t that have been Gamble, too? What do you say, Charlie?”
Chan nodded. “Possible. That person knew of Louie’s return. If we could only discover—”
“By George,” Eden, cried. “Gamble was at the desk of the Oasis when Louie came in. You remember, Holley?”
The editor smiled. “All fits in very neatly. Gamble sped out here like some sinister version of Paul Revere with the news of Louie’s arrival. He and Shaky Phil were at the gate when you drove up.”
“But Thorn. That tear in Thorn’s coat?”
“We must have been on the wrong trail there. This new theory sounds too good. What else have we learned from DeLisle? After the misadventure with Delaney, Madden and Thorn were out all night. Where?”
Chan sighed. “Not such good news, that. Body of Delaney was carried far from this spot.”
“I’m afraid it was,” admitted Holley. “We’ll never find it without help from somebody who knows. There are a hundred lonely canyons round here where poor Delaney could have been tossed aside and nobody any the wiser. We’ll have to go ahead and perfect our case without the vital bit of evidence—the body of Delaney. But there are a lot of people in on this, and before we get through, somebody is going to squeal.”
Chan was sitting at Madden’s desk, idly toying with the big blotting pad that lay on top. Suddenly his eyes lighted, and he began to separate the sheets of blotting paper.
“What is this?” he said.
They looked, and saw in the detective’s pudgy hand a large
