“Ralph Endicott proceeded to build himself an alibi. Palmer Endicott went up to meet Rose Keeling. He doubtless would have preferred to have had the thousand dollars returned to him in cash, but Rose Keeling insisted that it be in the form of a check because she had deposited the money in her bank the day before.”
“But why didn’t Palmer Endicott simply destroy the check?” Drake asked.
“Because the Endicotts weren’t sufficiently affluent to enable him to do so. They simply couldn’t afford to kiss that thousand goodbye. Palmer Endicott’s ingenious mind concocted a story that would account for everything. Under that story, the check, in place of being evidence that would incriminate the Endicotts, would become evidence that would incriminate Marilyn Marlow. But a check is no good after the person who issues it is dead, and Palmer Endicott wanted to be sure that they got that thousand dollars back. So he left Rose Keeling’s apartment with the check, went to Ralph Endicott and told Ralph to cash the check. After the check had been cashed, Palmer planned to return and murder Rose Keeling before Rose had an opportunity to communicate with Marilyn Marlow and confess that the letter she had written Marilyn was the result of a bribe.
“You see, it became necessary for Palmer to get in touch with Ralph, and for Ralph to have an alibi, because they all intended to swear that Ralph had been the one who had called on Rose Keeling. So Palmer had Rose make the check payable to Ralph. Therefore, it was necessary for Ralph to endorse the check personally and present it at the bank. In fact, when Palmer met Ralph, he probably went so far as to take out his fountain pen and hand it to Ralph so that the check could be properly endorsed, and it was then he got his thumbprint on the check.
“But Ralph said why not simply get the check certified? Then they could use it as evidence, and the fact that the check had been certified before Rose Keeling’s death would make it as good as gold.
“So Ralph went to the bank and had the check certified, and after it had been safely certified, Palmer Endicott went out to murder Rose Keeling. That was where Palmer had a break. In place of ringing the doorbell and persuading Rose Keeling that she should admit him, he found the door open.”
“Left open by Dolores Caddo?” Drake asked.
“That’s right. Dolores had been there. She’d made a scene. She’d thrown ink from her fountain pen on Rose Keeling. Rose had dashed into the bathroom and locked herself in, but not before the ink had got on the playsuit she was intending to wear while she was playing tennis with Marilyn; and not before Dolores had ripped the playsuit half off her.
“Then Dolores Caddo, feeling she had done enough damage, went out and left the door open. Rose Keeling, locked in the bathroom, decided her unwelcome visitor had gone, so she stripped off the torn, ink-stained playsuit, put it in the soiled clothes hamper and climbed into the bathtub to wash off whatever ink stains had been on her body.
“Palmer found the outer door open. He closed it, slipped up the stairs and found Rose Keeling in the bathroom. He ambushed himself so that he could stab her as soon as she emerged from the bath. At about that time the phone started ringing. It was the call Della Street was putting through for me. It didn’t suit Palmer’s purpose to have the phone continue to ring, because Rose Keeling might dash out of the bathroom on the run to pick up the receiver. She would find Palmer Endicott ambushed in her apartment and start screaming. And if she came out of the bathroom on the run, Palmer wouldn’t be able to tap her on the head before she knew he was there.
“So Palmer stepped into the other room, lifted the telephone receiver off the cradle, then went back to wait for Rose Keeling. When Rose emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her, Palmer stepped forward. She probably dropped the towel and gave one jump, but Palmer smashed her over the head with a blackjack. Then he stabbed her, withdrew the knife, and left the flat, taking care to leave the outer door just as he had found it when he entered.”
“What about the cigarette burn?” Drake asked.
“When Dolores Caddo called on Rose Keeling, Rose was smoking a cigarette. She had probably just lit it. It dropped from her lips when Dolores grabbed at Rose Keeling’s playsuit and tore it. The cigarette lay there unnoticed and burned a place in the floor. Later on, when Palmer Endicott entered the place, he was smoking a cigar. An inveterate cigar smoker invariably wants to quiet his nerves with a good cigar when he’s about to engage in some particularly desperate undertaking. But when Palmer found Rose Keeling was in the bath, and realized he had an opportunity to ambush her, he felt that the odor of cigar smoke in the apartment might betray him, so he ground out the cigar by pressing the end against the sole of his shoe, and probably put the unsmoked portion in his coat pocket so it wouldn’t betray him.”
Drake, who had been listening carefully, nodded thoughtfully.
“So you see,” Mason said, “once you get the correct solution, all of the evidence fits into place. Or, looking at it the other way, once you fit all the evidence into place, you have the correct solution.”
“What about Marilyn Marlow’s ad?” Drake asked.
Mason chuckled, and said, “You can see what happened there. Marilyn Marlow had a pretty good idea that the Endicotts were bribing Rose Keeling. She wanted to get the evidence. She thought the way to do it was to get Rose Keeling to fall for some young man who would, however, be loyal to Marilyn. It was an amateurish way of going about it. She should have hired a professional private detective to do her snooping.”
“That’s right,” Drake said.
Mason went on, “She’ll probably make arrangements for one tonight. Tell Kenneth Barstow he has to go out on a job. Don’t tell him what the assignment is.”
“You’re a hell of a cupid,” Drake said. “You get these two young people together and then provide them with a couple of chaperones.”
Mason said, “That shows all you know about it, Paul. Tonight Della and I are going to forget all about business and business relationships. We’re going to be completely carefree and romantic.”
Drake heaved himself out of the big chair.
“Okay,” he said. “Go to it, you youngsters. While you’re doing that, I’ll be sitting in my office, slaving my fingers to the bone.”
“Doing what?” Mason asked.
“Making up a fat expense account in the Marilyn Marlow case,” Drake said. “With a whole evening at my command, I’ll think of a lot of things to put in it. After all, the gal’s an heiress, isn’t she?”
“She sure as hell is now,” Mason said.