Sylvia left her chair and came to stand by his desk.
“Listen, Doug,” she said, “my boss got a straight tip that The Blade is laying for you on this case. Don’t muff it, Doug. Keep your head and out-smart them.”
“You mean The Blade knows something?” Selby asked.
“I don’t know what they know, but we’ve got a tip they’re going to stir up some trouble about this case. You know Otto Larkin, the chief of police, is friendly with the managing editor. I think Larkin would double-cross you in a minute, if he had a chance. Any stuff The Blade has must have come from him.”
“Larkin isn’t any Sherlock Holmes,” Selby pointed out.
“Just the same,” she said, “I’ve given you the tip. Tell me, Doug, will you let me know if anything new develops?”
“I won’t release any information for publication until I’m satisfied it won’t hamper a solution of the case,” he said slowly.
“But can’t you just talk things over with me, not for publication, and let me have something to say about whether it’s safe to publish them?”
“Well,” he told her, “we might do that. But, in the meantime, I’ve got to get to work.”
She closed her notebook and said, “It’s definite then that this Mrs. Brower insists the man is not her husband?”
He nodded.
“And,” she asked him slowly, “how do you know that this woman is Mrs. Brower?”
He eyed her speculatively for a moment and said, “Now that’s a thought.”
“I think,” she told him, “we can find out from our Nevada correspondents.”
“And I,” he told her, “will also do a little investigating.”
He saw her to the door, then said to Amorette Standish, “Take a wire to the chief of police at Millbank, Nevada, asking him for a description of the Reverend Charles Brower and of Mary Brower his wife. Also find out if he knows where both of them are at present. Tell him to wire.”
Chapter V
Selby strode into the coroner’s office and said, “Harry, I want to go over everything you took from that minister’s room.”
“The stuff is sealed up and in this room over here,” the coroner told him. “Funny thing about putting a wrong tag on him, wasn’t it? What a sweet spot I’d have been in, if I’d sent the body by express to Nevada.”
Selby said, “Well, either he wasn’t Charles Brower, or she isn’t Mary Brower. She looks genuine. You get Dr. Trueman to make an examination. And I want a thorough examination made. Have the contents of the stomach analyzed and analyze all of the vital organs to find traces of poison.”
“You don’t think it’s anything like that, do you?” the coroner protested.
“I don’t know what I think. I’m going to find out when I’ve got something to think on.”
“Aw, shucks, it’s just a case of mistaken identity. It’ll be all straightened out within another twenty-four hours. His heart went back on him, and that’s all there was to it. I used to see plenty of cases like that when I was running my drug store...”
“Nevertheless,” Selby said, “I want to know just how the man died.”
“Just knowing that his identity is mixed up doesn’t make any difference in the way the man died,” the coroner said in a slow, protesting drawl. “I wouldn’t get all steamed up about it, if I were you, Douglas.”
“I’m not steamed up,” the district attorney said. “I’m getting busy.”
He took the suitcase, the portable typewriter and the brief case which the coroner handed him.
Selby said, “I think you’d better sit in here with me, Harry, and make a list of all this stuff.”
“I’ve already listed it,” the coroner replied.
“How did you describe it?”
“Personal papers, newspaper clippings and such stuff.”
“I think we’d better make a more detailed list.”
“Well, you go ahead and make it out. Anything you say is okay.”
“I’d prefer to have you with me while we went over it.”
“I’m awfully busy now, Doug... But I can, if you want.”
“I’ll just hit the high spots,” the district attorney promised, “but I want to know everything that’s in here.”
He sat down in the chair, cut the sealed tape, opened the brief case and took out a number of papers from the leather pockets. He started sorting the newspaper clippings.
“Here’s one of Shirley Arden, the motion picture star,” he said, “showing her in her new play, Mended Hearts. Here’s another one of her in a ‘still’ taken during the filming of that picture. Here’s one of her in Page the Groom. Here’s some publicity about her from one of the motion picture fan magazines. Why all the crush on Shirley Arden, Harry?”
The coroner said, “That’s nothing. We see that every day. Almost everyone has some favorite motion picture star. People collect all sorts of stuff. You remember this chap said in his letter that he might go on to Hollywood? I’ll bet you he’s gone on Shirley Arden, and was hoping he’d have a chance to meet her.”
The district attorney, forced to accept the logic of the remark, nodded, turned to the rest of the papers.
“Hello,” he said, “here’s some newspaper clippings about the Perry Estate. I wonder if he’s interested in that?”
“I was wondering about that, too,” the coroner said. “I just took a quick look through them. That’s the Perry Estate that’s being fought over in our Superior Court, isn’t it? It says the man who’s trying to prove he’s the heir is H. F. Perry. That’ll be Herbert Perry, won’t it?”
Selby read through the clippings and nodded.
“They aren’t clippings from our papers, are they?”
“No. They’re Associated Press dispatches, sent out to a number of papers which subscribe for that service.”
“Why do you suppose he saved them?”
“That’s one of the things we’re going to find out.”
“What are they fighting about in that case, anyway?”
“Charles Perry,” Selby said, “was married and got an interlocutory decree of divorce. Then, before the final decree was issued, he went over to Yuma and married an Edith Fontaine. At the time of the marriage she had a son, Herbert. Herbert took the name of Perry, but Charles Perry wasn’t his father. The marriage, having been performed while an interlocutory decree was in effect, and before a final decree had been entered, was void. That was years ago. Apparently Perry never knew his marriage wasn’t legal. His first wife died, but he never had another marriage ceremony with Edith. He died without a will, and his brother, H. Franklin Perry, is contesting Herbert Perry’s share in the estate.”
“Isn’t there some law about marriage not being necessary where people live openly as man and wife?”
“That’s a common-law marriage,” Selby said. “It doesn’t apply in this state.”
“Well, Perry thought he was married to her all right. He died first, didn’t he?”
“Yes, they were in an automobile accident. He was killed instantly. She lived for a week with a fractured skull and died.”
“So the boy doesn’t get any of the money?” Perkins asked. “I know the brother. He’s a veterinary. He treated my dog for distemper once. He’s a good man.”
“Who gets the money is something for the courts to decide,” Selby said. “What I’m wondering about right now is what interested Charles Brower in that particular case.”
“Do you think he was Brower?”
“No, Harry, I don’t. I’m just calling him that because I don’t know anything else to call him. I’d like to find out what paper these were cut from. There’s nothing to indicate, is there?”