Chapter 21 Chapter 21

Mason, Della, Carlo, and Roger Burbank sat together in Mason's office.Roger Burbank was smoking a cigar and seemed tense; Mason tapped his fingers on the table; Della sat on the edge of her secretary's chair.Only Carlo didn't show any nervous and anxious expression. "Paul's on his way here; he just called me," Mason said. Carlo asked, "Do you think that Judge Newark has a complete understanding of the whole case?" "I think he doesn't know enough yet," Mason said. "He did have a set of reasonable views on the determination of the time of the crime, which was deduced from the changing conditions of the tide. However, he hadn't thought of one thing—that is: when the murderer moved the corpse, the fox had already been exposed. Tail. He...Paul is coming."

As soon as Derek knocked on the door of Mason's office, Della stood up and let him in. Driven by excitement, Derek is not speaking as usual now - speaking slowly and drawing intonation. "Perry, the truth is out now." Derek didn't waste any time in greeting, he couldn't wait to speak. "They already know the truth." "Anyone confess?" Mason asked. "It wasn't the principal suspect who confessed. It was Mrs. Delphine Milfield who finally relented and gave in." "What did she say?" Mason asked. "What she revealed was enough for Berg to prosecute another case. Tell me, Paley, how did you know who the murderer was?"

Mason said: "The climax of the story occurs when the body is moved from the second position to the first position. This implies us that the person who moved the body must have known that Roger Burbank had done it before. He has gone through ulterior motives and learned that—if the outside world can be mistaken for Roger Burbank as the murderer, and if he spends some effort to conceal the truth, then Burbank will definitely become a scapegoat, and there is no escape. opportunity for sin. "There are three outsiders who know about Burbank's past. Originally, only Delphine was alone, but later she told her husband and Van Nuys." Mason continued. "Van Nuys' entire profit on the oil deal depends on whether Fred can scoop it up at Burbank. If Burbank can prove they're a fraud, they won't get a dime." I think it was either Delphine or Van Nuys because the killer was trying to take advantage of Burbank's past scandals. I'm inclined to think Van Nuys was the murderer because whoever planted the bomb must have been the murderer Himself. There was a splash of water when he rowed away on the oar after he was loaded. It was not like Powell's completely amateurish way of rowing; certainly, it couldn't be Delphine. What happens to Milfy when rowing a boat with great skill and ease. However, Fred's wife must have known about it not long after he was killed; an alibi. I therefore think that Mrs. Delphine Milfield may be the weaker link in the chain of evidence for this murder."

"Well, Paley, you're right," Derek said. "When Burbank knew that Fred Milfy had been blackmailing him, he asked Ferry to get on the yacht and wanted to meet and discuss with him. Fred, who was panicked, contacted Van Ness. He didn't know what to do. Well, trying to buy time; but what if he couldn't do that? He told Van Nuys that they'd have to get rid of Burbank by then so he wouldn't make a noise out there that wouldn't help them The two of them drew up a detailed murder plan, and Fred first rented a small boat from Cameron and sailed to the yacht mooring, trying to talk to Burbank and try to convince him that It turned out that what I had heard was nothing more than lies. And wanted to try to find out how much he knew. Before going to the appointment, Fred called Palermore, which must have just left Palermo in Burbank. Shortly after visiting Palermo's house; Fred knew from the description on the phone that the person who visited Palermo was the 'competitor' who paid a high price of five thousand dollars--another land speculator, Mr. Burbank. Under the circumstances, he had a plan, spent a lot of money to buy Palermo, asked him to go to Burbank's yacht, and used his three-inch tongue to try to persuade Burbank to say that he had deliberately exchanged money with him. The fact that the land was sold at a high price was actually a lie made up by himself.

"Van Nuys managed to get a collapsible boat, an idea they had when they saw the boat in Palermo. Then they took it to the mouth of the bay and anchored it where no one else could see it. .Then he kept watch near the yacht, keeping an appropriate distance for safety, but not letting the yacht escape from his sight. When Fred left the yacht, he would send a signal to Vannay by the way S. If he had succeeded in placating Roger Burbank, they would have done nothing; If he made up a lot of extravagant lies and so on, but still can't save the current unfavorable situation, then Van Nuys will quietly slip out of the river mouth, float outward with the tide, and plant a pre-prepared bomb. on the deck of the yacht, then paddled along the river bed about a hundred yards away from the yacht, turned his boat, paddled back to where he had parked his car, folded his boat, and drove the car return.

"However, Van Nuys needed a strong proof that he wasn't there when the yacht exploded. So Van Nuys - Delphine's real crush - came up with this alibi scheme: When the yacht was about to blow up, Delphine had to go to the airport and call Powell in San Francisco to show that she had decided to go to him and stay with him forever. However, the objective situation was beyond her The range of abilities at her disposal forced her to change her mind. Powell was an inexperienced and inexperienced young man who had plunged headlong into the whirlpool of emotions, and he was completely obsessed with Delphine. Daphne Daphne showed him a little more, and he couldn't hold back his emotions, and wrote many passionate letters to Delphine, asking her to go away with him.

