“So what did Carlotta do?” Bertha asked.
“She concluded that Mabel had left early before the twelve-fifteen bulletin on the train was released. Carlotta was already there at the depot. There wasn’t time to go back uptown and do anything, so she simply sat around the depot, waiting for Mabel to show up. Then the train didn’t get in until after one o’clock. Mabel didn’t show up and didn’t try, so far as anyone knows, to communicate with Carlotta. Now, you put that together and tell me what the answer is.”
“There isn’t any,” Bertha said. “Only way to dope it out is that murder was being committed there in that house at eleven o’clock.”
“That’s the way it looks to me,” Sellers said moodily. “Mrs. Belder must have rung up and got the report that the train wouldn’t be in until twelve-fifteen. She was anxious to get this eleven-o’clock call from the writer of that letter, yet she didn’t answer the phone at eleven. Carlotta tried to get her. The other party must have tried calling, but didn’t actually get her until around eleven-fifteen.”
“Why do you place it at eleven-fifteen?”
“I can’t place it any earlier than eleven-fifteen. The probabilities are that it was just about eleven-twenty-one, and that it didn’t take over sixty seconds for Mrs. Belder to get out of the house and into the car. Therefore, you’ve got to figure that telephone call between eleven-fifteen and eleven-twenty-one.”
Bertha said curiously, “That’s not giving her much margin for killing Sally Brentner after eleven o’clock and before she got the call.”
Sellers said, “She didn’t need to start her killing at eleven o’clock. She might have been putting on the finishing touches then.”
“But her husband came back at eleven,” Bertha pointed out.
“And didn’t go in, according to your statement, Bertha. He simply pressed the horn button on the car.”