Quinlan glanced through the paper and the vague accusation of the article, the unfair tone of the entire account of the crime itself, added to his worries.
For the fifth time within an hour he called his house.
The promptness with which Beryl answered the phone showed that she was once more sitting by the telephone, waiting.
“Anything from Roy?” the undersheriff asked.
“No, Dad.”
“Let me know if he calls.”
“I’ll tell him you want to hear from him,” she said.
Quinlan hung up. That interchange of comments between father and daughter had not varied substantially since he had begun calling her at frequent intervals asking for a report.
Sheriff Bill Eldon opened the door to find Quinlan nervously pacing the office, chewing a cigar into shreds.
“Hello, George. Anything new at this end?”
“You’ve seen the paper.”
The sheriff nodded. “Sort of a smear, isn’t it?”
“They’re really going to town.”
“You met Walworth?”
“Yes.”
“What sort?”
“I imagine he’s very able.”
“Cordial?”
Quinlan glanced in the direction of the paper.
The sheriff smiled. “To you, I mean.”
Quinlan paced the floor for a few turns, then abruptly whirled to face the sheriff. “Bill,” he said, “I’ve got to tell you something.”
“Take it easy,” Eldon said.
“Bill, I’ve put you in a spot. I want to...”
“Nothing to apologize for.”
“But I want to tell you about this.”
“Won’t it keep?”
“No.”
“We’ve got that murder case to work on now, George.”
“Well, this is... this has something to do with it, only it’s personal.”
“If it’s personal, it’ll keep.”
Quinlan frowned in exasperation.
“I’ve got some information,” the sheriff went on, talking quickly, his characteristic drawl scarcely noticeable now. “Found out quite a bit about the girl. Got her located and identified. She’s an Elizabeth Dow from San Rodolpho, working as cashier in a cafeteria there, and her mother was Elvira Dow. That name mean anything to you, George?”
Quinlan shook his head.
“Didn’t to me, either,” the sheriff said, “until I got to thinking. Seems to me I remember that name of Dow. It’s an unusual name. Thought I’d come back to the office and dig through the files of the local papers. You take the Register, George, and I’ll take the Gazette, and we’ll see what we can find. Look through the personal mention columns — just sort of give them a once-over.”
“That’ll be almost an endless job,” Quinlan protested.
“Oh, it won’t take us over two or three hours.”
“Two or three hours!” Quinlan stormed. “Here you have a red-hot murder case on your hands, with the district attorney bringing in a consulting criminologist, the cards all stacked against you, the Gazette just fairly itching to lift your political scalp, and you talk about looking through the personal columns for two or three hours. Good Heavens! If it’s that important, why don’t you hire some girl to run through them instead of wasting your time...”
“Take it easy, George. Take it easy!” the sheriff drawled. “You know the County doesn’t give us the money to hire a girl. It expects us to...”
“Bill, there’s something I want to tell you.”
“Sure, sure,” the sheriff said soothingly, “but let’s chase down this name first. I seem to remember it, somebody outside — sort of a Red Cross business. No, that ain’t it, either. It’s a nurse. That’s it! Say, George, ring up the hospital. Ask them if they know anything about a nurse by the name of Dow.”
Quinlan reluctantly called the hospital and after a few minutes relayed the information to the sheriff. “They don’t know of anyone.”
“Well, now,” the sheriff said, “that’s too bad. I had a pretty strong hunch that name of Dow was connected with a nurse. Well, I guess we’ve got to dig through these columns of personal mention. Don’t see what else there is to be done.”
“We...”
Abruptly the door opened. A delegation came trooping into the office, Rush Medford in the lead, Martin Walworth, the criminologist, following behind, then John Farnham, his face a mask of austere self-righteousness, with Bertram Glasco bringing up the rear.
“Sheriff,” the district attorney said, “I want you to meet Martin Walworth,” and then he added reproachfully, “We’ve been trying to get in touch with you all afternoon.”
“I was out of town,” the sheriff said to the district attorney, and put out his hand to the criminologist. “How de do, how are you?”
Walworth’s handshake was perfunctory.
The district attorney, in the voice of a lawyer making a prepared speech, said, “Sheriff, this murder at the Higbee place is an important case. This county can’t afford to let the murderer get away by slipshod methods. At the behest of influential citizens, my office has, therefore, called in Martin Walworth, the famous consulting criminologist.”
The sheriff said, “That’s fine. Who’s he consulting with?”
Medford flushed. “That’s his title. He’s a consulting criminologist.”
“Then he doesn’t consult with anyone?”
“He solves crimes. He advises officers how to catch criminals.”
“That’s fine. I’m always willing to take advice from anyone — or is he supposed to give me advice?”
“He’s supposed to solve the crime,” Medford said.
“You mean he isn’t going to give advice? He’s going to just go ahead and solve it all by himself?”
“He’s working with me,” Medford said.
“To solve the case,” Walworth announced calmly, “and I think I am well on the way to having it solved.”
“Yes?” the sheriff asked, and then added quite casually, “Sit down, boys.”
“I take it,” Walworth said, disregarding the invitation, “no attempt was ever made to trace that cigarette case which you found.”
“What do you mean, to trace it?”
“To find out who owns it.”
“Well, now, I don’t know just what you mean by tracing it, or just how you’d go about...”
“Exactly,” Walworth interrupted. “However, a moment’s thought should have convinced you that the distinctive part of that case was the engraving. It was obviously done by some jeweler who had sold the case. It took only a few minutes to call the local jewelers and find out that none of them had done it. Then I got in touch with the Los Angeles police and asked them to cover the better class jewelry stores and inquire from the engravers there. It took less than two hours for that to yield results.”
“Well, now,” the sheriff said, his tone indicating his pleased surprise. “What did you find out?”
“The case was sold by Weed Sisson and Company to a young woman who paid cash for it. She’s about nineteen years of age, rather tall, slender, dark hair, very dark eyes and has an unusual speaking voice, a clear flute-like quality that is definitely noticeable. She weighs about a hundred and fifteen, and wears a pale pink tourmaline ring on the finger of her left hand.”
Quinlan cleared his throat.
“Anything else?” the sheriff asked quickly.
“And we’ve located the car that left that track, the one that drove out of the Higbee place after you had gone away and left the place without any guard and without making a search to see if an automobile was parked anywhere in the field.”