The D.A. Breaks a Seal

1

The transcontinental Pullmans, creaking like some huge snake whose vertebrae had gone dry, crawled across the last weary miles of desert. Joshua palms, thrusting up grotesque spine-covered arms, made the scenery resemble some fantastic reconstruction of life on another planet. Yet within forty minutes the train would wind its way through a canyon and shortly thereafter glide through the dark green of fertile orange groves.

Doug Selby, distinguished looking in his major’s uniform, and with five days of his furlough still to run, let his eyes drink in the familiar scenery. The train topped a summit, and Selby knew that he was once more in Madison County, where for years he had been the district attorney. Rex Brandon, the grizzled ex-cowboy who had been elected sheriff at the same bitterly contested election, had gone into the courthouse with him, and the pair had stayed in there, fighting an organized opposition, until that fateful December seventh when a bigger, more desperate fight had called Doug Selby into the Army.

The train was gathering speed now, twisting and turning down sharp grades. Another few minutes would see them in Madison City, and Selby looked up at the porter who stood beside him with brush and shoe cloth.

“Yes, suh. Little brush, suh?”

Selby followed the porter into the vestibule, where a dollar bill brought white teeth into smiling prominence. Returning to his seat, Selby noticed that the porter was bending over a seat farther up the aisle. “Yes, Ma’am. Like to be brushed, please, Ma’am? Next stop is Madison City.”

Selby had heretofore given this passenger only casual attention. She was a work-worn, vague little woman with dark, tired eyes that had been pulled far back into their sockets. She was probably in the sixties, and would weigh little more than a hundred pounds; yet she asked no favors of anyone. Her motions were swift and sure, and she kept her back straight, her chin up. Apparently, however, somewhere in her work-worn life she had forgotten how to smile. There was about her the aftermath of a great weariness as though she had toiled through more than her share of hard work and wanted rest now that it was too late to relax.

She followed the porter demurely, was brushed off, and handed him a tip which had been tightly held in escrow in her closed palm, a tip which the porter transferred to his pocket without the slightest change in the impersonal courtesy of his expression.

Selby watched the woman return to her seat.

A dining car waiter entered the car, walked directly to the spry little woman. He was carrying a white pasteboard box.

“Here yuah is, Ma’am. Been keeping it in the icebox. All nice and fresh, I hope.”

Once more the gloved hand passed out a tip, this time after dipping frugally into the purse.

“Yes, Ma’am. Thank you kindly, Ma’am.”

The dining car waiter looked at the tip, glanced at the Pullman car porter. Both men grinned.

Selby found himself idly wondering about the contents of the white pasteboard box, watched the woman bustling about with her prim, last-minute preparations for leaving the train. He saw the porter come for her bags, help her on with her coat, and then, as the porter picked up Selby’s bags, Selby saw the woman open the pasteboard box.

It contained three gardenias made into an attractive corsage. The bony fingers moved with swift dexterity, pinning the corsage to the lapel of her coat.

The ex-district attorney decided to keep an eye on this poker-faced little woman who had so carefully secured for herself a gardenia corsage somewhere in the Middle West and had it kept on ice all the way to Southern California. It would be interesting to see just what type of man was responsible for this romantic gesture on the part of a woman who seemed so utterly self-contained.

The train debouched from the walled canyon. Almost at once the deep green of the orange orchards furnished a welcome relief to eyes that had accustomed themselves to the pastel shades of the desert, and the eye-aching glare of pitiless sunlight.

The train rumbled across a bridge and Selby glimpsed the white houses and red-tiled roofs of Madison City. His eyes softened with memories. Every bit of this country held history for him. There had been a body found under this trestle; that case up there on Orange Grove Heights had been one of the most puzzling murder cases in Southern California; and in that massive white courthouse Selby had worked, fought, and...

The train slowed to a creaking stop. The porter opened the vestibule, handed down the baggage, then helped the woman who was wearing the white gardenias to alight. A moment later, Selby was on the station platform, looking around at old familiar scenes.

Nearly a dozen people had left the train at Madison City, and Selby saw Sylvia Martin, reporter for the Clarion, moving about looking the crowd over. Then her eyes swung toward the rear of the train. She caught sight of Selby, and suddenly ceased all motion, standing incredulously silent in the midst of the bustling train-time activity. Then she was running.

“Doug! Doug Selby!” she cried.

Selby met her halfway.

“What on earth brings you here?”

Selby looked down into eager eyes and a flushed face, “I’ve been transferred to some destination out of San Francisco, and have five days left of a seven-day furlough. I decided to spend it here.”

“Why, Doug, you old meanie! Why didn’t you let me know?”

“Well, I got here as soon as a letter would, and it seemed rather foolish to write. What are you doing down here? Has the town got so small you’re forced to cover the trains now?”

She said laughingly, “I came down because old A.B.C. did, and almost anything he does is news.”

“Good old A.B.C,” Selby replied laughingly. “I’d been wondering about him. Is he still the same human enigma?”

“Just the same as ever. He still claims he came here to retire from his city law practice. He still contends as gravely as ever that he’s annoyed to find his former clients won’t let him take life easy... There he is now. Looks as though he didn’t find the party he expected to meet.”

Selby glanced over the heads of the crowd to study the placid strength of A. B. Carr’s features. A skilled courtroom dramatist, the big city criminal lawyer, known affectionately to the underworld as old A.B.C, managed to invest his every move with the dignity of a Shakespearean actor.

“He’s looking for someone,” Sylvia said. “Heavens, Doug, he didn’t know you were coming?”

