Sellers scratched his head and said, “Well, hell, I don’t know what happened, but that’s an explanation.”
“It’s an explanation that doesn’t explain,” I said. “I’ll tell you what happened: There were three shots fired in that room. The other person who was in there knew he had to account for three shots. He wasn’t in a position to account for them, so he picked up the gun and the suitcase. He carried both of them off, far enough away so the report wouldn’t be heard. Then he fired a bullet into the suitcase. Then he brought the suitcase back to the cabin, left the suitcase, planted the gun in Dover Fulton’s hand, locked the door from the inside and climbed out of the window.”
“I don’t get you,” Sellers said. “Why did he go to all that trouble? Why did he do all that?”
“Because he had to account for the third bullet. He had to put it in the suitcase.”
“But that makes four bullets, the way you’re talking now,” Sellers said.
“Exactly.”
“And why did he have to shoot a fourth bullet in order to account for the third bullet?”
“Because,” I said, “he was wearing the third bullet.”
Sellers looked at me for four or five seconds, his eyes blinking as he tried to digest the idea. Then he said, “It’s a theory, all right. Nothing but a theory, but it’s a theory.”
I said, “There’s a lot more to it than a theory. Where were the woman’s clothes when you found the bodies?”
“Part of them were on and the rest of them were — let’s see, I guess the rest of them were in the suitcase.”
I said, “That does it. A woman who is undressing in a motor court on a week-end party wouldn’t take off her blouse, roll it up and then jam it in the suitcase. At the time of the shooting, that suitcase was lying open. Her blouse was on the chair by the suitcase. The murderer got in a panic and wadded that blouse into a bundle and jammed it in the suitcase, then closed the suitcase.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” Sellers said, and then added significantly, “You should. You were there, camped in the motor court at the time.”
Sellers thought that over, then said suddenly, “By gosh, we’re beginning to get somewhere now! I want you folks to remember every word this guy’s saying. He was there at the time. If it was a murder, he did it.”
“I didn’t do it,” I said, “because I’m not wearing that third bullet.”
I said, “Take a look at the photos that show the interior of that room where the bodies were found. Look at the towels hanging on the towel rack.”
“What about them?”
“One bath-towel,” I said, “two hand-towels.”
“Well?”
“Standard equipment is two bath-towels and two hand-towels. What happened to the other bath-towel?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Sellers said. “It’s not up to us to go around checking linen.”
I said, “The murderer had been wounded, and the murderer wrapped a bath-towel around the wound to stop the bleeding. It probably didn’t bleed too much, but that’s what the bath-towel was used for.”
Sellers said, “It’s a wild theory, Lam. Just a wild, wild theory.”
“Sure, it is, but it’s worth investigating.”
“You’re damn right it’s worth investigating,” Bertha Cool said. “Think of what it does to the insurance company, Frank.”
“How come?” Sellers asked.
“Suicide within a year, the policies don’t pay anything,” Bertha pointed out, greedily. “Death not by suicide, they pay forty thousand dollars; death by accidental means gives them double indemnity or eighty thousand bucks.”
Sellers whistled.
Bertha said, “We’re in on that — that is, I’m in on it.”
“Go ahead,” Sellers said to me, “keep talking, Lam.”
I said, “It wasn’t a love-nest affair at all. Minerva Carlton was being blackmailed. The blackmailer wanted a big shakedown, too much for her to pay. If he didn’t get it, he threatened to go to her husband and spill the beans.”
“If she was being blackmailed, that’s probably the way it was,” Sellers said.
I said, “She decided to slip a fast one over on the blackmailer. She went to Dover Fulton. He had been her former boss. She liked him. She may have been sweet on him at one time, I don’t know. But anyway she went to him, and they agreed to fix things up so that Dover Fulton posed as her husband. The blackmailer had never seen Stanwick Carlton. Fulton posed as Stanwick Carlton, probably said in effect, ‘So what? My wife’s been indiscreet, but I forgive her!’ So they kissed and made up in front of the blackmailer, and Fulton who was posing as Stanwick Carlton, said, ‘Now go jump in the lake!’ ”
“Could be,” Sellers said after thinking it over. “You’d want proof.”
I said, “I was trying to get proof when you put these on me.” I held out my hands with the handcuffs on them.
“You’re damn right I put them on you,” Sellers said. “You were caught redhanded in a murder.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Then you shouldn’t have run away, my lad. You know what happens when you try to make a break for it. You thought you could walk out and get by with it. You didn’t think anyone who had seen you could identify you. But I just happened to play a smart hunch. I remembered the description of the little blonde number you gave me tallied absolutely with the dead girl. I got—”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “It all came over the radio.”
Sellers glared at me. “And I checked up on the book, incidentally, and your fingerprints are all over the cellophane cover.”
“Sure,” I said. “I was out there.”
“That’s the second time he’s admitted it,” Sellers said to Bertha Cool and Claire Bushnell. “Remember it.”
I said, “There’s pretty good reason to believe that whatever the blackmail consisted of, it centered around the Cabanita Club. You know what happens around those places. The playboys go out when they’re on the loose. Occasionally some smart egg with a good memory and an eye for faces sticks around and gets a line on who’s doing the celebrating. If it happens to be a married man from out of town, or someone who lives in the city and is doing a little week-end playing, the blackmailers look them over. Nearly all of those places have blackmailers who hang around, or, I’ll put it another way: Lots of blackmailers drop around to those places and keep looking the crowd over, trying to pick up the licence number on an automobile, or something that’ll mean a little cash. It’s usually a job of slim pickings, but I think that this blackmail centers around the Cabanita outfit. I think that Tom Durham is mixed up in it, and I think that Bob Elgin knows who Tom Durham is and where he can be found.”
“Durham was staying at the Westchester Arms Hotel. He checked out right after the killing. I thought at the time it was because he’d found out I was shadowing him. I think now it was because he knew there’d been a shooting. I’d like to look him over. We might find a .32 bullet parked somewhere in his anatomy.”
Sellers said, “Okay, I’ll keep it in mind and see what can be done.”
I said, “I started prowling around the Cabanita last night. I started getting pictures that had been taken. People didn’t like it. They tried to work me over. I barely squeezed out from under a good beating. I had some pictures and an address. The address was that of the blonde girl who was killed last night. I went out there to check, to find out what was at that address. I found out. Somebody was following me, or else someone knew I was going to be there.”