To the others, he said, “Let me present Philip Steele, Exhibit A. Peter Dalcor, if you please, without the whiskers and sheepskin coat.”
To Mark Raton, he said, “Sorry to hoax you, but I had to convince myself it was possible for an actor to make himself up to resemble an old photograph closely enough to fool someone who had known the man in the photograph ten years ago. You see,” he added, “that’s the way Nora Carson was fooled last night.” Frank Carson slumped back on to the settee. His face was white and his left eyelid twitched spasmodically. He kept opening and closing his mouth, but no words came out.
Two-Deck Bryant was edging along the wall toward the door. Shayne jerked his head at Casey. The New York detective got up and blocked the exit with a cheerful grin.
Shayne said thoughtfully, “I’m not positive what the exact charge will be, Casey, but I imagine Colorado has some statute to cover the crime of incitement to murder. For Two-Deck is morally just as guilty as Carson. He drove Frank to put his fantastic plan into execution by threatening him with death if he didn’t pay up in a hurry. And we can charge him with attempted murder. He shot Joe Meade last night.”
Bryant stopped with a snarl that drew his lips away from his teeth. “What do you think I was doing out there?”
“Burying a Prince Albert can under the hearth. You overplayed your hand later when you were afraid I might overlook the cache. You drew my attention to the loose brick by stepping on it — and then suggested that I keep on digging under the first can which poor old Screwloose had showed you previously. Didn’t he plant the stuff, Carson, after you gave him the clippings and picture from your wife’s scrapbook?”
The actor had gotten hold of himself. He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and clamped his lips together tightly.
Shayne said, “The beginning of the whole thing was the gambling debt Bryant came out to collect. First, you planned to get the money from Mrs. Mattson. But you would have to marry her, and Nora wouldn’t divorce easily, and Bryant wanted his money in a hurry. Then you read in the local paper about a simple-minded, nameless old prospector who’d just made a rich strike. You knew all about Nora’s missing father, and you worked out a plan to get Pete identified as your father-in-law and then get rid of him immediately afterward.”
“He was her father,” Frank insisted. “She recognized him. She said so. After he was dead.”
“But she hadn’t recognized his picture in the paper,” Shayne reminded him. “She didn’t until you made yourself up to look like her father had looked, and showed your face to her briefly through the hotel window. Then, like Mr. Raton just now, she was convinced she had seen Peter Dalcor. You ran away, met Pete up on the hillside where you had him planted, and smashed in the old man’s head with a rock so he was scarcely recognizable.