Selby laughed. “Of course not. If anyone had known it, you’d have been the one. If Carr doesn’t lead you to a story, Sylvia, I’ll give you a lead on a swell human interest yarn.”

“What is it? I’m all ears.”

“See that little woman over there with the dark coat and a gardenia corsage?”

“Yes.”

“She’s a sweet little old thing coming to Madison City on a mission of romance. The white gardenia corsage was carefully preserved all the way from somewhere around Kansas just so she could be all fresh and attractive — or else to enable the masculine part of the romantic alliance to identify her. Bet she’d give you a nice story if you interviewed her.”

Sylvia Martin studied the woman. “She’s learned to be self-sufficient and self-contained, Doug. She’d tell me to mind my own business. Let’s watch to see who the man is... Doug! She’s the one A.B.C. is meeting. And that probably accounts for the gardenia in Carr’s buttonhole.”

Selby whistled in surprise as he watched the tall, graceful figure of the criminal lawyer pause impressively in front of the little woman. Carr bowed and raised his hat with a deferential courtesy that transformed a casual greeting into a ceremony.

Several years ago old Alfonse Baker Carr had moved to Madison City and purchased a residence in the ultra-exclusive Orange Grove Heights district. Ostensibly, he planned to retire from his metropolitan practice, but the old maestro had remained as active as ever. It was indeed rumored that the quiet environment of his residence in this outlying county furnished a sanctuary where the lawyer could plan those dramatic last-minute shifts in evidence which metropolitan prosecutors found so annoying and with which they were so powerless to cope. One thing was certain; whenever it came to a question of “beating the rap,” the wise ones in a dozen coastal cities could still smile crookedly as they announced cryptically, “It’s just as easy as A.B.C.”

Naturally, Madison City had looked askance at this foreign element in its midst which seemed such a sinister and mysterious intrusion. But old A.B.C, in his richly resonant voice, had assured one and all that he looked on Madison City not as a place to carry on his profession, but only as a tranquil spot in which to drift leisurely down the remaining years of a life that had been too crowded with excitement. In fact, he hoped this wholesome environment would add another score of years at least to his life. And there was that in the dignified, courtly way the old warhorse had stated his case that gave to the community a certain feeling of reassurance, which, as events proved, had by no means been justified.

“Now what in the world do you suppose A.B.C. wants with her?” Sylvia Martin asked.

“Is he alone?” Selby asked.

“Yes. He drove down to the train in his big sedan — the one that’s supposed to be bullet-proof. He drove it himself... Oh look, Doug! There’s another one!”

“Another what?”

“Another gardenia.”

Selby’s eyes narrowed. “So it is. This time it’s a man. Been traveling all night on the day coach, I’d say, judging from the wrinkled suit and the soiled shirt; and it’s a wilted, bruised gardenia. I wonder if that’s just a coincidence or whether... No, look. Carr’s signaling to him.”

Carr raised his hand, caught the man’s eye and nodded.

The man, middle-aged, clad in a rumpled brown business suit, walked slowly over toward the tall criminal lawyer. An imitation leather suitcase swung against his leg as he walked.

Sylvia remarked in an undertone, “They’re something alike. I don’t mean a resemblance, I mean their station in life.”

“Note a disagreement,” Selby said, his eyes twinkling. “The woman is pure gold. The man assays fourteen carat brass.”

“I know, Doug, but he’s the same type — the same — oh, you know, he looks as though he’d been pushed around a lot by life and had learned to expect it. He’s probably ten years younger, but he’s a man with — no, wait a minute, Doug. You’re right! I can see it when he smiles. It’s a cunning, crafty smile. He’s a scheming, petty crook masking behind that air of synthetic meekness.”

Selby said musingly, “I’d like very much to know who they are.”

“Let’s find out, Doug. I’ll give old A.B.C. a ring after a while and tell him that the paper is looking for news for its Personal Column; that I understand he has some house guests.”

“Perhaps they won’t be house guests.”

“Well, he’s herding them over to his automobile, putting their baggage in with them. At least it’s good enough for a call and a few questions later on. Perhaps he’ll tell me something.”

“Perhaps,” Selby said somewhat dubiously. “Having lunch with me, Sylvia?”

“That’s an invitation?”

“Definitely.”

“I’m a working woman, you know, Doug.”

“Am I not worth an interview?”

“I’ll say! Will you tell us about your European experiences?”

“No comment.”

“I knew it. That’s a heck of an interview.”

“A good reporter could expand that into a half column.”

“Yes,” she said laughingly, “I think I can do just that. Former District Attorney Selby, lean, hard and tanned, reputed to have been cited for personal bravery in action, passed through Madison City yesterday on his way to a new assignment about which he would make no comment...’ It’s a date, Doug. I’ll call it business. At the Orange Bowl Cafe at twelve-thirty.”

“Be seeing you,” he told her.

“Doug — doesn’t anyone know you’re coming?”

“No. I didn’t tell a soul.”

“Rex Brandon will be simply tickled pink.”

“He’s still sheriff?” Doug asked.

“Oh, sure.”

“How about the new district attorney?”

Sylvia Martin made a little nose-wrinkling gesture. “Ask Rex about him. How about letting me give you a lift to the courthouse?”

“I’ve got some bags to attend to. I’ll get a taxi later on and...”

“Better attend to your bags later on. Taxis aren’t to be had just like that — not these days. There’s a war on, or did you know, Major? Come on, I’ll drive you up.”