“The man certainly hadn’t acted the part of a gentleman while you were in the room. Yet when you got up to leave, he fell over himself getting out to the hall to ring the elevator for you. The reason he did that was because the mail chute was right by the elevator. He wanted to drop that letter down the mail chute the minute you left him.”
She said, “I don’t understand just how Crumweather fits into it.”
“He had me fooled at first,” I said. “As Lasster’s lawyer, he naturally asked his client about women. Lasster told him about you and about the letters. Crumweather wanted to get them. He approached Carter. Carter told your stepmother, and she promised to get them. She did all right, but she couldn’t see any reason why she should let you out of the trap — well, you know the rest. She thought the letters were going to the D.A. Carter and Ringold wanted to get twenty thousand dollars, and then turn the last third over to the D.A. Apparently, it never occurred to Crumweather he was being double-crossed until after the murder. Then Esther Clarde got in touch with him by telephone and told him what had happened. Naturally, he was frantic. He wanted to get that last batch of letters before the D.A. did.”
She said, “You’re a wizard when it comes to figuring things out.”
“Not me. I should be kicked for getting off on the wrong foot. I figured Crumweather was in on it all the time. I thought that he saw a chance to sell the letters to you for thirty thousand dollars, and let you burn them up — but evidently he wasn’t in on the play. Carter and Ringold were double-crossing him.”
“Then why should he agree to represent Carter?”
“Money,” I said.
She thought for a minute. “How did you know the name that would be on the envelope?”
“It was Ringold’s real name. I asked Esther Clarde what it was last night.”
“You mean you’d figured out about the mail chute then?”