Selby said coldly, “I still can’t see why you knocked on the door of three twenty-one.”
“Well, that’s what I’m trying to lead up to. She’s a good kid. She wanted to sleep. I’d had a couple of drinks and I was feeling chivalrous. This typewriter was making a racket like a machine gun. The transom was open. You could hear the thing clacking all up and down the corridor. I figured it’d be a swell thing to tell this guy it was bedtime, see?”
Selby exchanged glances with the sheriff.
Perry twisted his neck around inside his collar, took a deep breath and went on, “It was the thing anyone would do under the circumstances. The kid was trying to sleep. Lots of people in the hotel were trying to sleep. I’d had four or five drinks. I was feeling pretty good — not jingled, you understand, but mellow and protective — so I took the girl home and dated her up for a night next week. Then, when I started toward the elevator I felt kind of boy-scoutish, so I tapped on the door.”
“What happened?”
“The typewriter stopped.”
“Did you knock again?”
“Yes.”
“Get any answer?”
“No.”
“Did you say anything?”
“No, not after he stopped typewriting. I figured there was no use doing anything else... You know how it is, you’re in a bedroom and you can hear some guy snoring in the other room. You knock on the wall. He rolls over and quits snoring. That’s all there is to it.”
Perry seemed pathetically eager to have them believe his explanation.
Selby tapped the top of his desk with an impressive forefinger and said, “Now, listen, Perry, you and I might just as well understand each other now as later. You knew this man in three twenty-one.”
“I knew him?” Perry exclaimed, his eyes wide.
“Yes, you knew him. He came here to see you in connection with that lawsuit of yours.”
“You’re crazy!” Perry said, then catching himself, said quickly, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Selby, I didn’t mean that. You know, I was just speaking hastily. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, but the idea’s all cuckoo. I never heard of the man in my life.”
Sheriff Brandon said slowly, “Look here, Perry, we know that this man was interested in your lawsuit. He’d made a collection of newspaper clippings about it.”
“Lots of people are interested in it,” Perry said sullenly.
“But this man had some particular reason to be interested in it.”
“Well, suppose he did?”
“We want to know what that interest was,” Selby said.
“You’ll have to ask someone else, I can’t tell you.”
Once more the officers exchanged glances.
“The typewriting stopped the first time you knocked on the door?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know how long the typewriting had been going on?”
“No, the man was typing when I got out of the elevator.”
“And you say it sounded like a machine gun?”
“I’ll say it did.”
“It was rapid?”
“Yes.”
“Were there any pauses?”
“Not a pause. The thing was being ripped off at high speed, by someone who knew what he was doing. He could play that typewriter like my cousin could play a piano.”
“And you didn’t go into Helen Marks’ room?”
“No, I just saw her to the door.”
“How long did you stay there?”
“Just long enough to kiss her good-night.”
“Did that take any great amount of time?” Brandon asked.
“What he means,” Selby said, grinning, as he saw the expression on the boy’s face, “is whether you had to lead up to it with any preliminaries.”
“No,” Perry said readily enough. “She... well, I think it was her idea. She sort of turned around and stuck up her chin.”
“And you don’t know any reason why this man was interested in your lawsuit?”
“No,” Perry said, then, after a moment’s hesitation, added, “I wouldn’t want this repeated, but I’m afraid it isn’t much of a lawsuit, Mr. Selby. I’m willing to settle for anything I can get, but I don’t think I can even get an offer. I need money — need it bad.”
“As I see it,” Selby remarked, keeping his eyes fixed on the younger man, “the whole thing hinges on the question of whether a marriage ceremony had been performed. Now, here’s a man who’s a minister of the Gospel who’s taken an interest in the case. Naturally, the first thought which comes to my mind is that he must have known something about a marriage ceremony.”
Perry shook his head and said, “My lawyers have searched the records everywhere. It doesn’t make any difference if a marriage ceremony was performed, if it wasn’t a legal marriage ceremony, and the law says a marriage ceremony isn’t legal unless there’s been a license issued and a ceremony performed in the county where the license was issued, and then there has to be some registration made, some certificate that the marriage was performed. We’ve searched the records everywhere and find that the folks never even took out a license. They thought their marriage in Yuma was good.”
“They might have gone out of the state somewhere and married and this man might have known about it.”
“Then why didn’t he get in touch with me?”
“Perhaps he intended to.”
Perry shook his head and said, “No, that’s out, too. The folks made one trip up to Oregon. Aside from that, they stayed right there on the home place. You know, they were pretty much stay-at-home sort of people.”
“When did they go to Oregon?”
“About a year ago.”
“And you’re certain they didn’t get married in Oregon?”
“Yes, we’ve traced them everywhere. Of course, Mr. Selby, I’m telling you this in strict confidence. My lawyer’s putting up the best bluff he can and trying to get a settlement. He’ll get half if he does, so he’s working hard. I’m not supposed to tell this, but if you’re interested in this preacher and figure he had anything to do with the case, I want you to have the low-down on it.”
Brandon said, not unkindly, “That’s all, Herbert. Go on back to the service station, and don’t tell anyone you’ve been questioned. Just keep quiet about everything.”
When Perry had closed the door behind him, the sheriff and Doug Selby hitched their chairs closer together. “The kid’s telling the truth,” Brandon announced.
“I know it,” Selby said, “but it’s such a peculiar coincidence that he should have been the one to knock on the door.”
“Coincidences happen like that in real life all the time. Think of what a coincidence it was that the real Charles Brower should have come walking into the hotel and found his wife there.”
“That wasn’t a coincidence,” Selby pointed out. “There are basic reasons back of that. That’s no more a coincidence than it is that a man playing a poor game of chess suddenly finds his king where he can’t make a move. Brower came to the hotel to claim the money. His wife came here to identify his remains and thought she saw a chance to collect her traveling expenses and perhaps a little extra. So she stayed on.”
“Well, nothing’s a coincidence if you want to look at things that way,” Brandon said, “because there’s a reason for everything.”
Selby said slowly, “I’m wondering if there’s a reason that this Marks girl picked up this particular young man and brought him to the hotel at a certain particular time.”
Brandon shrugged his shoulders.
“And you can’t get anything out of Brower?” Selby asked.
“Not a thing,” Brandon said. “He’s close-mouthed as a clam. And his wife smells a rat somewhere. She wants him to talk — but to her, and not to us. She rushed out and got him a lawyer... Where do you suppose Larrabie got that five thousand dollars from?”