The D.A. Breaks a Seal

10

Late that afternoon, Selby entered Inez Stapleton’s office just in time to encounter a big-boned, heavily fleshed man going out.

The man gave Selby the benefit of a quick appraisal which somehow seemed to cover only the superficialities. It was as though the man felt sufficiently smug in the security of his own position to see only the things in life and in people that he wanted to see.

Selby walked through the reception room and saw Inez Stapleton seated at her desk, very apparently greatly discouraged.

“Is it that bad, Inez?” Selby asked.

She gave him a wan smile, said nothing.

With the assurance of an old friend, Selby settled himself in the chair, and tamped tobacco into the familiar old brier pipe which he had rescued from the sheriff’s office. “Want to talk about it?” he asked.

Inez pointed her finger in a jabbing gesture at the door through which the big man had just departed and said, “That is W. Barclay Stanton.”

“Your associate?” Selby asked.

“My associate,” she said acidly. “The man who is representing Hervey Preston, the brother, a small-town politician, a spellbinder of the old school. In his own bailiwick he’s doubtless deadly in front of a jury, but he’s come to Madison City, making no concessions to the fact that he’s a stranger here, and that in this court he is without following or influence. He has carried with him all of the stuffed-shirt arrogance that goes with his particular type.”

“You mean he’ll want to take an important part in the trial of the case and crowd you in the background?”

“Not that exactly. Gosh, Doug, I wouldn’t care if he pushed me clean out of the courtroom, if he could win the case. But what I mean is that he’s the typical stuffed shirt. He’s lived long enough in one place and that place has been small enough so that whenever he says anything, the newspapers play it up. They can’t have a political banquet without having him as the keynoter. He is the big shot in the Chamber of Commerce, a director in a bank. When he stands up in front of a jury in his own home town, the jurors are impressed with his prestige and he’s impressed with his own prestige, and the combination makes for a certain amount of success.”

“Well, then he probably has something on the ball,” Selby said, his eyes twinkling in a reassuring smile through the first clouds of his pipe smoke.

“He probably did once,” Inez conceded, “but as I size him up, for the last fifteen or twenty years he’s been coasting along on that reputation. He’s created a smug little niche for himself and hasn’t kept pace with the times. He hasn’t grown except around the waistband. He talks with all the old cliches of fifteen years ago. He’s convinced he’s a great orator. And he hasn’t the faintest conception of the law in regard to will-contest cases.”

Selby said, “Oh, well, kid him along, Inez. If he wants to get up in front, let him lead the shock troops and then after old A. B. Carr has punctured him, you can bring up the heavy reserves.”

She shook her head and said, “You’re just trying to reassure me, Doug. You know as well as I do that A. B. Carr will size him up at a glance and he’ll be too shrewd to puncture him entirely out of the running. He’ll leave him just enough pressure to keep going, egging the old boy along and giving him just enough encouragement so W. Barclay Stanton will carry himself to his own reductio ad absurdum. Then, at the last minute, in front of the jury, with all of that deft skill that he has, A. B. Carr will strip aside the smug mask and show the jury that Stanton doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but that that hasn’t kept him from talking about it at great length. He’ll completely deflate him and leave the old stuffed shirt running on the rim,” and Inez smiled at her own mixed metaphor.

“Oh, it won’t be that bad,” Selby said, laughing.

“The heck it won’t,” she said bitterly, “W. Barclay Stanton is just the type to stand up in front of the jury and take fifteen or twenty minutes pouring fulsome praise on the jurors, telling them how pleased he is that the case is being tried before a body of men and women of such exceptional intelligence; that the parties are to be congratulated; that the jurors in this particular case are so intellectually superior to the average man and woman... Oh, nuts!”

Selby laughed. “It’s evidently been a bad day.”

“It has for a fact. My witnesses are melting like ice cubes left too long on the kitchen sink.”

“They always do that. They’ll stiffen up in court.”

“Not with old A. B. Carr on the other side, they won’t, Doug. Good heavens, some of those witnesses were so absolutely positive of things that sounded perfectly swell when they related them to me the first time. Little things that would show that bit by bit Martha Otley was carrying on a steady campaign to poison the mind of Eleanor Preston. And now they’re getting just a little bit vague. When I start cross-examining them they begin to weaken and...”

“You’ve been working too hard,” Selby said, “and you’re taking the case too seriously. There are always breaks that you get from the other side. I’ve seen one of them today.”

“What do you mean, Doug?”

“Well, for instance let’s consider the main character on the other side.”

“Who?”

“Anita Eldon.”

“What about her, Doug?”

Selby laughed and said, “Wait until a Madison City jury takes a look at that gal.”

Inez Stapleton leaned forward to rest her elbow on the desk. “What about her, Doug?”

“She’s a hothouse flower.”

“Loud?”

“No not loud, just cultivated too much.”

“How do you mean, Doug?”

Selby said, “I can’t remember the exact words, but Sylvia Martin really covered it by saying that the woman put in as much care on her body as the average woman does on running a household, putting up preserves, cooking for her husband, washing dishes, getting the children off to school, darning their socks and all of the rest of the things that go with running a household.”

