The next fact I want Charles to know is that whatever anybody may think or whatever was true some time ago Julia and I were at the time of her murder and had been for more than a year not anything more to each other than employee and employer. This relationship was the result of mutual agreement.
Next, I believe some attempt should be made to learn the present whereabouts of the Sidney Kelterman with whom we had trouble some years ago inasmuch as the experiments I am now engaged in are in line with those he claimed I cheated him out of and I consider him quite insane enough to have killed Julia in a rage at her refusal to tell him wheTe I could be found.
Fourth, and most important, has my divorced wife been in communication with Kelterman? How did she learn I was carrying out the experiments with which he once assisted me?
Fifth, the police must be convinced at once that I can tell them nothing about the murder so that they will take no steps to find me–steps that might lead to a discovery of and a premature exposure of my experiments, which I would consider very dangerous at this time. This can best be avoided by clearing up the mystery of her murder immediately, and that is what I wish to have done.
I will communicate with you from time to time and if in the meanwhile anything should arise to make communication with me imperative insert the following advertisement in the Times:
Abner. Yes. Bunny.
I will thereupon arrange to get in touch with you.
I hope you sufficiently understand the necessity of persuading Charles to act for me, since he is already acquainted with the Kelterman trouble and knows most of the people concerned.
Yours truly,
Clyde Miller Wynant
I put the letter down on Macaulav’s desk and said: “It makes a lot of sense. Do you remember what his row with Kelterman was about?”
“Something about changes in the structure of crystals. I can look it up.” Macaulay picked up the first sheet of the letter and frowned at it. “He says he got a thousand dollars from her that night. I gave her five thousand for him; she told me that’s what he wanted.”
“Four thousand from Uncle John’s estate?” I suggested.
“Looks like it. That’s funny: I never thought she’d gyp him. I’ll have to find out about the other money I turned over to her.”
“Did you know she’d done a jail sentence in Cleveland on a badgergame charge?”
“No. Had she really?”
“According to the police–under the name of Rhoda Stewart. Where’d Wynant find her?”
He shook his head. “I’ve no idea.”
“Know anything about where she came from originally, relatives, things like that?”
He shook his head again.
“Who was she engaged to?” I asked.
“I didn’t know she was engaged.”
“She was wearing a diamond ring on that finger.”
“That’s news to me,” he said. He shut his eyes and thought. “No, I can’t remember ever noticing an engagement ring.” He put his forearms on his desk and grinned over them at me. “Well, what are the chances of getting you to do what he wants?”
“Slim.”
“I thought so.” He moved a hand to touch the letter. “You know as much about how he feels as I do. What would make you change your mind?”
“I don’t–”
“Would it help any if I could persuade him to meet you? Maybe if I told him that was the only way you’d take it–”
“I’m willing to talk to him,” I said, “but he’d have to talk a lot straighter than he’s writing.”
Macanlay asked slowly: “You mean you think he may have killed her?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” I said. “I don’t know as much as the pohee do, and it’s a cinch they haven’t got enough on him to make the pinch even if they could find him.”
Macaulay sighed. “Being a goof’s lawyer is not much fun. I’ll try to make him listen to reason, hut I know he won’t.”
“I meant to ask, how are his finances these days? Is he as well fixed as he used to be?”