Mason said, “We’re evidently dealing with the after-math of an old feud. There’s no other explanation which occurs to me at the moment. Of course, we haven’t all of the facts as yet.”
“Then Karr must have killed him.”
“Karr’s time’s too well accounted for,” Mason said. “And Wenston is out of it. Steele must have been killed at least two hours before we got there. There’s no question but what Karr’s been and still is a very sick man. That bullet hole in his leg, the loss of blood, the shot, and the general strain of events must have taken a lot out of him. He isn’t physically robust. Then, in addition, he’s had that arthritis in his legs. Evidently, he could walk, but it was a slow and painful process. We can leave him out so far as Steele is concerned.”
“You think Karr went downstairs the night of the shooting?”
Mason said, “That’s the only logical deduction. The burglar alarm was placed where he could hear it. He admits that he did hear it. He must have got up and walked slowly downstairs. He surprised someone at the safe, and got shot.”
“Do you suppose Steele got the message you left in the tin before — before he was killed?”
Mason said, “I don’t know. His death is going to complicate things somewhat.”
“How do you mean?”
“There are two persons involved. One of them is the person who sent the message, and the other the person who received it. Now, if we assume that Steele is the person who was receiving the messages, the question arises, Who was sending them? Let’s suppose, for the sake of the argument, that it was Sarah Perlin. Steele sees a can placed on the shelf after Sarah Perlin’s death. Therefore, he knows it must be a trap. For that reason, he won’t touch the can. On the other hand, if Sarah Perlin wasn’t the one who was sending the messages, Steele — conceding that he’s the person who was receiving them — would undoubtedly have grabbed that decoy can the first chance he had.”
Della said, “I’m getting all topsy-turvy. I thought the person who had sent the message, and the person for whom it had been intended were the murderers. It looks now as though they were the victims. Now, what are we going to do?”