She shook her head impatiently and said, “Now I’ll do some supposing. Suppose there’s an angle to this case which is going to be given inevitable publicity? Suppose the story is going to be published in a hostile newspaper tomorrow night? Suppose we’re going to be scooped on the thing. Don’t you think it would be more fair for you to give me the news than to withhold it?”
“But you wouldn’t want me to violate a confidence, would you?”
“Wouldn’t it be better for the person who gave you that confidence to have the facts correctly reported in a newspaper which didn’t deliberately try to distort them in order to belittle you?”
Selby was thinking that over when the telephone on his desk rang. He picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”
“Where the devil have you been?” Rex Brandon’s voice rasped over the wire. “I’ve been trying to call you at intervals for the last twenty minutes.”
“I took a quick run over to the Madison Hotel to investigate a development there.”
“Find anything?”
“Nothing that I can discuss with you now. It’s something we should talk over later. What have you got — anything?”
“Yes, I’ve got what may be a lead.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve been talking with that oculist in San Francisco on the telephone. He’s got a long list of names who have that same prescription, or correction, or whatever it is you call it. Among them are two ministers. One of them’s a Reverend Hillyard from some little church in San Francisco, and the other’s a Reverend William Larrabie from Riverbend, California.”
Selby’s voice betrayed his excitement, “Hold everything,” he said. “That last name is the one we want.”
“How do you know?”
“From some checking up I’ve been doing. I know that the man’s name has the syllable ‘Larry’ in it and that he comes from a town in California that has a ‘River’ in its name.”
“Okay,” Brandon said. “What do we do next?”
“I’ll tell you what we do,” Selby exclaimed. “You hold the fort here. I’ll rush to Los Angeles, charter a plane and go directly to this place. We won’t take the chance of making a mistake this time, and we won’t overlook any bets. I have a picture of the man with me.”
“You don’t think we should make the identification through that oculist?” the sheriff asked. “We could get a photograph up to him by plane within three or four hours.”
“No, it’s still a second-hand identification. Let’s go right to the real source of information. I’m satisfied this is a hot lead. Remember, we’ve got a double problem. We not only have to identify the body, but we’ve got to find out why the man was here, what possible enemies he had, and what possible motivation might have led to his murder.”
“All right,” the sheriff said, “go to it. I’ll keep running down leads here. Where can I reach you if I want to send you a wire?”
“Send the wire to John Smith at General Delivery, Riverbend,” Selby said. “In that way, if any of the clerks in the telegraph office should be inclined to indulge in any gossip, we’ll remove some of the temptation.”
“When are you leaving?” Brandon asked.
“Right now,” Selby said.
He hung up the telephone, turned to Sylvia Martin. “All right, sister,” he said, “you claim you don’t get any breaks. How would you like to go to Los Angeles with me and take a trip by airplane to identify this dead man? You’d be in time to wire an exclusive story to your paper.”
She danced toward him, flung her arms around him.
“Doug, you dear!” she exclaimed, and left a smear of lipstick on his cheek.
“Of course,” he said dubiously, dabbing at the lipstick with his handkerchief, “I don’t know when I’ll get back or just where we’ll be. After all, there’s the question of conventions...”
“The conventions,” she told him, “be damned! Let’s get started!”
Chapter X
The plane, a small cabin ship, roared on through the darkness. The altimeter registered an elevation of six thousand feet. The clock on the dash showed the time as two-fifteen.
A cluster of lights showed vaguely ahead, looking as glimmeringly indistinct as a gaseous nebula seen through a telescope. Directly below, a beacon light flashed warning blinks of red, then white, as a long beam from its searchlight circled the country like some questing finger.
The pilot leaned toward Doug Selby, placed his lips close to the district attorney’s ear and shouted, “That’s Sacramento. I’ll land there. I won’t take chances on a night landing farther up. You’ll have to go on by car.”
Selby nodded. “I’ve already arranged for the car,” he yelled.
Her face looking wan from the strain and excitement, Sylvia Martin slumped back in the cushioned seat, her eyes closed, her senses fatigued by the steady roar of the motor which had beat a ceaseless pulsation upon her ear drums for more than two hours.
The lights of Sacramento speedily gained in brilliance, resolved themselves into myriad pin points of incandescence which winked and twinkled out of the darkness below.
The plane swung slightly to the right as the pilot got his bearings. The street lights came marching forward toward the plane in a steady procession. The pilot throttled down the motor, tilted the plane toward the ground.
As the steady pulsations gave way to a peculiar whining noise and the wind started to scream through the struts, Sylvia Martin woke up, smiled at Selby, leaned forward and shouted, “Where are we?”
The noise of the motor drowned out her words, but Selby guessed at her question, placed his lips close to her ear and yelled, “Sacramento.”
The plane tilted forward at a sharper angle, the lights rose up to meet them. An airport showed below. The pilot straightened out and gunned the motor. With the roar of sound, flood-lights illuminated a landing runway. The pilot noted the direction of the wind from an illuminated wind sock, swung into position, once more cut down the motor and came gliding toward the ground. The wheels struck the smooth runway. The plane gave a quick series of jolts, then rolled forward toward the buildings.
As the plane came to a stop, a man wearing an overcoat and chauffeur’s cap came walking out toward it. The pilot opened the cabin door. Selby climbed stiffly to the ground, assisted Sylvia Martin to alight. The slipstream from the idling motor caught her skirts, blew them tightly about the shapely limbs, then whipped them upward. She gave a startled scream, grabbed at her skirts, and Selby swung her clear of the wind current.
She laughed nervously and, forgetting for the moment there was no longer need to shout against the roar of the motor, yelled at the top of her voice, “I didn’t know what to grab at first, my skirts or my hair.”
The man in the overcoat and chauffeur’s cap, coming up, heard her, smiled, tipped his cap and said, “Are you the parties who telephoned for the car — Mr. Selby?”
“Yes,” Selby said, “I want to go to Riverbend. How long will it take us to get there?”
“Almost three hours.”
Selby looked at his wristwatch and said, “All right, let’s go. Can we get some coffee here?”
“Sure, there’s a swell little restaurant where you can get almost anything you want.”
They had coffee and hamburger sandwiches at the lunch counter. Sylvia grinned across at the district attorney and said, “Adventure, eh what?”
He nodded. His mood was as buoyant as her own. “Late hours for us country folk,” he told her.