Inez Stapleton’s face became as a mask at the mention of Sylvia Martin. Selby, not noticing the danger signal, went on talking.

“You know, Inez, the more you think of it, the more you realize that that would be a good line to hand out to the jury. The hothouse flower type, the... the orchid woman.”

Inez said very coldly, “Thanks, Doug, it’s an excellent suggestion, but I think I’d prefer to try the case without depending on Sylvia’s descriptions.”

“Why, Inez? My gosh, you can’t hit it off any better than that. Sylvia has been in the newspaper business, and...”

Selby broke off as he heard the door open and close, saw Inez Stapleton’s eyes raise and look past him over his shoulder.

Selby turned.

The woman who was standing in the doorway was a motherly type, with competent strength radiating from her as warmth radiates from a stove. Here was a woman who had gone through life, doing the things which life demanded, and, as her muscles had built up into strength and the slim lines of youth had vanished, she had gained in strength and in understanding, until now, beneath the aura of white hair, her features showed the calm confidence which comes from inner harmony.

She took one look at Inez Stapleton, then said, “Now I just thought I’d find you here working on this case. You’ve been here altogether too long. You need some hot tea and a hot bath and a good dinner.”

She glanced somewhat curiously at Doug Selby, then said, “Hope I’m not interrupting, but I just made up my mind I’d see this girl had something hot to eat.”

Inez Stapleton performed a brief introduction. “Mrs. Honcutt, Major Selby. Mrs. Honcutt is the heir I’m representing, Doug.”

Selby, on his feet, was meeting the appraisal of sharp gray eyes that missed no detail.

“How de do,” Mrs. Honcutt said, extending her hand.

“Major Selby,” Inez went on as Doug Selby was acknowledging the introduction, “is a former district attorney here. He has an enviable record as a trial lawyer. He’s back on a brief furlough and I’ve been sort of talking things over with him.”

“Well now,” Mrs. Honcutt said, “that just goes to show how I blunder into things. I should have known that you’d have a dinner date.”

Inez said somewhat wearily, “Oh, but I haven’t. Doug had just dropped in to pass the time of day. This is his first evening in town and he’s all dated up.”

Mrs. Honcutt frowned.

“Anyway,” Inez went on hastily, “I really haven’t any time for dinner. I’ve got to go over the notes I’ve made on the testimony of these witnesses and...”

“That’s exactly what I was afraid of,” Mrs. Honcutt said. “You’ll work yourself to death on this thing. You’ve been here all day and you were here last night. From my room over there in the hotel I can look across and see your light, and it was still on when I went to bed, and I sat up until after nine o’clock, too.”

Inez smiled somewhat wearily. “It was on long after that, Mrs. Honcutt.”

“And I s’pose you were on the job again early this morning. Now you’re going to come with me. I’ve got some things I want to talk to you about.”

“You’re staying over at the Madison Hotel?” Selby asked.

“Yes. I’m in 621. You know, a man dropped dead in the room next to me this morning.”

“So I understand,” Selby said. “A lawyer, I believe, from somewhere in Kansas. You’re from Kansas too, aren’t you?”

“That’s right. I’m from McKeesville. You say this man is from Kansas?”

“From Empalma, I understand.”

“Do tell,” Barbara Honcutt said. “Empalma ain’t so far from where we live. Not the way you measure distances out here. Of course, at home, we think it’s quite a ways. What’s his name?”

“Fred Albion Roff.”

“Never heard of him.”

Selby said, “I was wondering if perhaps he might have had some connection with this case.”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Honcutt said. “Of course, if he was a lawyer he could have. My brother, Hervey, insisted on having Mr. Stanton come out with him to look after his interests. And I guess Mr. Stanton thinks we’ve got a pretty good case or he wouldn’t have gambled on coming — paying all his own expenses and all that. Going to take a percentage if we win.”

“He and your brother are staying at the same hotel with you?” Selby asked.

“That’s right. But they’re not on the same floor. We wanted to get rooms all together, but we couldn’t do it. Hervey’s down on the fifth floor, and Mr. Stanton is on the same floor with me but he’s way down at the other end of the corridor. The manager of the place says that perhaps he can get us closer together a little later on. You see, Hervey and Mr. Stanton didn’t get in until late last night. On the night train.”

Inez looked at Selby, hesitated a moment, then said, “Doug, run along, will you? I’m in a horrible mood for social chitchat, and I guess Mrs. Honcutt is right. I’ll run out and have a cup of hot tea with her. I want to talk with her a little about the case and then I’m going to do a little more work and...”

“And tonight you’re going to go to bed,” Mrs. Honcutt said. “It isn’t going to do you a mite of good to walk into court tomorrow so tired that your eyes look like two holes burnt in a blanket. You’re a mighty attractive young woman, as well as a smart young woman, and there’s people on that jury that are going to be looking you over with a lot of approval, and I want you to be looking your best.”

Inez gave Doug a tired smile. “Wish me luck, Doug.”

Selby hesitated for a moment, then crossed over to grip her hand. “Luck, Inez,” he said.