The sheriff straightened and regarded the body with a puzzled frown.
The little circle stood watching him, wondering what he would do next. Overhead an occasional wisp of fleecy white cloud drifted slowly across the sky. The faint beginnings of a breeze stirred rustling whispers from the pine trees. Off to the west could be heard, faintly but distinctly, the sounds of the restless water in the North Fork, tumbling over smooth-washed granite boulders into deep pools rippling across gravel bars, plunging down short foam-flecked stretches of swift rapids.
“Maybe he just didn’t have anything in his pockets,” Nottingham suggested.
The sheriff regarded Nottingham with calmly thoughtful eyes. His voice when he spoke withered the young lawyer with remorseless logic. “He probably wouldn’t have carried any keys with him unless he’d taken out the keys to an automobile he’d left somewhere at the foot of the trail. He might not have had a handkerchief. He could have been dumb enough to have come out without a knife, and it’s conceivable he didn’t have a pen or pencil. Perhaps he didn’t care what time it was, so he didn’t carry a watch. But he knew he was going to camp out here in the hills. He was carrying a shoulder pack to travel light. The man would have had matches in his pocket. What’s more, you’ll notice the stain on the inside of the first and second fingers of his left hand. The man was a cigarette smoker. Where are his matches? Where are his cigarettes? Not that I want to wish my problems off on you, young man. But since you’ve volunteered to help, I thought I’d point out the things I’d like to have you think about.”
Nottingham flushed.
Dowling laughed a deep booming laugh, then he said, “Don’t blame him, sheriff. He’s a lawyer.”
The sheriff bent once more, to run his hands along the man’s waist, exploring in vain for a money belt. He ran his fingers along the lining of the coat, said suddenly to the ranger, “Wait a minute, John. We’ve got something here.”
“What?” the ranger asked.
“Something concealed in the lining of his coat,” the sheriff answered.
“Perhaps it slipped down through a hole in the inside pocket,” Nottingham suggested.
“Isn’t any hole in the pocket,” Eldon announced. “Think I’m going to have to cut the lining, John.”
The sheriff’s sharp knife cut through the stitches in the lining with the deft skill of a seamstress. His fingers explored through the opening, brought out a Manila envelope darkened and polished from the friction of long wear.
The sheriff looked at the circled faces. “Got your pencil ready, John?”
The ranger nodded.
The sheriff opened the flap of the envelope and brought out a photograph frayed at the corners.
“Now, what do you make of that?” he asked.
“I don’t make anything of it,” Olney said, studying the photograph. “It’s a good-looking young fellow standing up, having his picture taken.”
“This is a profile view of the same man,” the sheriff said, taking out another photograph.
“Just those two pictures?” Olney asked.
“That’s all. The man’s body kept ’em from getting wet.”
Ames, looking over the sheriff’s shoulder, saw very clear snapshots of a young man whom he judged to be about twenty-six or twenty-seven, with a shock of wavy dark hair, widespread intelligent eyes, a somewhat weak vacillating mouth, and clothes which even in the photograph indicated expensive tailoring.
Quite evidently here was a young man who was vain, good-looking and who knew he was good-looking, a man who had been able to get what he wanted at the very outset of life and had then started coasting along, resting on his oars at an age w hen most men were buckling down to the grim realities of a competitive existence.
The picture had been cut off on the left, evidently so as to exclude some woman who was standing on the man’s right, but her left hand rested across his shoulder, and, seeing that hand. Ames suddenly noticed a vague familiarity about it. It was a shapely, delicate hand with a gold signet ring on the third finger.
Ames couldn’t be absolutely certain in the brief glimpse he had, but he thought he had seen that ring before.
Yesterday, Roberta Coe had been wearing a ring which was startlingly like that.
Ames turned to look at Roberta. He couldn’t catch her eye immediately, but Sylvia Jessup, deftly maneuvering herself into a position so she could glance at the photographs, caught the attention of everyone present by a quick, sharp gasp.
“What is it?” the sheriff asked. “Know this man?”
“Who?” she asked, looking down at the corpse.
“The one in the picture.”
“Heavens no. I was just struck by the fact that he’s — well, so good-looking. You wonder why a dead man would be carrying his photograph.”
Sheriff Eldon studied her keenly. “That the only reason?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“Humph!” Bill Eldon said.
The others crowded forward. Eldon hesitated a moment, then slipped the photographs back into the envelope.
“We’ll wait until the coroner gets here,” he said.
Frank Ames caught Roberta Coe’s eye and saw the strained agony of her face. He knew she had had a brief glimpse of those photographs, and he knew that unless he created some diversion her white-faced dismay would attract the attention of everyone.
He stepped forward calmly. “May I see those photographs?” he asked.
The sheriff turned to look at him, slipped the Manila envelope down inside his jacket pocket.
“Why?” he asked.
“I want to see if I know the man. He looked like a man who was a buddy of mine.”
“What name?” Bill Eldon asked.
Frank Ames could see that his ruse was working. No one was looking at Roberta Coe now. All eyes were fastened on him.
“What name?” the sheriff repeated.
Ames searched the files of his memory with frantic haste. “Pete Ingle,” he blurted, giving the name of the first man whom he had ever seen killed; and because it was the first time he had seen a buddy shot down, it had left an indelible impression on Frank’s mind.
Sheriff Eldon started to remove the envelope from his jacket pocket, then thought better of it. His eyes made shrewd appraisal of Frank Ames’ countenance, said, “Where is this Pete Ingle now?”
“Dead.”
“Where did he die?”
“Guadalcanal.”
“How tall?”
“Five feet, ten inches.”
“What did he weigh?”
“I guess a hundred and fifty-five or sixty.”
“Blond or brunette?”
“Brunette.”
“I’m going to check up on this, you know,” Bill Eldon said, his voice kindly. “What color eyes?”
“Blue.”
Eldon put the picture back in his pocket. “I don’t think we’ll do anything more about these pictures until after the coroner comes.”
Ames flashed a glance toward Roberta, saw that she had, in some measure, recovered her composure. It was only a quick fleeting glance. He didn’t dare attract attention to her by looking directly at her.
It was as he turned away that he saw Sylvia Jessup watching him with eyes that had lost their mocking humor and were engaged in respectful appraisal, as though she were sizing up a potential antagonist, suddenly conscious of his strong points, but probing for his weak points.
By using the Forest Service telephone to arrange for horses, a plane, and one of the landing fields maintained by the fire-fighting service, the official party managed to arrive at the scene of the crime shortly before noon.
Leonard Keating, the young, ruthlessly ambitious deputy district attorney, accompanied James Logan, the coroner.