He turned to the man at his side, smiled and said, “Go right ahead, Mr. Claymore, just give them a brief outline.”
“Well,” Claymore said, “it was like this. You see...”
He broke off, stared at the elevator, then turned abruptly toward the door.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
Sheriff Brandon grabbed the man’s coat tails, spun him around, flipped back his own coat lapel to show a gold-plated star.
“Buddy,” he said, “you’re back right now. What’s the game?”
“Let me alone! Let me go! You’ve got no right to hold me! You...” He became abruptly silent, turned back toward the counter, stood with his shoulders hunched over, his head lowered.
Selby looked toward the elevator. Mrs. Charles Brower was marching sedately toward the street exit.
“She staying here?” he asked Cushing.
“Yes, temporarily. She’s insisting that someone pay her expenses. She’s hired Sam Roper.”
Selby said to Brandon, “Turn him around so he faces the lobby, Rex.”
The sheriff spun the man around. He continued to keep his head lowered.
Selby raised his voice and called, “Why, good morning, Mrs. Brower.”
The woman turned on her heel, stared at Selby, then, as recognition flooded her countenance, she bore down upon him with an ominous purpose.
“I’ve never been to law,” she said, “but I’ve got some rights in this matter, Mr. Selby. I just wanted you to know that I’ve consulted a lawyer and...”
She broke off, to stare with wide, incredulous eyes.
“Charles!” she screamed. “What are you doing here?”
For a moment Selby thought that the man wasn’t going to raise his head. Then he looked up at her with a sickly smile, and said, “As far as that’s concerned, what are you doing here?”
“I came here to identify your body.”
He wet his lips with his tongue, said in a burst of wild desperation, “Well, you see, I... I read in the paper I was dead, so I came here to see about it.”
“What about this five thousand dollars?” Brandon asked.
The man whirled. The typewritten letter was still on the counter. His face held the expression of a drowning man, looking frantically about him, trying to find some straw at which he might clutch.
“What letter?” Mrs. Brower asked, moving curiously toward the counter.
Selby folded the letter and envelope and thrust it in his pocket. “This your husband?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Let’s let him tell about it.”
Brower clamped his lips together in a firm, straight line.
“Go on,” Selby said, “I’d like to hear your story, Brower.”
The man remained mute.
“Speak up, Charles! What’s the matter with you?” Mrs. Brower snapped. “You haven’t been doing something you’re ashamed of, have you?”
Brower continued to remain silent.
“Go on, speak up,” Mrs. Brower ordered.
There was something in the dominant eye of his wife which brought Brower out of his silence, to mumble, “I don’t think I’d better say anything right now, dear. It might make trouble for everyone, if I did.”
“Why, what’s the matter with you? You jellyfish!” she said. “Certainly you’re going to speak up. Go right ahead and tell your story. You’ve got to tell it sooner or later and you might just as well tell it now.”
Brower shook his head. Mrs. Brower looked at the men helplessly.
“Well, of all things!” she said.
“I’m afraid,” Selby said, “that if you don’t speak up, we’re going to have to detain you for questioning, Mr. Brower.”
A little crowd had collected in the lobby, and the interested spectators served as a magnet to draw more curiosity seekers.
The sheriff said quietly, “I think I’d better take him along with me, Doug. You stay here and look into that other angle. Then come on up to the jail. Perhaps he’ll have changed his mind.”
Selby nodded.
“Make way, folks,” Brandon said cheerfully.
Mrs. Brower swung into step beside her husband and the sheriff. “Don’t think you’re going to take him where I can’t talk to him,” she said grimly. “He’s got an explanation to make to me... Out on a motor trip, huh? Resting his nerves, eh? The very idea! What sort of goings-on is that for a respectable married man, and a parson, at that.”
Selby watched the crowd trail along uncertainly, saw the sheriff push his prisoner through the door and into the automobile, saw Mrs. Brower, with the calm finality of one who has implicit faith in herself and her ability to do anything she decides upon, climb into the rear seat of the automobile with her husband.
The sheriff started the car.
Selby caught Cushing’s eye, jerked his head toward Cushing’s office and said, “Let’s have a little chat.”
Selby followed the hotel man into the office and faced him.
“What about it?” the district attorney asked.
“This chap showed up out of a clear sky,” Cushing said, “came walking up to the desk big as life, and asked if Mr. Brower was in his room. The clerk was flabbergasted. I was over by the safe. I pretended not to be taking any great interest in the conversation. The clerk told him, no, Mr. Brower wasn’t in, and then the chap produced that letter and said Brower had left five thousand dollars in the safe for him. I signaled the clerk to stall him along, and I was just starting for the telephone booth to put in a call for you when you came walking in the door.”
“You don’t know anything more about him than that?”
“That’s all.”
Selby said, “Get out that envelope. Let’s check the signatures.”
“I haven’t it. The sheriff took it up and locked it in his safe yesterday night.”
“All right, I’ll keep the letter,” Selby said. “Now, I understand there was someone who heard typewriting in three twenty-one.”
“Yes, a Miss Helen Marks.”
“Where is she?”
“In her room.”
“What’s the number?”
“Three seventy-two.”
“Have you talked with her?”
“Only generally.”
“What’s her story?”
“She heard typing in three twenty-one when she came in Monday night. She says it was some time around midnight.”
“I think I’ll talk with her,” Selby said; “give her a ring and tell her I’m coming up.”
“Listen,” Cushing pleaded, “this thing keeps getting worse and worse. Guests are commencing to get frightened. Now, I’m entitled to some consideration from your office, Selby. I want you to catch that murderer.”
Selby grinned and said, “Perhaps if you hadn’t been so insistent that we hush it all up at the start, we might have got further.”
“Well, that looked like the best thing to do then. You can understand my position. I’m running a hotel, and...”
Selby clapped him on the back and said. “Okay, George, we’ll do the best we can. What was that number, three seventy-two?”
“Right.”
Selby took the elevator to the third floor and knocked on the door of three seventy-two. It was opened almost immediately by a dark-complexioned young woman in the early twenties. Her eyes were very large and smoke-gray. She wore a checked black and white tailored suit. Make-up showed bright patches of color on her cheeks. Her lips were smeared with lipstick until they were a glossy red.
“You’re Mr. Selby,” she asked, “the district attorney?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Helen Marks. Come in. They said you were coming up to see me.”
“You heard the typewriting in room three twenty-one?” Selby asked.
“Yes. It was Monday night.”
“What do you do for a living? Do you work?”