Bertha said, “I’ve got it now. When she found those other papers, she found Mabel’s will. It left all the property to her husband. If Mabel died without a will, the property, as her separate property, would go half to the husband and half to her mother. With that will it would all go to her husband, and it was, of course, reasonable to suppose Everett Belder knew all about that will. So what does sweet little Carlotta do — although she must have had her mother’s help on this little job; she takes the will, tears out the parts that contain the name of Everett Belder so just in case some of the ashes can be reconstructed by a handwriting expert, she won’t fall on her face. Then she looks for a chance to plant the will where she can burn it and put the blame on Belder. That’s what she’s looking for when she walks into the office. And things couldn’t have worked out better for her. There was a fire going on in the grate and everybody in the room was concentrating on Imogene Dearborne. So dear little Carlotta sidles around with her back to the fire, drops the will in and then at the proper moment talks about Mabel having made a will leaving everything to her mother, accuses Everett Belder of having burnt it up, and calls in a handwriting expert to photograph the ashes in the fireplace. The expert manages to get enough evidence to show that Mabel Belder’s will had been the last paper burnt in the fireplace. He couldn’t get all of the terms of that will. Even if he had, the name of the beneficiary would have been missing, because you can gamble Carlotta didn’t take any chances on that.”
“Now then, what’s wrong with that picture?”
“I am not going to stand here and submit to all of these insults,” Carlotta said.
“You don’t have to, dear,” Mrs. Croftus announced with dignity. “Personally, I think the woman is crazy.”
Sergeant Sellers pulled a cigar from his pocket with an air of preoccupation, bit off the tip of the cigar, fished a match from his pocket. “I thought she was a little goofy myself,” he admitted, “until she pulled that stuff about Carlotta dropping papers in the fireplace. By George, she did! I remember definitely the little fresh puff of flame which came out from behind her. I thought perhaps her skirt was going to catch fire and was thinking what a bad break that would be because it would make a diversion and I wanted to have the cards put on the table while everyone was in the mood for a showdown. What did you drop in the fireplace, Carlotta?”
“Nothing. You’re crazy.”
Sellers said, “That clinches it. I know you dropped something. I f you’d had some logical explanation of what it was, it would have been all right, but to swear that you didn’t drop a thing is—”
“Oh, I remember now,” Carlotta said. “I was reading a letter. A circular I’d received. I had it in my hand when I came in the office and saw the fire going in the fireplace. I’d almost forgotten about it”
Sergeant Sellers grinned at her through the first puffs of the blue cigar smoke. “You walked right into that trap, didn’t you, sister? So you did drop papers into the fireplace?”
“Yes. But it was this letter. I—”