Glancing back at Sheriff Fleming, Dr. Fairweather, the nurse and her patient, Shayne thrust his hands deep in his trousers pockets and lounged back against the threshold. He began in a conversational tone:
“Opening night of the Play Festival was marred by two murders. An old man who didn’t have much to live for; and a young woman with all of life before her. Each one of you is mixed up in the case one way or another, more or less. Each of you had reason to desire the death of one or the other of the victims. Each of you had the opportunity to commit at least one of the murders. One among you had the motive and opportunity for both murders.”
There was complete silence when he paused. He warned:
“I’m going to take my gloves off and go at you hammer and tongs. Someone is going to break before I’m done. This has been a tough case to unravel because I’ve uncovered such a damnable tangle of confused and overlapping motives, because there aren’t any factual clues. By getting you all together, I hope to put you at each other’s throats until the truth comes out.”
He directed his gaze at Frank Carson.
“You’re the most logical contender for a noose,” he told the young actor pleasantly. “Screwloose Pete had just discovered a mine worth a small fortune. He was murdered immediately after your wife identified him as her long-missed father. Then, she was killed. Leaving you the legal heir to Pete’s share of the mine — if his relationship to your wife can be proved.”
Carson set his teeth and his eyes blazed at Shayne. “You’re absolutely nuts if that’s the best theory you’ve got. I can punch it full of holes. In the first place, I didn’t even know the old man was Nora’s father — until after he was dead. And I’ve been talking to the sheriff. Nora was murdered long before the play was over. Good heavens, I won’t have any trouble proving I couldn’t have left the theater.”
Shayne shrugged his broad shoulders. “That’s the trouble with each of my theories,” he admitted. “But you didn’t let me complete my case against you. Passing up the first murder for the moment, you had another possible reason for desiring your wife’s death. You have been openly carrying on an affair with Mrs. Mattson for weeks. To such a point that she demanded a divorce from her husband yesterday.”
When Carson glanced sideways at Olivia and then started to protest, Shayne interrupted with a wry grin:
“I know your answer to that, too. You were just fooling. But you certainly had the lady fooled — until after the play last night when you had the unpleasant job of throwing her over publicly. I can’t help wondering whether something happened to make you change your mind in the meantime.”