Carson closed his eyes and groaned, “I won’t be much help.”
“You’ll have to snap out of it. The doctor says Meade will be able to give out by seven o’clock. You want to help me put a noose around the neck of your wife’s murderer, don’t you?”
Carson struggled to a sitting position. He said dully, “It was Meade. I know it was. It must have been. Why else would he go out there to shoot himself?”
Shayne made a wry face. “If I knew the answer to that, I’d know everything.” His manner changed to briskness. “I want to see your wife’s scrapbook. There’s a ten-year old clipping I need to complete my case.”
“It’s in the desk over there.” Then Frank pulled his hands away from his face. “How’d you know Nora kept a scrapbook?”
Shayne laughed. “I’ve never known an actress who didn’t save her press notices.”
He went to the old-fashioned desk and pulled down the lid. Carson stumbled past him to the bathroom, pointing mutely to a leatherbound loose-leaf scrapbook.
Shayne sat down with it and began turning the pages. It carried a photographic record of Nora’s babyhood, and there were brittle old clippings that proved she had been a precocious youngster. A Fairylike Danseuse, the Chronicle had captioned her; and, A little lady with a lot of dramatic talent. That, at the age of ten.
There were other clippings, all strictly small-town stuff. Shayne turned the pages slowly, a deep frown creasing his forehead when he found no mention of her father’s disappearance.
When Frank came out of the bathroom, whitefaced and retching, Shayne demanded, “Hasn’t she any clippings about her father’s disappearance? That’s what I’m looking for.”