She twisted her position slightly on the bed. Her hand was on my shoulder. Her eyes were pleading up at me. “Donald,” she said, “please, please believe me.”
“Give me something to believe,” I said, “and let’s have it fast. The police are on their way out here.”
“The police! On their way out here!”
I nodded.
“Donald, they can’t. — You wouldn’t do that to me.”
“It isn’t what I’m doing; it’s what you’ve done to yourself.”
“But, Donald, what can I do?”
“For one thing,” I said, “you can tell me the truth. Then perhaps I can help you.”
She said, “You’re going to think I’m a louse.”
I didn’t say anything.
She said, “All right, here it is in chunks. My sister has never been married. Her name is Rosalind Hart. We’re from Colorado. We’ve been visiting here for the last three or four weeks. My sister is four years younger than I am. She’s a sweet little thing. She doesn’t — well, she doesn’t play around. She’s romantic, intense, and she’s been in love with Stanwick Carlton ever since she met him, absolutely crazy in love with him. They were engaged at one time. He was the first man in her life, the first one who wakened her to the fact that she had grown up and was a woman. She loves him. She loves him too much.”
“You know how it is, Donald. When a girl really goes all out for a man, after a while he gets tired of it. There’s a sense of assurance that he has — a man wants to pursue his women. He wants to have to make a sale. He doesn’t want the merchandise all wrapped up and tossed in his lap every time he leaves an opening. He wants to feel that he’s the salesman.”
“A smart girl, a girl who knew more about men than Rosalind, would have had Stanwick Carlton absolutely crazy about her. He was for a long time, and then she was just too easy, too accessible. I tried to warn her about it but she laughed at me. She said they were going to be married and live happily ever after. You know what happened.”
“What happened?”
“After a while he got tired of it. She was always there, always adoring him, always ready to obey his slightest wish. She wouldn’t even look at any other man or let any other man look at her. She didn’t have sense enough to ever play hard-to-get.”
“And so Minerva entered the scene?”
“That’s right — Minerva. She was shrewd and fast and hot. I’m not kidding. I know what I’m talking about. One woman can tell a lot about another.”
“All right, she’d played around. So what?”
“She came to Colorado. She sized up the situation in an instant and she started playing hard-to-get.”
“So Stanwick Carlton immediately married her?”
“Don’t be silly, it wasn’t that way at all. He became interested in her, and she simply tilted her chin, looked over her shoulder at him and moved away. He had to take that challenge. He wanted to show her, I guess, that he could dent her armour if he wanted to, then he was going back to Rosalind. The first thing he knew, he was completely snared and there was a run-away marriage. I don’t think the poor chap knew what really had happened to him until he woke up, safely married, after what the papers called a whirlwind courtship. A whirlwind courtship!” she added scornfully. “I’ll say it was. Only he wasn’t the one who did the whirlwinding.”
“Go on,” I said.
“They’d been married two years. I knew that Minerva was going to play around. I kept an eye on her. She came here and visited an old friend of hers, a girl by the name of Bushnell. They had a vacation at the beach and — well, did some stepping around. Then Minerva went back to Colorado. This time when I knew she was going to visit California again I had things arranged so I could keep an eye on her.”
“Playing detective, eh?”
“That’s right, and it was simple, dirt simple. She got in touch with Dover Fulton as soon as she hit town, and the first night she was here she had dinner with some other man. She had been seeing a lot of Fulton. Last week they went out to that auto court and registered as man and wife. They stayed there until after midnight. Then she drove him back to town. He picked up his car at the parking place and went on home.”
“I presume all that marital infidelity made you sick at your stomach.”
“Don’t be a sap,” she said. “I loved it. It gave me all of the aces in the pack. I just wanted to know how to play them.”
“So what?”
“So last night, when I knew they were going out to the same auto court where they’d been before, I — well, I decided I’d frame them good and proper and let them have their names in the paper.”
“So what did you do?”
“Picked you up. Got you to take me out to the auto court, register as Dover Fulton and wife, and I saw to it that you were driving Dover Fulton’s car. Then I sneaked out and telephoned the police that the car had been stolen. I knew that one of the first things the police do under those circumstances is check up on the motor courts because every motor court has to keep a register in which is entered the make of car and the licence number. I knew the police would have a line on Dover Fulton’s car before midnight.”
“And you felt they’d pick on me as a sucker?”
“Be your age! I didn’t want you in the picture at all. I wanted to get with someone who was smart enough and suspicious enough so that when I walked out on him, he’d — well, he’d smell a rat and get out too. I saw you pull out and start walking.
“The police would locate the stolen automobile at the KOZY DELL SLUMBER COURT. Then I intended to ring Mrs. Fulton and tell her not to let her husband fool her, that that business about the car being stolen was just a stall; that actually he’d been there at the court, registered with this woman for two weeks in succession. The fact that his car had been recovered there would make her go to investigate and then, of course, the woman who ran the place would have to identify Dover Fulton as the one who had registered as Stanwick Carlton.”
“And of course you intended to let Stanwick Carlton know about what his wife had been doing?”
“You’re damn right I did.”
“Sweet little thing, aren’t you?”
“I’m not sweet,” she said. “I’m a cat; I’ve got claws. I’m fighting for Rosalind. As a matter of fact, Stanwick loves Rosalind and always has loved her. This Minerva woman just came in and helped herself to a piece of cake. She saw a good eligible male that she could grab by the use of a little applied psychology. She applied the psychology. Rosalind was a sweet, innocent little lamb who didn’t stand a chance. I tell you, this Minerva was a woman who knew all the answers.”
I said, “And after you went out and ditched me, did you hear the sound of the shots?”
For a moment her eyes faltered.
“Did you?” I asked.
Her fingers dug into my arm.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you?”
“In one of the garages. I waited until I saw you get out of the cabin. Then I decided I’d hitch-hike my way and — and I heard the sound of the shots.”
“Have you any idea what they were?”
“I... I thought they were shots, but if I’d known what cabin they came from, I... well, I’d have… well, I guess I wouldn’t have, either.”
“No,” I said, “I guess you wouldn’t. How many shots were there?”
“Three.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
She said, “It was exactly seven minutes past ten. I looked at my watch.”
“And then what?”