“Go ahead,” Bertha said. “Give me the rest of it.”
I said, “In the bottom part of the desk was a thirty-eight caliber revolver. Craig was shot with a thirty-eight caliber bullet.”
“Then Roberta Fenn was guilty of that murder. The story she told about the stick-up was all a lie.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Well, if it turns out that was the gun that committed the murder, it’s a cinch that’s right.”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
I said, “Hale got in touch with Roberta Fenn at a time when he was posing as Archibald C. Smith who was in the insurance business in Chicago. He tried to get Roberta to talk. Either she wouldn’t talk or else she didn’t talk the words Hale wanted to hear.” “What sort of words?” Bertha asked. “That there was some collusion between her and Edna Cutler, that Edna knew of the filing of the divorce action, or anticipated a divorce action would be filed, and that papers would be served, and deliberately put Roberta Fenn in her apartment for the purpose of avoiding service.”
“So then what?” Bertha asked.
I said, “Marco Cutler got a decree of divorce. He got an interlocutory decree, he didn’t get his final. It’s due. If Edna Cutler came into court, and had that interlocutory judgment set aside on the ground that she had known nothing about the action, and that summons had not been served upon her-now there’s one other angle. If the thing was the other way around, we’re being played for suckers.”