“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?”