“Get their street number from the register. See if this salesman is in his room. I want to talk with him. Seal that envelope and put it back in the safe.”
Cushing excused himself, and this time was gone some five minutes. He returned, accompanied by a well-dressed man in the early thirties, whose manner radiated smiling self-assurance.
“This is Mr. Block, the man who’s in room three nineteen,” he said.
Block wasted no time in preliminaries, His face wreathed in a welcoming smile, he gripped Selby’s hand cordially.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Selby. I understand you’re to be congratulated on winning one of the most bitterly contested elections ever held in the history of the county. I’ve been covering this territory several years, and I’ve heard everywhere about the splendid campaign you were putting up. My name’s Carl Block, and I’m with the Central Hardware Supplies Company. I come through here regularly once a month, making headquarters here for a couple of days, while I cover the outlying towns. Is there any way in which I can be of service to you?”
The man was friendly. Sizing him up, Selby knew why he held such a splendid sales record, knew also that it would be next to impossible to surprise any information from him.
“You got in yesterday morning, Mr. Block?”
“That’s right.”
“About what time?”
“Well, I got in pretty early. I find that these days the business comes to the man who goes after it. My best time to cover the small accounts is between eight and nine-thirty. The small man is opened and swept out about eight. Trade doesn’t really start until around nine. The bigger accounts have clerks who open up. The managers get in around nine, have their mail read about nine-thirty, and my best time with them is between nine-thirty and eleven-thirty.
“I’m just telling you this, Mr. Selby, so you’ll understand why I got in so early. I’d say I got in about seven o’clock. I left Los Angeles shortly before five, just tumbled out of bed and into the car. After I got up here I bathed, shaved, freshened up a bit, had a cup of coffee and caught my first customer at eight o’clock.”
“Hear any unusual sounds from the adjoining room?”
“Not a sound.”
“Thank you,” Selby said, “that’s all.” He nodded to Cushing and said, “I’m going back to my office, George. Don’t give out any information.”
Cushing followed him to the door of the hotel. “Now, listen, Doug,” he said, “this thing was just a natural death. There’s no use getting worked up about it, and, remember to keep that information about Miss Arden under your hat.”
Chapter VI
Selby said to Frank Gordon, “Frank, I want you to find everything you can about the litigation in the Perry Estate.”
“I think I can tell you all about it,” Gordon said. “I know John Baggs, the attorney for Herbert Perry. He’s discussed the case with me.”
“What are the facts?”
“Charles Perry married Edith Fontaine in Yuma. The marriage wasn’t legal because Perry only had an interlocutory decree. He had the mistaken idea he could leave the state and make a good marriage. Edith Fontaine had a son by a previous marriage — Herbert Fontaine — he changed his name to Perry. Perry and his wife were killed in an auto accident. If there wasn’t any marriage, the property goes to H. Franklin Perry, the veterinary, a brother of Charles. If the marriage was legal, the bulk of the property vested in Edith on the death of Charles, and Herbert is Edith’s sole heir. That’s the case in a nutshell.”
“Who’s representing H. Franklin Perry?”
“Fred Lattaur.”
“Get a picture of the dead minister. See if either of the litigants can identify him.” He picked up the phone and said to the exchange operator, “I want Sheriff Brandon, please. Then I want Shirley Arden, the picture actress.” He held the line, and a moment later heard Rex Brandon’s voice.
“Just had an idea,” Selby said. “There were a pair of reading spectacles in that suitcase. Get an oculist here to get the prescription. Get a photograph of the dead man. Rush the photograph and the prescription to the oculist in San Francisco, whose name is on the spectacle case. Have him look through his records and see if he can identify the spectacles.”
“Shall I tell him the man’s a minister?” Brandon asked.
“Right now,” Selby said, “it looks as though he’s more apt to have been a gangster or a racketeer of some sort, perhaps a damn clever blackmailer. Get hold of Cushing over at the hotel and get an earful of the latest developments. Then, when you get a chance, get in touch with me and we’ll talk things over. I’m trying to locate a certain party in Hollywood.”
“Okay,” Brandon said cheerfully. “I’m running down a couple of other clews. I’ll see you later on.”
Selby’s secretary reported, “Miss Arden is working on the set. She can’t come to the telephone. A Mr. Trask says he’ll take the call. He says he’s her manager.”
“Very well,” Selby said, “put Trask on the line.”
He heard a click, then a masculine voice saying suavely, “Yes, hello, Mr. Selby.”
Selby snapped words into the transmitter. “I don’t want to say anything over the telephone which would embarrass you or Miss Arden,” he said. “Perhaps you know who I am.”
“Yes, I do, Mr. Selby.”
“Day before yesterday,” Selby said, “Miss Arden made a trip. You were with her.”
“Yes.”
“I want to question her about that trip.”
“But why?”
Selby said, “I think you’d prefer I didn’t answer that question over the telephone. I want to see both you and Miss Arden in my office sometime before nine o’clock tonight.”
“But, I say, that’s quite impossible,” Trask protested. “Miss Arden’s working on a picture and...”
“She won’t be working straight through until nine o’clock tonight,” Selby interrupted.
“Well, it’ll be rather late this afternoon when she finishes, and she’ll be tired.”
“I can understand that very well,” Selby retorted, “but this matter is sufficiently important for me to insist upon her presence.”
“But it can’t be important enough to...”
Selby interrupted. “I have ways,” he said, “of getting Miss Arden’s statement. There are hard ways and easy ways. This is the easy way — for you.”
There was a moment’s silence, during which the district attorney could hear the man at the other end of the telephone breathing heavily. Then the voice said, “At ten o’clock tonight, Mr. Selby?”
“I’d prefer an earlier hour. How about seven or eight?”
“Eight o’clock would be the earliest time we could possibly make it. Miss Arden, you know, is under contract, and...”
“Very well,” Selby said, “at eight o’clock tonight,” and hung up before the manager could think of additional excuses.
He had hardly hung up the telephone before it rang with shrill insistence. He took the receiver from the hook, said, “Hello,” and heard the calmly professional voice of Dr. Ralph Trueman.
“You wanted information about that man who was found dead in the Madison Hotel,” Trueman said.
“Yes, Doctor. What information have you?”
“I haven’t covered everything,” Dr. Trueman said, “but I’ve gone far enough to be morally certain of the cause of death.”
“What was it?”
“A lethal dose of morphine, taken internally.”
“Of morphine!” Selby exclaimed. “Why, the man had some sleeping tablets...”
“Which hadn’t been taken at all, so far as I can ascertain,” Trueman interrupted. “But what he had taken was a terrific dose of morphine, which induced paralysis of the respiratory organs. Death probably took place some time between midnight and three o’clock yesterday morning.”