He settled back on his haunches contentedly, murmuring, “One will get any gambler ten if this isn’t the real McCoy.”
Cal Strenk was the only one who spoke. “Damn if Ol’ Pete wa’n’t a slick un. In ten years we lived here he never showed me that other can underneath.”
Shayne turned the lid back and shook the contents of the can out on the hearth in the manner of a magician shaking elephants from a silk hat.
There were three newspaper clippings and an old faded photograph of a man and a young girl. The girl had a sweet, grave face, wore pigtails and a short dress. The man was clean-shaven, wearing a miner’s cap and overalls.
Shayne turned the picture over and read aloud: “Nora and her daddy.”
He laid the picture aside and selected a clipping that was brittle and old in contrast to the comparative newness of the other two: Two columns from an old copy of the Telluride Chronicle neatly clipped to show the name of the paper and the date.
The somewhat indistinct photograph of a man was above the caption: James Peter Dalcor, MISSING.
The man was hatless and wore a short growth of chin whiskers. He was clearly the “Daddy” of the earlier picture.
Shayne glanced through the news story beneath the photograph. It told of Peter Dalcor’s unexplained disappearance from his home in Telluride, Colorado; mentioned the mounting apprehension of his wife and daughter, Nora.
Shayne handed the clipping to Strenk without a word.