“Correct.”
“Then why didn’t the murderer at that time pull the oakum out of the cracks that had been so carefully sealed up? That oakum in the cracks is a dead give-away.”
“I’ve thought of that,” Sellers said, “and it puzzled me for a while, but you can understand it if you put yourself in the shoes of the murderer.”
“How do you mean?”
“He had accomplished his purpose. He’d got the woman out of the way. He sneaked into the garage, probably in the dead of night, long enough to plant this note in the automobile so that the minute her body was discovered the newspapers would list it as death from carelessness rather than murder. The murderer dared to enter the garage long enough to plant that note, but he didn’t dare to stay there. He didn’t dare to be found there. If anything went wrong, and someone had seen him enter the garage and had telephoned the police that there was a prowler on the premises, and a radio car had come rushing out and caught this man in the garage — well, it was just the same as though he had been caught shooting her or sticking a knife into her. It would have been first-degree murder, and he knew it. Therefore, he didn’t dare to wait long enough to remove the caulking from the cracks. He perhaps hoped the police wouldn’t discover it, but even if they did, he felt perfectly safe, just so long as he wasn’t actually caught on the premises.”
“You mean if he wasn’t caught on the premises he couldn’t be convicted?”
“That’s right,” Sellers said. “Unless we can dig up some evidence that will show the whole thing as part of a consistent, carefully-thought-out, premeditated plan of campaign, we can never convict the murderer even if we put our finger on him, because he actually didn’t kill the woman. He could have been, and probably was, a mile away when it happened. It’s diabolical in its ingenuity and in its legal efficiency. A man simply gets a woman’s mind so preoccupied, gets her so emotionally excited, that she omits the precautions she might otherwise have taken, and brings about her own death by carelessness. Prove all those facts to a jury, and then try and get a conviction, or try and get a Supreme Court to uphold a first-degree verdict. The probabilities are, it can’t be done.”
“Have you,” Bertha asked, “some evidence pointing to the murderer?”
“Yes. Everett Belder. Mr. Belder,” Sergeant Sellers went on slowly, “the diabolically clever killer, the inventor, the perverted genius; the man who had his business ruined by economic changes, who had plenty of time to sit in his office and think; who used the imagination he has used in thinking out sales campaigns to think out a way of killing his wife by which he would be legally in the clear. The man who wrote the poison-pen letters accusing himself of affairs with various women, exposing love-affairs which would otherwise never have been discovered; the man who hired a detective so as to be absolutely certain that his wife would be shadowed to this garage. Don’t you get it, Bertha? If it hadn’t been for you tailing her, there might have been some doubt as to what happened, but as it is, we fix the time of death almost to the minute — a time at which Everett Belder was sitting in the barber’s shop having his face massaged, his nails manicured, his hair trimmed. A very pretty picture, isn’t it?”
“In the barber’s shop?” Bertha asked somewhat lamely.
“In the barber’s shop, Bertha, and don’t be surprised about that, because we’ve already checked up on the story. In the barber’s shop, where he was smart enough to walk away and forget his overcoat, so that the barber would be absolutely certain to remember the time. Don’t act innocent, sweetheart, because the barber remembers you coming in and checking up on the coat.”
Bertha for once was at a loss for words.
“Some other woman,” Sellers said, “who came in about twenty minutes after you did, said that Mr. Belder had forgotten his overcoat and had asked her to drop in and pick it up for him.”
Expression struggled all over Bertha’s face.
“Seems to surprise you,” Sellers said. “It shouldn’t. You should have realized by this time that he had a feminine accomplice.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Someone who could run his wife’s typewriter with a professional touch; but above all, someone who could put through the telephone call to his wife and lure her out to the garage. No, Bertha, that’s the one weak link in his entire scheme. He needed a female accomplice. And if I can find that woman — and I’m going to find her and make her talk — I may be able to convict Everett Belder. This is one case where there isn’t any mystery about who committed the murder. The only question is whether I can get the evidence that will prove that it is deliberate murder and send the perpetrator of it to the San Quentin gas chamber.”
Bertha managed to say, “I see.”
“And,” Sellers went on, “I just want to tell you, Bertha, that if you get in my way on this thing, that if you tamper with any more evidence, or ball the thing up for me any more, I’m going to flatten you out as though you’d been run over by a steamroller. That’s all. You may go now.”
18
“What’s in It for Me?”
Elsie Brand glanced up from her typewriter as Bertha opened the door. “Good morning, Mrs. Cool.”
“Hello,” Bertha said, and walked across to drop down in a chair across from Elsie’s desk. “I look like the wrath of God — how do I feel?”
Elsie smiled. “I read in the paper that the body was discovered by a female private detective who had been working on the case. I suppose it was quite a strain. Could you sleep?”
“Not a wink.”
“Was it that bad?”
Bertha started to say something, checked herself, took a cigarette instead. “I’d give anything if Donald were only back.”
“Yes. I can imagine you miss him. But you aren’t working on this case, are you?”
Bertha lit the cigarette, didn’t say anything.
Elsie went on, “I understand Everett Belder had taken things out of your hands.”
Bertha said, “Elsie, if I don’t have somebody to talk to, I’m going nuts. Not that you can tell me a damn thing,” she added hastily, “but the thing has been going round and round in my mind all night — like a dog chasing its own tail. I’m in so deep I can’t back out, and I’m afraid to go ahead.”
“I don’t understand,” Elsie said. “You mean you’re in deep with Everett Belder?”
“On this damn murder case.”
“The police think it’s murder? I thought the way the newspaper explained it that it was just carelessness. She left her motor running—”
“The police think it’s murder. I think it’s murder. What’s more, it is murder. And I tried to cut corners and be smart, and now I’m mixed up in it.”
“I don’t see how it could be murder,” Elsie said. “Are the police certain of their facts?”
“They’re certain of their facts. What’s more, they know who did it. There’s no doubt who did it. This isn’t like one of those murder cases where you wonder who the guilty party is. This is a case where you know who it is — and he’s sitting back and laughing up his sleeve. And there’s only one weak link in the whole damned business — and I just happen to hold that weak link. I should go to Sergeant Sellers and put my cards on the table, but I’m afraid to. I held out on the police and that’s bad business.”
Elsie’s face showed sympathy. “Why did you hold out on the police?”
“I’ll be damned if I know,” Bertha admitted. “It started, of course, when Sergeant Sellers grabbed that third letter out of my hands and wouldn’t tell me what was in it. Damn him, he never has told me. I thought at the time, ‘Well, the hell with you, buddy. The next time I try to help you out on anything, you’ll know it!’ ”