I said, “The rest of it is just as easy. Craig began to smell a rat. Cutler had gone too far then to back out. He waited until Craig was out with Roberta, masqueraded as the love bandit, jockeyed Craig into a position where he had to put up a fight, and shot him.
“Edna Cutler had a faint suspicion Roberta had some information which might be of help to her. She followed Roberta to New York, missed her, found her in New Orleans, got acquainted with her, also got acquainted with Nostrander. Nostrander gave Edna an ingenious legal recipe for turning the tables on her husband. Edna took it. She kept Roberta in ignorance of what was going on. Cutler walked into the trap. Later on, when Edna sprang it on him, he knew he had to break down Roberta Fenn’s testimony and make her admit the whole thing was a conspiracy. If he could do that, he could get a court to hold that Edna was estopped from raising the point that service had not been made on her. That was his only chance.”
“Cutler admits that,” Rondler said, “but that’s all he admits.”
I said, “He hired Hale. He thought a New York lawyer could do the gumshoeing better than a Los Angeles killer, but he got Hale to hire a Los Angeles detective agency. In the meantime, Hale had located Edna Cutler, then, through Edna, he’d found Roberta. He’d tried to soften Roberta up and had failed, so he turned us loose on the job. He never did get anywhere with Edna Cutler, she simply wasn’t making any slips.”
“How” about these newspaper clippings and the gun?”
“Roberta probably left the newspaper clippings there. Someone else found them and planted the gun.”
“Why?”
“Oh, just to make it look good.”
Rondler said, “The gun doesn’t match up. The bullet which killed Craig wasn’t fired through it.”
I nodded.