"So, Delphine wrote another note, pretending to leave it to her husband, but actually gave it to Van Nuys, along with the letter Powell wrote her. Van Nuys deliberately pretended to be happy under pressure. Reluctantly telling how Delphine, the emotional woman, got to the airport and how he went to meet her. In order to substantiate the story he fabricated, he dramatically showed how Delphine should have left her husband and the bundle of letters from Douglas Powell to her. But what about the yacht? In a fit of rage, Burbank knocked Fred down and decided to call the police and arrest him. Then he climbed onto the deck of the yacht, let go of Fred's boat tied to the side of the yacht, and let it float with the waves; then jumped into his own boat, started the stern motor, and sailed in the direction of the yacht club up.

"Of course, Van Nuys was quite troubled and puzzled, so he immediately rowed the boat to the yacht to find out, only to find that Fred was staggered because of being punched in the jaw. Rhett was very angry, and lost his temper; and Fred was also very angry, and accused Van Nuys of being entangled with his wife, and gave him a blow. Van Nuys' fist was no match for Fred's; Knocked down. But, where he had fallen, he found an iron poker beside him; and Van Nuys took the heavy iron handily, and struck Fred hard. When Fred fell to the ground, he lay in what you call the 'second mortuary'.

"When Van Nuys found out that Fred was dead, he panicked. Then he had an epiphany: Since Burbank had previously had a run-in with Fred, he could mislead the police and make They believed that Fred was killed by Burbank's fist attack. At the same time, they also made the police mistakenly believe that because Burbank had accidentally killed a man in New Orleans, he was now repeating the old trick, trying to use the same method as before. So, Van Nuys rolled Fred's body to the position in front of the copper threshold leading to the inner cabin, opened the door of the inner cabin entrance, and arranged everything on the scene to set blame To Roger Burbank. Then he rowed his boat back to shore. But he had to tell Delphine about it.

"It wouldn't be too difficult to deal with. Van Nuys told Delphine the whole thing, and told her that if she kept her mouth shut, he was sure that in Fred and Burbank's He will be able to reap a lot of benefits from the handling of the signed oil drilling rights; by then, Daphne will become a rich widow. So they proceeded according to the plan, Daphne Go to the airport, call Powell; and leave a note, so the police can track it down—that long-distance call was made from a phone booth in the airport. So, originally they designed it to cover Van Ness' alibi for murdering Burbank was, naturally, the best tool to clear him of the crime of killing Fred."

"I have a feeling that the alibi might have been designed for something else," Mason said. "And I'm guessing that when Delphine found out what happened, she pointed out that Van Nuys ignored something." "Good," Derek said. "What is it?" Mason asked. "A pocket-sized account book, which is some account records written by Fred in code. The transaction with Palermo is just one of them. It turns out that Fred has long been in a planned and systematic way. He bought cheap and sold expensive to make huge profits. In order to facilitate the inquiry of information, he kept a small account book, which listed his transaction records in detail." Derek said. "I thought: Next thing they decide they have to get this ledger as soon as possible so that they can get the legal right to use those lands in Burbank. Right?" "That's pretty much the truth. They knew the police would start looking into the murder from Burbank, and once the ledger was found by the police, it didn't take long for them to decipher the codes and have a copy of the Burbank book. There is a complete record of Rhett's fraud. This kind of result is not what Van Nuys and Delphine are willing to see, because then Burbank will release all relations with Ferry on the grounds that Fred has cheated on him. contract to be signed." "So Delphine said she would go and get the book, didn't she?" "Yes, Powell had already appeared before this. So Delphine thought that she could take advantage of her long-admired boyfriend and let him take her to the yacht. Delphine believed that she Powell can be called to do what he wants, and he will do his best for her without hesitation. No one in the yacht club knows him, he can rent a small boat first, and then drive to the small pier to pick her up, and she will sit on the boat again. to take the boat to the yacht. Delphine feels she has nothing to worry about because she can easily prove that she was already at the airport when the murder happened. Well, these are the most exciting and important parts of the whole case .You can tell..." At this moment, the phone rang. Mason nodded to Della.Della picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, then covered the receiver with her other hand. "Boss, there is a woman with blond hair and black eyes outside who said that she must see you immediately. Gertie said that the woman was in a very bad mood and looked very sad; if she couldn't see you immediately, she would be really anxious Crazy..." "Take her to the law library," Mason said. "I'll talk to her there. While I'm busy, you can go ask Mr. Burbank for a check for one hundred thousand dollars to Ms. Adlai Kingmond. Excuse me. I know, a hysterical The Blonde with Black Eyes probably means we have another urgent case. At the very least, it should be an interesting case, let's call it the 'Blonde with Black Eyes'." (End of the book)