“Well?” she asked.
“The man who got the letter wasn’t the man to whom it was written,” Selby said.
“What are you talking about, Doug? You can’t know that.”
“So far,” he told her, “I am just indulging in theories. Now, let’s start checking up on facts.”
She glanced at her wristwatch and said ironically, “Yes, my editor always likes facts. Particularly when the paper is going to accuse someone of murder.”
“The first thing to do,” Selby said, “is to study those photographs again.”
“Why?”
“To find out just when they were taken. Take a magnifying glass, Sylvia, and study every detail. See if you can find some definite clew. While you’re doing that I’ll be doing some other stuff.”
“What other stuff?” she asked.
“Detective chores,” he told her, grinning.
He picked up the telephone and said, “Get me Sheriff Brandon.” A moment later he said, “Rex, I’ve got a lot of news and a lot of theory. The news isn’t worth a damn unless the theory checks with the facts, so I want to find out the facts.
“I’m going to give you the manufacturer’s number on that miniature camera. I want you to find out what dealer had such a camera in stock. Trace it through the wholesaler and retailer, get a description of the purchaser.”
He read off the numbers on the lens and body of the camera and then said, “Just as soon as you get that information, let me know. But get it and get it at once, at all cost... And here’s something else, Rex. It’s a bet I’m afraid we’ve overlooked. Try to bring out any latent fingerprints on the space bar of that portable typewriter. Do it as soon, as possible.”
“Okay,” the sheriff said. “In the meantime I’m trying to trace Cushing. I think I’ll be able to put my finger on him inside of an hour.”
Selby frowned, said slowly, “Well... Okay, but don’t get rough with him. And be sure I can reach you by telephone. I may want some fast action. I’ll explain later.”
He hung up the telephone and called the coroner.
“Harry,” he said, when he had the coroner on the line, “I want to know something about Larrabie’s suitcase.”
“All right, what about it?”
“You took it into your custody?”
“Yes.”
“Kept it in your office?”
“Yes, in the back room.”
“And Rogue, your police dog, was always on the premises?”
“Yes.”
“When was the dog poisoned?”
“Why, yesterday morning — you were there.”
“No, no, I mean when did you first find out he’d been poisoned?”
“It was sometime around twelve o’clock. I’d been out and when I came back the dog seemed sick. He wagged his tail to show he was glad to see me, and then dropped down on the floor and drooped his ears. His eyes had a peculiar round look to them, I can’t tell you just how they looked because you’d have to know the dog to appreciate his change of expression. Dogs’ expressions change just like people’s do.”
“And where was the dog when you came back?”
“In my office; but there’s a narrow door leading to the back yard, so he could get out, if he’d wanted to.”
“But he was where he could guard the office?”
“Sure. No one could possibly have entered that office. Rogue would have torn them to pieces.”
“Thanks,” Selby said. “I just wanted to make certain. I think the poisoning of the dog is particularly important.”
“So do I,” Perkins said. “If I can find out who did it, you’ll have another homicide case on your hands.”
“How’s the dog getting along?” Selby asked.
“He’s going to pull through all right. Dr. Perry sat up with him all night. It was touch and go for a while, but he’s going to be okay.”
Selby hung up the telephone as Amorette Standish entered the room, and said to Sylvia Martin, “Your city editor’s been calling up. He says he has to have some basis for that story. He says that, so far, there hasn’t been a darn thing except your unsupported statement to back up the story, while all the evidence he can get is pointing the other way.”
Sylvia looked up from the strip of films, grinned and said, “Did he say ‘not a darn thing,’ Amorette?”
“No,” Amorette said, smiling, “he didn’t say ‘darn thing.’ He was madder than a wet hen. He used plenty of language.”
“You tell him I’m too busy to come to the telephone,” Sylvia said, “that I’m working on the details of the yarn and getting the facts all co-ordinated; that the story’s absolutely okay and he can count on it. Better throw a scare into him. Tell him a Los Angeles paper has offered me a thousand dollars for the inside yarn and is holding a wire open to the office. Ask him if he wants to be scooped on a local story by a Los Angeles newspaper.”
Amorette sighed and said, “Well, I’ll put cotton in my ears and try to put it across.”
“It won’t be so bad,” Sylvia said cheerfully, “if you can stick it out for the first ten seconds, the copper wire will melt and short the connection, so you won’t have to hear the rest of it.”
She turned to Selby and said, “Doug, these pictures were taken Wednesday noon.”
“How do you know?” he asked, his voice showing his excitement.
“You can analyze the shadows, for the time of day. They show the picture was taken right around noon. Now, then, the Rotary Club meets at the Madison Hotel every Wednesday. When it meets, there isn’t enough room for the members to park their cars on the main street and in the parking lot next to the hotel, so they spread down the side street and take every available parking space. At other times during the day it is very seldom the parking spaces on the side street are filled up.
“Now notice this picture. It shows the main street. Now here’s the next one, that’s looking down the side street. You see, there isn’t a single vacant parking space on the whole street. I’ll bet anything you want, these pictures were taken Wednesday noon, while the Club was having its meeting.”
Selby said slowly, “That’s darned good reasoning, Sylvia. I think I’ll have to put you on my staff.”
“You sure will,” she told him, “if we don’t have some facts for my city editor pretty quick. I can stall him just about so long and then I’ll be finished. At that time I’ll be completely and entirely out of a job.”
“Well,” he told her, “you can’t get on up here because I’ll be out of a job, too.”
He picked up the camera, studied it carefully and put it back in its worn leather case.
“Why is the camera so important?” Sylvia asked. “And how could those pictures have been taken so long after Larrabie’s death?”
“That,” he told her, “is the thing on which any real solution of this case must turn. It’s a fact which doesn’t coincide with any of the other facts. In other words, it’s like an odd-shaped piece in a jig-saw puzzle, something which looks difficult but really furnishes the key to the whole business, if it’s interpreted correctly.”
He picked up the telephone, called Dr. Perry, and when he had him on the phone, said, “Doctor, this is Doug Selby, the district attorney. For reasons which I won’t try to explain over the telephone, the poisoning of Perkins’s dog becomes a clew of greatest importance. How’s the dog coming along?”
“I’m going to pull him through,” Dr. Perry said. “I worked with him most of the night. If I hadn’t gotten him just when I did, it would have been too late. Even ten minutes longer would have been fatal.”