I can’t place it any earlier than eleven-fifteen. The probabilities are that it was just about eleven-twenty-one, and that it didn’t take over sixty seconds for Mrs. Belder to get out of the house and into the car. Therefore, you’ve got to figure that telephone call between eleven-fifteen and eleven-twenty-one.”
Bertha said curiously, “That’s not giving her much margin for killing Sally Brentner after eleven o’clock and before she got the call.”
Sellers said, “She didn’t need to start her killing at eleven o’clock. She might have been putting on the finishing touches then.”
“But her husband came back at eleven,” Bertha pointed out.
“And didn’t go in, according to your statement, Bertha. He simply pressed the horn button on the car.”
“That’s right. You’re thinking she murdered Sally now — that it wasn’t Everett Belder?”
“It looks that way.”
“Thought you had it all fixed as being a man’s job.”
“I did, but this makes me change my mind. I’m beginning to think Mrs. Belder found out about Sally when she got that letter and went almost crazy with jealous rage. She was so worked up she didn’t even answer the telephone at eleven — and almost saved her own life. She murdered Sally, and then became the victim of a murder trap that had been set for her.”
“Then who murdered her?” Bertha asked.
Sellers scraped a match into flame and held it to the cigar he had been neglecting while talking with Bertha Cool. Then he answered Bertha’s question indirectly.
“Between eleven-fifteen and eleven-twenty-one Wednesday morning the telephone rang. Mrs. Belder was instructed to get in her car, to drive out the boulevard, to go through that last boulevard stop so as to shake off any shadow, and turn abruptly to the left on Harkington Avenue, zip into the garage, close the door and leave the motor running, waiting for a signal. A perfect set-up for a carbon monoxide poisoning. And in order to be certain that it was perfect, the person who planned it went into that garage and sealed up every crack and crevice with oakum.”
Bertha’s face showed her startled surprise. “You mean that?”
“Absolutely.”
Bertha gave a low whistle.
“Technically,” Sergeant Sellers said, “we’ll have a hell of a time proving it was murder. The woman died by her own hand — by her own carelessness, and—”
“Wait a minute,” Bertha interrupted. “There’s one other thing you overlooked. After she got the telephone call she went over to the portable typewriter and wrote out the directions so she wouldn’t forget them.”
Sergeant Sellers’ smile was patronizing. “Don’t kid yourself,” he said. “She wouldn’t have left the telephone and gone to the typewriter. In the first place, those directions were indelibly seared on her memory. She was working under such an emotional strain that her mind was working at high speed. But in case she had wanted to get the directions straight, she would have had a pencil and paper by the telephone. She’d have scribbled down the directions in her own handwriting, in a scrawl which would have shown the emotional tension under which she was labouring. But the murderer wants us to believe she went over to the typewriter, fed in a small sheet of paper and carefully typed out the directions. Phooey! That stuff is so raw that it smells.”
“You mean the murderer wrote out those directions and planted them with the body?”
“He must have.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you get it? So that it would be perfectly apparent, even to the dumb police the minute they found the body, that she had killed herself by her own carelessness.”
“And that’s the way it actually happened?” Bertha asked.
“That’s the way it actually happened,” Sellers said. “The gasoline tank is bone dry. The ignition switch is still on. The battery is dead. She must have asphyxiated herself within the first few minutes and then the motor went on running until it had used up all the gasoline there was in the tank. We know there were at least four gallons because Belder had put that much in Wednesday morning.”
“Then the murderer must have gone to the garage afterward and left this note.”
“That’s right. That’s why I felt so pleased when I saw there were two perfect fingerprints on it, and that’s why I was so sarcastic when I realized that it was your interference that had started me off on a false lead.”
Bertha said, “I’m sorry.”
“You should be. You’ve been in the business long enough to know that you’re not to touch anything when you come on a body. You’re to keep your hands off everything. It was all right finding your fingerprints on the handle of the door. You had to open the car door to see she was in there, dead, but that was as far as you should have gone.”
Sergeant Sellers’ voice contained patient rebuke. The man was tired, completely weary, dejected and disappointed.
Bertha said once more, “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I realize that doesn’t help.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Look here,” Bertha said suddenly, “that murder was planned so the death would seem to be accidental.”
“That’s right.”
“Then the murderer must have gone out to the garage to make certain of what had happened and leave the note.”