Final Deduction

"Was it you or your husband who conceived the notion- No. I said I would ask you no questions. All the same, it's an interesting point, which of you thought of coming to me, since that was what led to disaster. No doubt it seemed to be an excellent stroke in your elaborate plans to achieve verisimilitude; not only coming to me but also the hocus-pocus about getting here; ten thousand dollars wasn't much to pay for establishing that you were desperately concerned for your husband's safety. You couldn't foresee that I would insist on seeing your secretary, but when I made that demand your check was already on my desk, and you didn't dare take it back merely because I wished to speak with Miss Utley. Nor could you foresee that I would propose a step that would expose me to the risk of an extended and expensive operation, and that I would demand an additional sum as insurance against possible loss. You didn't like that at all. Your teeth bit into your lip as you wrote the check, but you had to. Fifty thousand dollars makes a substantial hole in half a million, but you had made it so clear that nothing mattered but your husband's safety, certainly money didn't, that you couldn't very well refuse."

He poured beer, drank when the foam was right, and went on. "I don't know if you regretted that you had come to me when you left, but you certainly did later, when Miss Utley returned after seeing me. As I said, I'm not reporting, I'm telling you how I satisfied myself. I got an inkling of Miss Utley's temperament and character when she was here, and more than an inkling from what your brother told me about her. From questions Mr Goodwin and I asked her, and from our taking her fingerprints, she became apprehensive. She feared that you had somehow aroused my suspicion, that I suspected her, and that I might disclose the fraud; and when she returned she tried to persuade you to give it up. You wouldn't. All the preliminaries had been performed; you had the money in the suitcase; you had given me sixty thousand dollars; all that remained was the consummation. You tried to remove Miss Utley's fears, to convince her that there was no danger of exposure, and you thought you succeeded, but you didn't.

"Shortly before eight o'clock you left in your car with the suitcase in the trunk, not knowing that, instead of subsiding, Miss Utley's alarm had grown. An hour after your departure she took the typewriter from the house, put it in her car, and drove to the country. Here there are alternatives; either is acceptable; I prefer this one: after disposing of the typewriter she intended to go to where Mr Vail was in hiding, arriving before he left for the rendezvous with you, describe the situation, and insist that the project be abandoned. But something intervened, probably the difficulty of disposing of the typewriter unseen in a spot where it would surely never be found, and to see Mr Vail she had to go to Iron Mine Road, which had been named in one of the notes she had typed."

Wolfe drank beer. "Some of what I have said is conjectural, but this is not. Miss Utley got to Iron Mine Road before you did. When you and your husband arrived, you in your car and he in his, she told him of her fears and insisted that the project must be abandoned. He didn't agree. He didn't stay long to debate it; he was supposed to be concealed somewhere by kidnapers, and even in that secluded spot there was a possibility that someone might come along. He put the suitcase in his car and drove off, leaving it to you to deal with her, and you tried to, but she wouldn't be persuaded. She may have demanded a large share of the half a million to offset the risk, but I doubt it. From what your brother said of her it's more likely that she was filled with dismay. Either she made it plain that she would wreck the project by disclosing it, or you were convinced that she intended to. Infuriated, you assaulted her. You hit her on the head with something-a handy rock?-and as she lay unconscious you got in her car and ran it over her, nosed the car into an opening, dragged the body to the ditch and rolled it in, got in your car, and drove away. If, ignoring my advice to say nothing, you ask why I say that you, not Mr Vail, killed her, I repeat that I had to satisfy myself. If he killed her, why was he killed the next day? There was no tenable answer.