“Don Little.”
“Want to give him a call? I think maybe we’ll take your advice.”
“Now? You wouldn’t be able to get him today.”
“Why not?”
“He’s off. I wouldn’t know how to get in touch with him.”
“You just said you were a detective. Let’s see you detect.” Hilders wet his lips and put his hand on the desk phone. “I talked to him about it last night. He’ll expect to be paid.”
Fellows said, “On our budget?” His eyes narrowed. “What’s he want?”
“Fifty bucks.”
Fellows stared at the reporter for a moment in real surprise. Then he moved the phone away. “Sid,” he said. “We’re in the wrong business. We should’ve studied our drawing lessons harder in school.”
“I tried to tell him,” Hilders said. “The guy wouldn’t listen. He wants to make a buck.”
The chief said, “We got any artists in this town, Sid?”
“Sure. Out in the sticks. I can name you two or three New York illustrators.”
“They’d probably want a thousand bucks.”
“We can try them. I’ll bet Henry Whitlock would do it for nothing.”
“I wouldn’t have the nerve to ask a guy like him to. No. I’ve got a better idea. I’m going to call up the art teacher at the high school and find out who her best pupil is. I have a feeling an eager kid like that might turn out a better job. I don’t mean it’d be as good art work, but it might be a better likeness.”
If all of Fellows’s previous efforts had been coming to naught, at least in this instance things went his way. At two o’clock that afternoon, Shirley Whitlock, a dark-haired, attractive sixteen-year-old senior at Stockford High, recommended by her teacher as the outstanding artist in the school, came into headquarters with a sketch pad under her arm and a paper bag of drawing utensils in her hand. Wilks was there to greet her and take her into Fellows’s office, where the chief sat at his desk making conversation with Raymond Watly and Andy Palekowski. After the introductions, the chief sat Shirley at the table and said, “Now do you understand what we want you to do?”
“I think so, sir.”
“You try to draw a picture of a man the way they tell you to. We want to see if we can’t get some kind of a likeness.”
“Yes, sir.” She tilted the pad against herself and the table and laid an eraser and several extra sticks of charcoal within easy reach. “How should I start?”
Watly said, “I don’t know. Why don’t you start drawing a head and then we can make corrections.” He looked at Andy as the girl sketched an oval quickly. “What do you think? You saw him after I did. Narrower face than that?”
Andy agreed and the girl made changes. It went on like that. Neither man could be sure of the placement of the eyes, whether the forehead was wide or narrow. They let her go ahead.
Fellows and Wilks went out of the office, leaving the door open. The chief could sense the pressure his presence exerted on the trio, on the girl trying to draw with him looking over her shoulder, on the men, worried about their own uncertainty. Wilks said, “Where’s that reporter at a time like this? He’s missing the only decent news we’ve had all weekend.”
Fellows shrugged. “If he wants to look over the house, let him.”
“He’s not going to find anything. It’s been cleaned up except for the plumbers replacing the pipes.”
“It makes him happy. What’s the harm?”
Wilks looked sidewise at the chief. “You’re big-hearted today. Don’t tell me you’re falling for that line he threw out about being an amateur sleuth. You do that and you’re in a bad way.”
Fellows shook his head sadly. “When I turn to running charcoal pictures in the papers, drawn by high school students, of a man as described by two other men who’ve seen him once in their lives, several weeks before, I’m in a bad way. It’s like chasing after every filling-station owner or telling the highway patrols to watch for a tan Ford, or telling other police departments to check on half a dozen guys because they once worked for a hardware factory in Pennsylvania. Face it, Sid. This whole case is in a bad way.”
“That’s all right. That’s police procedure. Track down every clue. But letting some newspaper reporter examine the scene of the crime for new theories, that’s admitting failure.”
Fellows laughed. “You remind me of the guy who committed suicide when adding machines came out. He couldn’t stand having those contraptions beat him. I’m not looking for new theories, but let him have his fun. There’s nothing to lose. You’ve got to understand, Sid. I’m using every resource I can lay my hands on. Hilders is no symbol of anything. He’s a resource. Of course he’s a faint one, but you never can tell.”
He paused briefly, listening to the sounds of discussion emanating from his office. They weren’t encouraging sounds, for the men, though dissatisfied with the progress of the drawing, weren’t able to suggest effective changes. “The newspapers,” Fellows said, turning back to Wilks, “are another resource. We’ll run that picture in the papers and hope. And we’ll keep publicizing the fact the trunk came from Townsend. One of those two things might do us some good.”
At three o’clock a round of coffee was sent out for, and Fellows had the girl and the two men take a break. The girl was close to tears. She had produced a charcoal outline of a face and it was done with a sure and practiced hand, but she was unhappy. “I can’t make it come out right, Mr. Fellows.”
Watly patted the girl affectionately on the shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Shirley.” He said to the chief, “I think I’d know him if I saw him, but you pin me down whether his nose was short or long and I can’t tell
