“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.