Shayne stopped short on the hillside and stared at the lights of the village below with narrowed eyes.
Nora’s identification of her father had not been made public until after Pete’s death. It was merest chance that had given Nora a glimpse of Pete at the hotel window a few minutes before his death. One of those weird and inexplicable coincidences that are forever popping up to ruin the best-laid plans of men, something which the murderer could not possibly foresee.
If she hadn’t chanced to see him at the window and followed him wildly, it was a thousand to one she would never have recognized his disfigured face after he was struck down.
He frowned, visualizing the death scene above Eureka Street, the old man’s smashed and bloody-whiskered face. No. No one who hadn’t seen Pete Dalcor for ten years would have recognized him after death. Why, Nora had not even recognized his picture in the local paper though it had been in the same issue with her own. It had required that personal contact, the glimpse through the hotel window, to bring Nora the realization that Pete was actually her father.
With that point settled in his own mind, he started plodding slowly downward again. In the interim, the men carrying Nora’s body had crossed the end of the flumed creek and disappeared from view.
Even if the killer had known of the relationship between Pete and Nora, he could not foresee the chance recognition that had come just before Pete’s death.
Again, Shayne stopped in his tracks. If anyone had known of the relationship.
Might that not be the crux of the entire diabolical murder plan? Everyone in Central City must have seen Nora’s picture and read the story of her ten-year search for a missing father. It could easily have furnished the clue to Pete’s identity to a man who knew him well. Jasper Windrow — or Cal Strenk. Both hoped to gain by Pete’s death.
If either had planned to get rid of Pete at some convenient time, the presence of Nora Carson in town was a very real threat to the plan. Though she had failed to recognize his picture in the paper, there was always the chance that she might meet him on the street — or even that Pete might learn of her identity and make himself known to her. That threat would make it imperative to get rid of Pete at once — if he was to die without known heirs and intestate.
Shayne started forward again, tingling with a feeling of getting close to something. Under such circumstances, it would be a terrific blow to the murderer to learn that he had struck a few minutes too late — that Nora had already seen and identified her father.