“You know, there’s an exhilaration about riding in a plane,” she said, sighing.
“Your first time?” he asked.
“Yes. I was frightened to death but I didn’t want to say so.”
“I thought so,” he told her.
“That bumpy air over the mountains made me think the plane had lost a wing and we were falling.”
“It was a bit rough for a minute. However, we’re here now. It won’t be long until we know the answer.”
Her eyes sparkled over the rim of her coffee cup at him.
“You know, Doug, I’m sorry I doubted you. It’s a swell break to give me. I can telephone in a story that will be a peach... I suppose he’s married... oh, I shouldn’t be talking like this, but I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t. After all, he’s dead and nothing I can do can call him back. Of course, I’m sorry that we’ll have to be the ones to break the news to his wife and all of that, but I’m just enough of a news-hound to appreciate what a swell story it’ll be. I can pack it full of human emotion. The Blade may or may not uncover something about the man’s identity, but they can’t get in on the ground floor, telling just how the news was received. They can’t give an accurate word picture of the man’s background, his home and... Oh, dear, Doug, you don’t suppose there are kiddies, do you?”
“We don’t know a thing in the world about it,” he said. “We’re not even definitely certain he’s the man.”
“Tell me, Doug, how did you know the name had a ‘Larry’ in it, and that he lived in a place that was a river something-or-other?”
He shook his head, looked at his wristwatch and said, “Finish up your sandwich. You can ask questions later.”
She wolfed down the rest of the sandwich, washed it down with coffee, wiped her fingertips on the napkin, grinned and said, “ ‘Rotten manners,’ says Emily Post, but ‘Swell stuff,’ says the city editor. Come on, Doug, let’s go.”
For several moments she was depressed, then, walking across toward the waiting automobile, she regained some measure of her spirits.
“Somehow,” she said, “from the description we have of him, I don’t think there are children. If there are, they’ll be pretty well grown. Do you know what the population of Riverbend is, Doug?”
“I looked it up on the map. It’s supposed to be three thousand two hundred, according to the last census.”
“We’ll get there,” she said, “just about daylight. It’ll be on a river, with willow trees growing along the banks. The place will look drab, just as dawn commences to break. There’ll be a church which is in need of paint, a parsonage in back of the church, a poor little house trying to put up a brave, front... Tell me, Doug, why can’t they incorporate religion?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Fix it so that the big moneyed churches finance the little ones. You know as well as I do how hard it is to keep a minister going in a little town of three thousand people. There are probably four or five denominations represented in that town. Each one of them has its church and its minister.”
“You mean they should consolidate?”
“No, no, not the denominations, Doug, but I mean the big churches should support the little ones. For instance, suppose this man is a Methodist, and say, in the big cities there are big prosperous Methodist churches. Why couldn’t the big churches support the little ones?”
“Don’t they?” he asked. “Isn’t there an arrangement by which part of the man’s salary is paid...?”
“Oh, I don’t mean that. I mean really support them. It seems a shame that the Methodists in Riverbend should support the Methodist Church in Riverbend, and the Methodists in San Francisco should support the Methodist churches in San Francisco. Why can’t they all support churches everywhere?”
“You’ll have to take it up with the churches,” he told her. “Come on, get in.”
She laughed and said, “I think I’m getting sentimental, Doug.”
“You get over in that corner of the seat,” he ordered, “and go to sleep. You’re going to have a hard day.”
She pouted and said, “My head will jolt around on that corner of the seat.”
“Oh, all right,” he told her, laughing, and sliding his arm about her shoulders, “come on over.”
She gave a sigh, snuggled down against his shoulder, and was asleep before the car had purred along the smooth ribbon of cement highway for more than a mile.
She wakened as the car slowed, rubbed her eyes and looked about her. The first streaks of dawn were shrinking the beams of the headlights into little insignificant threads of illumination. The stars had receded until they were barely visible. The tang of dawn was in the air. The countryside was taking on a gray, spectral appearance.
A few scattered houses gave place to a street fairly well built up with unpretentious residences. The car slowed almost to a stop, turned a corner, and Sylvia exclaimed, “Oh, goody, the main street! Look at The Emporium, Doug.”
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“I want to find the place where a Reverend Larrabie lived. I have a hunch he was a Methodist. Let’s see if we can find the Methodist Church. Or we may find some service station that’s open.”
“There’s one down the street,” the driver said.
They drove into the service station. A young man, his hair slightly tousled, emerged from the warm interior into the chill tang of the morning air. He fought against a yawn while he tried to smile.
Selby laughed, rolled down the window and said, “We’re looking for the Reverend Larrabie. Can you tell me where he lives?”
“Methodist Parsonage, straight on down the road two blocks, turn to the left one block,” the young man said. “May I clean your windshield for you? And how’s the water in your radiator?”
The driver laughed and said, “You win, Buddy, fill ’er up.”
They waited while the car was being serviced, then once more started on. By this time the sky was showing a bluish tint. Birds were timidly throating the first tentative notes of a new dawn. They rounded the corner to the left and saw a small white church building which, even in the dim light of early dawn, showed that it was sadly in need of paint. As the driver slid the car in close to the curb and stopped it, a dog began to bark. Aside from that, there was no sign of life in the street.
“Well,” the driver said, “here we are.”
He opened the door. Selby stepped out, gave his hand to Sylvia. They crossed a strip of unpaved sidewalk, opened a gate in a picket fence. The dog across the street began to bark hysterically.
Sylvia was looking about her, her eyes alight with interest, her cheeks flushed.
“Perfect!” she exclaimed. “Absolutely priceless!”
They walked up a little graveled walk, their heels crunching the pebbles, sounding absurdly loud in the hush of early morning. Doug Selby led the way up the wooden steps to the porch, crossed to the door and rang the bell. A faint jangling sound could be heard, from the interior of the house. The district attorney opened the screen door and pounded with his knuckles on the panels of the door.
“Oh, there must be someone home. There simply has to be,” Sylvia said in a half whisper.
Once more Selby’s knuckles beat a tattoo on the panels of the door. Sylvia Martin pressed a gloved thumb against the bell button.
From within the house came the sounds of muffled footsteps.
Sylvia, who had been holding her breath, started to breathe again and laughed nervously. “Doug,” she said, “I’m so excited I could almost burst!”
The footsteps approached the door. The knob turned, the door opened. A motherly woman, with hair which had just commenced to turn gray and was tousled about her head, a bathrobe wrapped about her, what was evidently a flannel nightgown showing through the opening in the neck of the robe, surveyed them with patient gray eyes.