“Sure. It’s covered over solid all the way through town.” The youth’s sky-blue eyes danced with excitement. “Runs right under that store building and under Main Street. And the Teller House and opera house are both built right slap kadab square on top of it.”
“How about the other side of town?” asked Shayne. “How far in that direction is the creek flumed in?”
“A long ways up. Lots farther than from here to the opera house. You reckon they might of put her in the flume up there and she washed right under the whole town and come out here?” The lad’s eyes were round and awe-struck.
“Could have,” Shayne assented absently. “The smooth walls of the flume wouldn’t offer any obstacle to the passage of a body. I’d like to check the time it takes to get from the opera house to both ends of the flume. How’d you like to help me?”
“Help you detect? You bet.”
Shayne took out his watch. “Starting from here, I’ll time you to the opera house. Go the nearest and fastest way. Hurry, but don’t run. I’ll drive my car up and be waiting at the opera house when you get there.”
The lad nodded and scrambled up the slope toward Eureka Street. Shayne backed around and followed him, passed the hurrying lad opposite the post office and continued on to park in front of the opera house.
He checked the elapsed time when the boy reached him. Exactly seven minutes and thirty-five seconds from the lower end of the flume.
Shayne said, “Now hop in and show me the upper end. I’ll clock you back the same way.”
His car crawled in low gear up the steep grade beyond the courthouse, past dilapidated and deserted mill buildings built along what had once been the bank of the creek.