“Right here,” the boy stopped him. “This is where the flume starts.”
Shayne parked by the side of the street and got out. He followed his eager young guide through the littered back yard of a weatherbeaten cabin to a point where the rock walls of the gulch converged and the flow of water entered the boarded-up flume to be carried underneath the town. Here, again, Shayne searched carefully without finding any clue to indicate it was where Nora Carson had died.
He looked at his watch and started his young helper back, then returned to his car and let it coast down to the opera house in second gear.
Eight and a half minutes had elapsed when the lad reached him again. He snapped his watch shut and told the lad approvingly, “You were right. It’s closer to the lower end. You were coming downhill this time, and it took you a minute longer to make it.”
“Look, Mister. You figure maybe it was somebody here at the opera house last night slipped out and killed her? Then hurried back and pretended they hadn’t been away — for an alibi? That why you were seeing how long it took?”
Shayne chuckled and took a dollar bill from his pocket. “Keep up that sort of guessing and you’ll be a better detective than I am before you’re many years older.”
The lad was offended by the offer of money. He shook his head. “Gosh, no, Mister. I don’t want to get paid. Let me know if you need any more help.”
Shayne gravely promised he would, and the lad swaggered away.
The front doors of the opera house were closed. Shayne went around to the stage entrance. He found a tall, haggard man in shirtsleeves conferring backstage with a man wearing bib overalls and spectacles. They both looked him over sharply when Shayne approached and introduced himself.
“I’m Johnston, the producer,” the tall man told him. “And this is Mr. McLeod, our set designer and chief property man.”