“Strike you that way, Shayne?” Dyer asked him.
“It makes sense,” Shayne agreed. “Too much, maybe. Almost as though it was planned to fit.”
“Do you mean to say you doubt their story — and this letter?” The chief struck the folded sheet of paper in front of him with his fist.
“I think they’re straight enough all right.” Shayne hesitated. “But I hardly see Towne playing the role it puts him in. Wouldn’t young Barton warn him that such an incriminating letter existed? Towne would know he’d be arrested as soon as the body was fished from the river and identified.”
‘That’s why he stripped all his clothes off. Hoping the body wouldn’t be discovered until too late for it to be recognized as Jack Barton.”
Shayne shook his head. “Jeff Towne hasn’t gotten where he is by taking long chances. Let’s not forget that Cochrane figures in this deal. He knew Jack Barton was going to meet Towne Tuesday afternoon to blackmail him. He’d already offered Barton five hundred for the information worth ten grand to Towne. It was Cochrane who warned Barton that Towne might kill him instead of paying off, and he advised the boy to leave an accusing letter behind.”
“Isn’t it what Cochrane would do?” Dyer demanded.
“Maybe. The question is, who got the Gladstone bag with the notebook containing the information? Someone sent a messenger to Barton’s house for it.”
“A Mexican messenger,” Dyer stressed. “All Towne’s servants are Mexicans. He sent for the bag, of course, after he’d put the boy out of the way.”
“It looks that way,” Shayne agreed. “Still, I’d like to hear what Cochrane knows. I’m interested to know what information Jack Barton had dug up against Towne.”
“I think he’s in the press room right now,” Gerlach offered. “Shall I bring him in, Chief?”
Dyer said, “Sure,” and fitted another cigarette into the end of his holder. Gerlach went out, and returned a few minutes later with Neil Cochrane. The reporter strutted in ahead of him with a thin smile of triumph on his lips. “Got a confession from Towne yet? Looks to me like we’ve got him dead to rights and-”
“We’ve just been talking to Mr. and Mrs. Barton,” Dyer interrupted him.
The reporter stopped and tilted his head inquiringly. “Who?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Barton.”
Cochrane blinked his eyes and looked doubtful. “Is that supposed to mean anything to me?”
Dyer said, “Sit down.” He waited until Cochrane was seated before telling him, “Jack Barton’s parents.”
Cochrane pursed his lips and let out a thin whistle. He nodded wisely. “The lad who was carrying a grudge against Towne?”
“What was he blackmailing him with?”
Cochrane managed to look confused. “Who was blackmailing whom?”
“You were in on it,” Dyer reminded him. “You offered the kid five hundred for his information if Towne didn’t pay off.”
Cochrane’s eyes were very bright. He hunched his shoulder blades up and ducked his head forward. “All right. I haven’t anything to hide. Sure, I offered him five C’s for some dope that would fry Towne at the polls. Why not? The Free Press is always willing to pay for information in the public interest.”
“What was that information?” barked Dyer.
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me that. And I guess Towne paid off, all right,” Cochrane added regretfully. “Young Barton was to see me Tuesday evening if there was any slip-up. I didn’t see him.”
“So he didn’t tell you what it was?” Dyer snorted. “You went out on a limb and were willing to pay five hundred for information without knowing what it was?”
“Hell, no,” Cochrane protested in an injured tone. “I told him it would be worth five hundred to my paper if it proved to be as hot as he claimed. He wouldn’t even hint what it was. Only that it was plenty big enough to blast Towne out of the mayoralty race.”
“Have you seen the body we pulled out of the river last night?” Gerlach demanded.
Cochrane twisted his neck to look at him, shaking his head slightly. “There was a picture of him in the morning paper but I didn’t look at it closely.”
“Remind you of anyone?” Dyer pounded at him.
“Why, no. I can’t say that it-” Neil Cochrane clamped his lips together suddenly. A queer expression flitted across his face. He said, “By God,” softly, and nodded. “Could be. Maybe I was right, huh, when I warned Barton he was playing with dynamite trying to blackmail Towne? Is that why he didn’t get in touch with me?”
“So you do recognize the picture now?”
“Wait a minute,” Cochrane protested warily. “I’m not saying I do. Hell, I only saw Barton twice. Same build, though. Same general features. And it adds up,” he added eagerly. “The payoff was set for Tuesday afternoon. Same time Riley saw Towne choking a man by the river.”
“A soldier,” Dyer reminded him ironically. “Identified by Riley as Private James Brown by your own picture in the Free Press. Are you suggesting he choked two men by the river Tuesday afternoon?”
“No. But here’s something to chew on. Both times I saw Barton, he was wearing khaki riding breeches and leather boots and a tan shirt. Not too much unlike a soldier’s uniform. Do you suppose Riley could be mistaken in his identification, and actually saw Towne getting rid of a blackmailer?”
“Let’s ask Towne,” Dyer growled. He nodded curtly to Captain Gerlach and said, “Have him brought in.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Neil Cochrane sidled back into a corner of the room, pulling a chair with him as the captain went out. There was a smirk of satisfaction on his face as he settled down to wait for Towne to be brought in. Dyer scowled at him and warned, “You’re not in the clear, Cochrane. Accessory to an extortion plot fits you like a glove.”
Cochrane laughed shortly. “Accessory, hell! I did my best to talk the lad out of it. I warned him that Jeff Towne wasn’t the sort to pay off without a fight.”
“And you would much rather have had the information in print in the Free Press than see it suppressed,” Shayne put in.
Cochrane grinned at him cockily. “I won’t deny that. I tried to convince Jack Barton he’d be better off with my five hundred alive than trying to stick Towne for ten grand.”
“But you didn’t report it to us,” Dyer pointed out. “You knew about the blackmail plot before Barton went to Towne. You took an active part in it by concealing guilty knowledge. I can lock you up for that.”
“Perhaps,” Cochrane conceded indifferently. “I won’t stay locked up long if you do. And if you’re smart, Chief, you’ll start climbing on the bandwagon. Carter’s going to be our next mayor and you know it as well as I do.” He stretched out his thin shanks and yawned placidly.
Dyer clamped his teeth together, and his face reddened with impotent rage. He didn’t look at Shayne. He sat behind his desk in glum silence until the door opened again and Gerlach ushered the prisoner in.
A night in jail had not improved Jefferson Towne’s disposition, nor his appearance. There was a surly scowl on his rugged face, and his eyes were red-rimmed from worry and lack of sleep. His beard had sprouted raggedly during the night, and his clothing was rumpled.
He glared balefully at Shayne and Dyer as he strode into the room, demanded acidly, “Where’s my attorney? Hasn’t he showed up yet? What about a habeas corpus, or whatever it is? By God, I pay him an annual retainer-”
Dyer said, “Sit down, Towne, and tell us when you last saw Jack Barton.”
Towne’s expression did not change. He snorted, “Who’s Jack Barton? How do I know when I saw him last? I want to phone Lionel Jackson. I’ll tell him-”
“Right now you’d better tell me some things.” Dyer’s voice was uncompromising. “Sit down and relax. Mr. Jackson was in to see me early this morning trying to earn the retainer you pay his firm, but he didn’t get very far.”
“Riley’s accusation is crazy on the face of it,” Towne grated, dropping into a chair facing Dyer. “Anyone with the sense of a half-wit knows the soldier could have been dead only a few minutes before he was placed in the path of my car. Don’t you think I would have known it, or the ambulance attendant, if he’d been dead for hours, as Riley claims?”