Banner reveals that Gertrude was being forced to help Lockyear with his murder plot. Lockyear was a Communist agent, and Gertrude's mother and father were stuck in East Germany. Lockyear claimed he could get them out, but threatened to have them killed unless she helped him. Using a tape recorder, Lockyear recorded three minutes of silence, then fired three shots with the Tokarev, then recorded more silence. The day he killed Gosling, Lockyear arranged for the delivery of an envelope containing a toy gun to Gertrude's desk. He then went to the legation with a briefcase that had an identical empty envelope in it, and a silenced Tokarev. He stalled Gosling until a time as close to 11:30 as possible, then shot him and started the tape recording. Lockyear sealed the gun into the empty envelope. As Lockyear left, he put his briefcase on Gertrude's desk, holding the envelope against it. He picked the other envelope on Gertrude's desk up and replaced it with the envelope holding the real gun. After the shots on the tape recording were heard, when everyone was examining Gosling's body, Gertrude shut off the tape recorder. She had drawn the two circles to draw attention to a reel of recording tape. Lockyear killed her, thinking she had already destroyed the tape.
