“Yes. They’ve put it up in rather a dirty way. They’ve intimated that you’ve been reached by money or influence, or both; that you’re throwing up a big smoke screen to protect some prominent motion picture actress who’s involved in the murder; that you met her at a secret conference and she told you who the murdered man really was. The Blade threatens to publish her name.”
“Good God!” Selby said.
“Anything to it?” the sheriff asked.
“Yes, and no,” Selby told him. “I’m protecting Miss Arden... that is, I simply didn’t make her name public because I’m satisfied she had no connection with the case. I’d have told you about it if it hadn’t been necessary for me to rush up to Riverbend to make that identification absolute.”
“I was wondering,” the sheriff said slowly, “how it happened you were so certain that Larrabie of Riverbend was the man we wanted. You must have had a tip from somewhere.”
“In a way, yes.”
“Did it come from this actress?”
“Let’s not talk about this thing over the telephone,” Selby said. “Suppose you run out to my apartment? We can talk here.”
“I’m just going to the Madison Hotel,” the sheriff said. “I understand Cushing’s found a guest who heard some typing across in three twenty-one. Suppose you make it snappy and meet me there?”
“I’m all grimy from travel,” Selby said. “I’m just climbing into the bathtub, but I can make it in about fifteen or twenty minutes... only, wait a minute, Rex, I haven’t a car. I left mine down in Los Angeles.”
“Suppose I drive around and pick you up?” the sheriff suggested.
“That’ll be fine,” Selby told him. “Be here in ten minutes.”
He dropped the receiver back into place.
So The Blade knew about Shirley Arden, did they? And they’d turned the blast of dirty publicity on her. Damn them! He’d make them suffer for that. It was a dirty shame to drag her into it. That’s what politics would do.
He stood there, eyes smoldering with rage, his fists clenched, his legs stretched far apart, and it wasn’t until he heard the splash of water on the tiled floor of the bathroom that he suddenly realized he’d left the hot water running full force.
Selby flung bath towels on the floor to mop up the surplus moisture, tubbed hastily and met Sheriff Brandon in exactly twelve minutes from the time of the telephone call.
“Listen,” he said, “I’m getting fed up on this yellow journalism. I’m...”
“Take it easy, son,” Rex Brandon advised, starting the car toward the Madison Hotel. “You’ve fought your way through a lot of stuff without losing your head. Don’t begin now.”
“It’s the damned injustice of it,” Selby said.
“Lots of things in the world are unjust, Doug.”
“I can take it as far as I’m concerned,” Doug Selby went on, “but when it comes to dragging in a woman, jeopardizing the career of an actress and perpetrating the dastardly libel by insinuation I get all fed up.”
“The best way to win a fight,” the sheriff remarked, “is never to get mad, and, if you must get mad, never let the other fellow know it. Now, get a smile on your face. We’re going up and find out about that typewriting business. Maybe we’ll run on to Bittner and maybe we won’t. But, in any event, you’re going to walk into that hotel smiling.”
Selby took a deep breath, slowly his face twisted into a set grin.
“That ain’t a smile,” Rex Brandon said, “that’s the sort of face a man makes when he’s got a pain in his stomach. Relax a little bit... there, that’s better.”
He swung his car in to the curb in front of the hotel. Together, the two men entered the lobby.
George Cushing came toward them, his face twisted into a succession of grimaces. His head jerked with St. Vitus-dance-like regularity toward the counter, where a man in a blue serge business suit was engaged in a low-voiced conversation with the clerk. On the counter in front of the man was a letter.
“Step right this way, gentlemen, if you’re in search of rooms,” Cushing said, and taking the surprised sheriff by the arm, led him over to the counter. He said to the clerk, “These two gentlemen are strangers in the city. They are looking for rooms.”
The clerk looked up at Brandon and the district attorney. Recognition flooded his features, then gave place to a look of puzzled bewilderment.
“They’re strangers in the city,” Cushing repeated. “They want rooms. Go ahead and dispose of your business with this man.”
The man in the blue suit was too engrossed in his own affairs to give any particular heed to the conversation.
“It’s my money,” he said, “and I’m entitled to it.”
Cushing bustled importantly behind the counter and said, “What seems to be the trouble, Johnson?”
“This man says that he’s entitled to an envelope containing five thousand dollars which Mr. Brower left on deposit in the safe.”
Brandon moved up on one side of the man at the counter. Selby moved to the other side and nodded to Cushing.
“I’m the manager here,” Cushing said. “What’s your name?”
“You heard what I had to say a few minutes ago. You were standing over there by the safe. You heard the whole thing,” the man said.
“I wasn’t paying any particular attention to it,” Cushing said. “I thought it was just some ordinary dispute. Mr. Brower is dead, you know. We can’t hand over the money without some definite assurance that it’s yours.”
“I don’t know what more you want than this letter,” the man said. “You can see for yourself it says the money is mine.”
Cushing picked up the typewritten letter, read it, then placed it back on the counter, turning it so that Selby and the sheriff could read it without difficulty.
The letter was addressed to George Claymore, at the Bentley Hotel in Los Angeles. It read:
“My dear George:
“You’ll be glad to learn that I’ve been successful in my mission. I have your five thousand dollars in the form of five one-thousand-dollar bills. Naturally I’d like to have you come up as soon as possible to get the money. I don’t like to have that amount in my possession and, for obvious reasons, I can’t bank it. I’ve given it to the clerk to put in the safe here at the hotel.
“I am signing this letter exactly the way I have signed my name on the envelope, so the clerk can compare the two signatures, if necessary.
“With kindest fraternal regards, and assuring you that this little incident has served to increase my faith and that I hope it will strengthen yours, I am,
“Sincerely,
Down below the signature in the lower left hand corner was typed “Room 321, Madison Hotel.”
“Perhaps I can be of some assistance to you,” Selby volunteered, “I happen to know something about Mr. Brower’s death.”
“You do?”
“Yes, in a general way. You’re Claymore, are you?”
“Yes.”
“And that, of course, is your money.”
“You can read plainly enough what this letter says.”
“You were in Los Angeles at the Bentley Hotel when you received this letter?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s see when it was mailed. It’s post-marked from here on Tuesday. When did you get it?”
“I didn’t get it until late last night.”
“That’s poor service,” Selby said.
The other man nodded. There seemed about him a curious lack of self-assertion.
“I suppose,” Selby said casually to Cushing, “the management here will want a brief statement of what the money was for and how it happened to be in the murdered man’s possession.”