“If there was no trace whatever of Corrine, then Alder’s hands were tied for seven years. If they could introduce evidence, even circumstantial evidence, which indicated she had been killed then the situation would be entirely different—and if she had been confined to that institution and had been burned to death in the fire which ensued, the whole legal situation would have been simplified for both George Alder and Dorley Alder. The trouble was that the letter which gave the evidence that would simplify the case for George Alder also virtually accused him of murder, which tied his hands. But Dorley Alder was under no such moral restraint. Naturally he wanted to see the letter made public.
“So it was entirely natural that he would talk to Dorothy Fenner about it to see if she had any inkling about the contents of the letter or the facts mentioned in it, and it’s quite possible that he wanted to use her as a cat’s paw in making the letter public.
“George Alder was in a predicament. He didn’t dare to destroy the letter because that would have been tantamount to an admission of guilt—and then of course Pete Cadiz knew about the letter and Dorley Alder knew about the letter.
“Then after Dorothy Fenner sneaked into his house, she knew what was in the letter.
“You can see how the coils of circumstantial evidence began to tighten around George Alder—and when I began to realize how he was trapped by circumstances, I began to study the letter more carefully, and when I saw how cunningly it had been constructed for the purpose of putting him in just such a situation, I began to wonder just who had written that letter and why.”
“What do you think of it?” Drake asked.
T think it’s a forgery,” Mason said. “If you look at the composition carefully you’ll realize that the writing is that of a person trying to achieve a dramatic effect, not the terror-stricken composition of a person who is locked in a cabin on a wild ocean and thinks she is about to be murdered. The whole composition of the thing is far too leisurely. It’s a good specimen of carefully prepared dramatic writing, of building to a climax. It’s not the type of letter a woman would have written while she was in fear of her life.
“Moreover, when we consider the manner in which it was found, we are forced to a realization that it must have been planted. Pete Cadiz had been searching along that high-tide line for several days. Then he suddenly found this bottle right where he had been looking all of the time. It’s hardly conceivable that he could have overlooked the bottle…”
“But suppose it had drifted ashore only the night before,” Drake said.
“Not a chance,” Mason pointed out. “Remember that Cadiz said he couldn’t get into this little bay except when the water was very smooth, and that it was only dining periods of high tide and storm that the waves lashed driftwood way up above the normal high-tide line on the beach. Yet on this trip he’d been in there for a week combing the high-tide line.”
Drake nodded.
“So,” Mason went on, “we start figuring from there. George Alder would hardly have planted a letter branding himself as a murderer. Who would have done so? It was in the handwriting of a woman. It may even be a good forgery, for all I know, but a woman probably did it. Who?
“The evidence points to one person. Someone who was trying to force George Alder into a defensive position. It might have been Corrine, it might have been Dorothy Fenner, but there was a good chance it was Carmen Monterrey, who felt George Alder had murdered Corrine, of whom Carmen was very fond. That last thought opened up possibilities.
“Then I began to think about the dog in the closet, and the blood streaks, just two or three smear tracks on the inside of the closet door, and a couple of blood smudges on the closet floor.
“A bleeding foot would have left a whole lot of smudges and smears. Something was wrong with the picture. At first my mind merely registered a vague uneasiness. Then I began to think about it, and it suddenly dawned on me that if the dog had stepped in a pool of blood and then been put back in the closet, those bloody smears would be in keeping with the picture—otherwise they simply didn’t fit into the pattern of events.
“So then I started thinking about what must have happened in case the dog really had been loose when the shooting took place and been put back in the closet afterwards.
“Then things began to fit into a logical pattern.”
“But why didn’t that track show?” Drake asked.
“It did,” Mason said, “but when die dog got out there was a wild scramble, and the dog splashed through the pool of blood again and the officers simply didn’t appreciate the significance of that one track, in view of the fact that other tracks made by the dog in the blood were all over the place.
“Just as soon as you admit that the dog had stepped in that blood, then the deadly significance of the thing becomes apparent. Conceding that Alder was dead, and the dog was out, then there was only one person on earth who could put that dog back in the closet!
“Remember that George Alder was left-handed that there was a triangular tear on the left sleeve of his coat, that his gun had been fired almost straight up in the air, and that he had been kdled almost at die same moment he filed his gun because he had pitched forward and Ins own gun was found underneath his body. You put all those things together and there’s only one answer.
“For some time I had been toying with the thought that Alder might have actually murdered Corrine there in South America. He flew to South America. He wanted her to agree to certain matters of policy and she refused. He suddenly realized that not only was she balking him, but that she stood between him and a fortune. Perhaps there was a choked cry in the night, a splash, and that was the end. But whether he murdered her or not, Carmen had learned to believe he had.
“She remained in South America for weeks trying to find Corrine’s body, trying to get some clue. At the end of that time she was convinced Corrine was dead and that George Alder had committed the murder.
“So Carmen comes back, still running down clues. She goes to the mental hospital at Los Merritos, running down a clue that a person is there who answers Corrine’s description and suffering from amnesia.
“It wasn’t Corrine, but the woman attracted Carmen’s sympathy. She sent money to the hospital for this woman —and then the hospital burned.
“A few weeks after that the great idea hit Carmen’s mind. At the time of Minerva’s death officials had dumped whitewash on George Alder. But suppose that case could be made to look like a murder. What was more, suppose it could be tied into Corrine’s affairs in some way. Then Alder would be on the defensive and the truth might come out.
“Carmen determined to try it She managed to get a bottle that had been drifting for months. She forged that letter and looked around for Pete Cadiz. Then she planted the bottle where he’d be certain to see it. Then she sat tight to await developments.
“When she saw that ad in the paper, communicated with Box 123J and learned the man at the other end of die line was Alder, she knew she was read’ to strike, to boldly accuse him of Conine’s murder.”
Drake looked at Della Street, sighed and said, “Well, it sounds reasonable enough now, but thank heavens I wasn’t the one that was in there trying that case, with a two-timing client and a district attorney who was laying for my scalp, and me with my fingerprints on the canoe.”
“That goes double for me,” Della Street said. “It should teach Mr. Mason not. to go around picking up nymphs who make passes at his canoe.”
Mason laughed. ‘It would have been all right if only she hadn’t left her bath towel with the laundry mark on it.”
“And thereby got caught,” Drake said.
“A mere slip in her plans, a case of negligence on her part,” Mason explained.