Selby’s face in the photograph showed surprise, consternation and dismay.
The garage attendant, usually so genial, so proud of having supported Selby in the election, was very much engrossed in inspecting a cut in an automobile tire. Men who ordinarily would have insisted upon Selby stopping to chat for a moment, or would have made some comment on the recent election, hurried by with scant nods, each engrossed with some suddenly urgent business which prevented him from being seen talking to the district attorney.
Selby, his jaw set grimly, strode down the flagged corridor of the big courthouse, pushed open the door of his offices and nodded to Amorette Standish.
“Sheriff Brandon called,” she told him, “and wanted me to be sure to tell you, as soon as you came in, that Mr. Cushing had hurriedly left town on business.”
Selby frowned, said, “Thanks,” and opened the door to his private office.
Sylvia Martin was seated in his swivel chair, her feet up on his desk, her skirts showing a generous expanse of very shapely calf. She was blowing smoke rings at the ceiling.
At the sound of the opening door, she jerked her feet down and jumped from the chair with guilty consternation on her features.
“How did you get in here?” Selby asked, and his mood was sufficiently savage so that his voice lashed out at her bitterly.
She laughed, and said, “I sneaked, in. I wanted to be the first to see you.”
“Wanted to say, ‘I told you so,’ I suppose?” he asked.
Her eyes showed her hurt. “Doug!” she said simply.
“Well, go ahead,” he told her, “get it over with. Go on, tell me I let myself get bamboozled by an actress. Tell me you warned me, but I wouldn’t listen. Tell me...”
She came toward him, placed the tips of soft fingers against his lips. “Doug,” she said, “please.”
He saw then that her eyes were filling with tears.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, “and... and don’t doubt me.”
“I’m sorry, Sylvia,” he said. “I guess I’ve got my fighting clothes on and I’m just looking around for heads to crack.”
The dejection faded from her face. Her eyes brightened, smiled through the tears.
“Oh, swell!” she said.
“Meaning?” he asked.
“Meaning,” she said, “that that was just what I was hoping you’d do. That’s the only way to take it. Take it right on the chin and take it fighting.”
“At that,” he said, “I was an awful sap.”
“No, you weren’t,” she protested.
“Well,” he told her, “I’m in a mess now, anyway.”
She nodded and said, “Let’s not kid ourselves. You’re in an awful mess, Doug. The Blade is clamoring for your recall, claiming that you’re absolutely incompetent to solve even an ordinary mystery.”
“Ordinary mystery!” he exclaimed. “This is the damnedest nightmare I ever heard of. Everything you touch flies up and hits you in the face. Even the most simple things have a way of turning themselves wrong-side out, and becoming something entirely different.”
“Nevertheless,” she told him, looking at her watch, “you have until four-fifteen to solve it.”
“Four-fifteen!” he echoed. “Why the four-fifteen?”
“Because that’s the deadline of our extra.”
“You’re putting out an extra?”
“Yes,” she said. “Want to see the headlines? I got the boss to set them up and I pulled a proof.”
She opened her purse, pulled out a strip of newspaper flimsy, and stretched it across the desk. In huge black letters appeared the headline, “SELBY SOLVES MURDER.”
“What’s the idea?” he asked.
“The idea is,” she told him, “that if The Blade comes out with its regular issue tonight, following up the extra this morning, you’ll be finished. Public sentiment has swung definitely against you, Doug. If you once let it crystallize, it’s going to be almost impossible to change it. But we’ll have an extra on the street which will just about coincide with the evening edition of The Blade. The Blade will be damning you up one side and down the other. We’ll have the real solution of the murder printed. It’ll give the whole city a great laugh.”
“I’ll say it would. It would give me a great laugh.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he told her, “it’s absolutely impossible to solve it. Cushing is mixed up in it and Cushing’s skipped out. The actress is mixed up in it, God knows how deeply, and she won’t talk. She’ll avoid service of a subpoena. Probably she’s taking a plane right now, flying to some seaport where she can take a trip for her health.
“Charles Brower probably knows something about her, but Sam Roper’s had him released on habeas corpus. We didn’t have enough to put a charge against him. He merely claimed the five thousand dollars belonged to him. For all we know, it does. In trying to secure possession of it, he may have been seeking to secure possession of his own property. He merely refuses to state where the money came from or how it happened to be in the possession of the dead man. He claims it’s a business matter which doesn’t concern us. That’s no crime. And as long as Sam Roper is his lawyer, he won’t talk. Eventually, we’ll get the low-down on him, but it’ll take lots of time. Even then, it’ll be guesswork. What we need is proof.
“If I try to link Shirley Arden with that murder either directly or indirectly, I’ll be fighting the interests of some of the biggest bankers and financiers in the country. I’ll be bucking politicians who have not only a state but a national influence. And I’ll be advertising myself as a sucker. The thing’s got to be fought out by a slow, dogged, persistent campaign.”
She was standing close to him. Suddenly she reached up and shook him.
“Oh, you make me so damned mad!” she exclaimed.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Looking at it that way,” she told him, “by the time you’ve worked out a solution of the mystery no one will care anything about it. You probably won’t be in office. They’re going to start circulating a recall petition against you tomorrow morning. Everyone in the city feels you either sold out or were made a fool of. The minute you let it be known you’re trying to locate Shirley Arden, after having had that little dinner scene with her last night, and particularly when it becomes known that you can’t find her, you’re finished. It doesn’t make any difference how many murder mysteries you solve.
“And don’t ever underestimate this Carl Bittner. He’s clever. He’s a newspaper man who knows all of the angles. He knows how to use propaganda and sway public sentiment. While you’re patiently solving this mystery step by step, Bittner will take some short-cut and you’ll read the solution spread all over the front page of The Blade!”
“All right,” Selby said, grinning, “you win. We solve the murder by four-thirty.”
“Four-fifteen,” she said. “In fact, the solution has to be a little earlier so I can get the highlights of the story telephoned over to the office.”
“When do we start?” he asked her, grinning.
“We start now.”
“All right,” he said, “here’s something for you to consider. Here’s the camera which the dead man had in his possession. For some reason or other, that camera seems to have a very peculiar significance. Someone tried to steal it from me in Hollywood last night.”