Fellows came out of his office with Wilks, greeted the man, and explained the nature of the situation. They took him down the long corridor past the empty cells to Clyde Burchard. Burchard, reading on his bunk, got up and made a bitter comment, and Watly looked him over carefully. The real estate agent shook his head. “That’s not the man, Chief. That’s not the John Campbell I met.”
They brought Watly back to the main room and he explained that there was a bit of a resemblance, the shape of the face and mouth, but that was as far as it went. They thanked him and he went away again.
Burchard wasn’t released immediately, however. Fellows wasn’t overlooking the possibility of an accomplice, and he would not be satisfied with Burchard’s innocence until the Townsend addresses in his report book had been checked. There were sixteen such listed, and two men had been sent out that morning to investigate each one.
Meanwhile, other activities were taking place. With the hunt for the man in the case at a dead end. the search was redoubled for the woman’s identity. A request was sent to the Bureau of Internal Revenue in Hartford for names and addresses of any woman in Townsend. Connecticut with the initials J.S. Three other men were also in Townsend, working with Chief Ramsey, asking questions of shopkeepers and business establishments, trying to find someone who worked for or traded with such people, Fellows had his men pay particular attention to beauty parlors and drug stores.
At noon Daniels and Hogarth, checking out the report book, called in to say that one of the sixteen addresses in the Burch aid book had a woman with the initials J.S. living there, but she was the one who answered the door. “None or the others are even close. Chief. One of them was an address he had a star beside, and she gave me a runny lock when I mentioned his name. Is that supposed to mean something?”
“No: a thing. I'm no: hunting for looks.”
“What next, Chief? Do we come back?”
“Stay there. See Ramsey and find out where our other men are, then you two go help them.”
At half past twelve, Clyde Burchard was given his lunch and then brought to the chiefs office. “We’re going to let you go,” Fellows said. “Looks like there’s a good chance you’re telling the truth.”
Burchard didn't castigate the chief for inconveniencing him. for wrecking half a day’s selling, or threaten suit against the town of Stockford. Thirteen hours in a cell with a murder charge hanging over his head had changed his outlook. All he could feel was a relief so great he could hardly stand. “Thanks,” he said weakly. And then, because he felt he had to say something else, “I told you I was innocent.”
“Right now it locks that way. But I wouldn’t leave town. Burchard. We’d take a efferent view of things if you left town.”
“No. I won’t.”
“Sit down. Take a chair.”
Burchard sat gratefully and Fellows swiveled around. “Here’s your report book, Burchard. As for your other activities, I’d lay off if I were you. I’m not going to tell you what I think of a man who seduces other men’s wives. I am going to tell you you’ve got one conviction on a morals charge and if you get another, you’re in real trouble. A copy of your statement is going to the Stamford police, and they’re going to keep an eye on you. When you make a call, you’d better sell vacuum cleaners and nothing else.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fellows took out his chewing tobacco and changed the tone of the conversation. “Now there are a few more questions I want to ask you about that girl who called herself Joan Campbell. She wear any rings or other jewelry?”
“She had a wrist watch.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know, sir. I’ve never bought that kind of a present for a girl in my life.”
“Describe it.”
“It was small, round, and gold, with a black sort of string strap.” Fellows noted that down. “Earrings?”
“No, sir.”
“What were her teeth like? Any missing?”
“If there were, it wasn’t where they showed at all.”
“What kind of a personality did she have? In short, what was she like?”
“I didn’t know her very long.”
“I realize you spent most of the time in bed with her, but she did talk, she did have a character to go with the body. You must have noticed something about her. Was she easygoing, or neurotic, was she a nymphomaniac, was she frustrated, was she eager or merely permissive? When she did talk, what was it about?”
Burchard licked his lips. “She was interested, but she didn’t attack me. She wasn’t a nympho. I’d guess she was maybe frustrated. As for what we talked about, I don’t remember. We didn’t talk much.”
That was all Fellows could get from him, and he let him go, feeling as much relief at Burchard’s departure as Burchard himself. “I’m no prude,” he told Wilks when the detective sergeant came in half an hour later, “but a guy like him makes me wan. to take a bath.”
Wilks said, “It was just a little vacation from the main business. I guess we’re up a tree until we get a break. Harris called in. The beauty parlor brainstorm just fell through.”
“Well, I’ve got another brainstorm. I want all pawnshops in the district we’ve marked out checked for watches brought in after February twentieth. Here’s the description of it.”
Wilks took that out with him and started the wheels rolling. Through the afternoon other reports came in, but they were all negative and by the end of that working day, the watch was the only lead still being investigated. Everything else had ended in failure. Druggists and shopkeepers in Townsend had all been questioned, but could give no aid, and the search for the girl had come up
