Hale said, “I hope you’re not insinuating that I planted anything.”
I looked at him and said, “You were a babe in the woods. Pretending to fly to New York the night you intended to pull your fast one.”
“What do you mean?” he sputtered.
“I don’t know what you intended to do with Nostrander. You may have intended to browbeat him, bribe him, or perhaps impersonate a Federal officer. Probably you were going to offer him a bribe. In any event, you wanted an alibi. Nostrander stayed too long in Roberta Fenn’s apartment. You followed him there, and couldn’t imagine what was holding him, because you knew Roberta wasn’t there. About two-twenty in the morning, you knew you didn’t dare put off seeing him any longer. You went up to find out what was keeping him.”
“I did nothing of the sort,” Hale blustered.
I turned to Rondler. “Naturally, he wants to deny it, what with the murder at two-thirty.”
“Do you have any proof of all this?” Rondler asked.
I nodded my head toward Roberta Fenn.
Roberta Fenn said, “This man went up to my apartment.”
I grinned at Hale.