“Here’s what I think must have happened. Troy and Theilman were partners in certain activities. Theilman trusted Troy but knew someone was giving him a double-cross.
“Troy, working through dummies, was trying to get control of Theilman’s corporation. There was a neck-and-neck race on for stock proxies, and Carlotta Theilman had the controlling interest and was smart enough to know it.”
“All right, so what happened?” Drake asked.
“Theilman didn’t want to deal by check because he wanted to keep the transaction absolutely secret. So he arranged to withdraw large sums of cash so he could make a cash deal with his ex-wife.
“Then he became afraid his present wife would find out about what was going on and think he was going back to Carlotta. So Theilman made up this blackmail plot and planned to use a mysterious Vidal as the villain as far as his secretary was concerned. The Vidal envelope didn’t contain the blackmail letter. It couldn’t have. It was merely the report of one of his dummies who was buying stock in the name of A. B. Vidal. Theilman chose that name because it would mean nothing to his business rivals, yet would be the same as having the stock in his name. And the Vidal envelope in Theilman’s suit pocket was simply coincidental. It had contained a report from his broker who had been instructed to use the name A. B. Vidal.
“One of the blackmail letters Theilman conveniently put in the wastebasket where Janice would find it. The other one he put in the pocket of his suit knowing that his wife would find it.
“At that time Theilman had no idea it was Cole Troy who was behind the attempt to wrest control of the corporation from him. He went over to Bakersfield to talk with Troy about it. He telephoned his wife that he would be home about eleven o’clock or eleven-thirty. Then he had another conference with Troy about the necessity of getting Carlotta’s stock and had Troy call Carlotta, give the name of Vidal and try to get the stock. When Carlotta said she would go to Las Vegas to meet the principal, then Theilman, from Carlotta’s manner and her proposal to meet the principal in Las Vegas, realized that Carlotta knew with whom she was dealing, and that he would have to go to Las Vegas to close the deal.
“So then Theilman told Troy he was sure Carlotta knew he was the one who was trying to get the stock; that he had decided to go to Las Vegas and try to make a deal with her — and the minute Theilman said that he sealed his death warrant because Troy knew then that Carlotta was still in love with Theilman and wouldn’t part with her stock if it meant Theilman’s ruin.
“So Troy promised Theilman that he would telephone Theilman’s house and tell his wife Theilman had to be away for two or three days on a business deal, and suggested that Theilman drive on ahead to Palmdale and that Troy would meet him there the next morning.
“Troy intended to murder Theilman but he didn’t know just how to go about it in order to divert suspicion from himself.
“However, he met Theilman at Palmdale. As they were driving up to the subdivision, Theilman stopped at a telephone booth to phone Janice and gave her her instructions. That gave Troy his heaven-sent opportunity. He knew that Janice was going to spend much of the day at a beauty parlor. He knew it had been raining at the Palmdale subdivision. He felt that he could kill Theilman and blame the crime on Janice. As soon as he and Theilman got to the Palmdale subdivision, Troy shot him. Then Troy remembered the water had been shut off so he had to hurry to get it reconnected. Then he drove to Los Angeles, stole Janice’s car, drove it up to the real estate office, thoroughly wet the ground in front of the building so it would take and hold tracks, and then drove Janice’s car back over the wet ground, feeling certain that by the time the body was discovered everyone would conclude the ground had been dampened by the thundershower.
“Troy almost got away with it. His mistake was that he was in such a hurry to get Janice’s car back that he didn’t have time to remove the hose but left it coiled and attached to the water outlet.”
“But how in the world did you happen to suspect Troy?” Drake asked.
“Because Theilman told Janice he couldn’t understand why his wife hadn’t been notified not to expect him for a few days. That means that after he called his wife at eight o’clock on the night of the third, something came up which caused him to change his mind about going home. So he instructed someone to so notify his wife.
“It was almost a certainty that that someone was Cole Troy. Troy knew Theilman had to be removed, so he didn’t put through the call.”
“And that shapely shadow Troy saw?” Drake asked.
“All a part of the scheme,” Mason said. “Troy spent the evening planning a campaign with Theilman. He lied when he said Theilman left for home, but by dressing up his lie with that story about the shapely shadow he was able to create a word picture of Theilman leaving his office and starting for home that fooled everyone.
“I began to suspect Troy when Janice told me Theilman was puzzled his wife hadn’t been notified of his change in plans. Troy had been instructed to phone her while Theilman was laying plans to go to Las Vegas to meet Carlotta.”
“Why didn’t Theilman phone his wife?” Drake asked.
It was Della Street who answered the question. “He didn’t want her to start questioning him about the nature of his business trip, silly. When you get married, Paul, you’ll learn these more elemental dodges of married men.”
Drake grinned. “How did you get all this knowledge?”
“Reading divorce complaints,” Della said.
Drake said, “All right. There’s one other thing I don’t understand. Where in the world did the taxi driver get that twenty-dollar bill?”
“He got it from Janice,” Mason said.
“What!” Janice Wainwright exclaimed.
“That’s right, he got it from you.”
“But he couldn’t have.”
“The thing was very simple,” Mason said, “and I admit that after I made an issue of it I was in a panic for fear the real solution would occur to Hamilton Burger. The only thing to do was to keep Burger so darn mad that the real solution never did occur to him.”
“Well, what was the solution?” Drake asked.
Mason grinned. “Janice, you got money out of the cash drawer in the safe. By that time Theilman had recovered the suitcase with the money in it. He had transferred some of the money to a brief case before locking the suitcase in the trunk of his car, and filled up the petty cash drawer in the safe so there would be plenty of money in case you had to take a trip for him in connection with the deal.
“Remember, we didn’t get the numbers of all the bills. Only some of them.”
“But I didn’t give any money to the cabdriver,” Janice said.
Mason said, “You went to the Double Take Casino. What did you do when you went in there?”
“I... I bought chips.”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “And you paid for them with what?”
“Why,” she said, “with twenty dollars out of my purse.”
“And,” Mason said, “Carlotta Theilman shortly afterwards hit a twenty-dollar jackpot. The cashier took the twenty-dollar bill which you had given him for chips and turned it over to Carlotta Theilman for the jackpot. It was one of those coincidences that happen in real life.
“In the Double Take they don’t give the actual coins when you hit a jackpot. A gold slug comes down and you exchange this slug with the cashier for the amount of the jackpot, whatever is listed on the outside of the machine.”
“Well, I’ll be darned!” Drake said. “And on the strength of that you got an acquittal.”
“I got an acquittal,” Mason said, “on the strength of my client’s innocence.”
“And what the newspaper characterizes as some of the fastest legal legerdemain that was ever pulled in a local courtroom,” Della Street said, proudly reading an excerpt from the newspaper account.