The D.A. Breaks a Seal

16

Selby and Sylvia Martin sat side by side in the bus that was bound for Los Angeles.

Her hand found his, squeezed it impetuously. “Doug, it’s so good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back.”

She waited a few moments then said, “You’re back, but still you’re not back. I’ve just borrowed you for a while, just something that will make things a little easier — and a little harder.”

“What do you mean, Sylvia?”

“Easier while you’re here, harder after you’ve gone. I miss you, Doug. Lots of people miss you. The County needs you. Are you coming back to the district attorney’s office?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course,” she said, “you’re not really the old Doug Selby. You’re bigger and broader. Why don’t you want to come back and be district attorney, Doug?”

He turned to face her. “I don’t know, Sylvia. I want to work. I want to do the best I can with what I have.”

“To make more money?”

He shook his head impatiently. “Making money doesn’t appeal to me. I used to think of work in terms of money. Now I like to think of work in terms of accomplishment.”

“The Army, Doug?”

“Not the Army. The Army is only a means to an end.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t know. We’re entering an entirely new era.”

“But, Doug, there’ll be peace and we’ll have power. Well have a Navy and airplanes and...”

“And they won’t do us a darn bit of good,” Selby said, “unless we have definite principles and the will to fight to back up those principles. We’ve got to decide what we want and determine how we intend to get it. And we haven’t much time to lose. While we’re trying to make up our minds other nations will capitalize on our indecision by taking what they want and adding to their potential power at the same time they subtract from ours. I want to fit into something big, Sylvia. And the way to be a part of something big is to do a lot of small things well.”

“In Madison City?” she asked somewhat wistfully.

“It might be Madison City,” he told her. “A nation is composed of cities, and the cities are composed of people, and the nation somehow has to be welded together. Lots of people in lots of cities will have to...” He broke off and laughed. “After all, we’re getting into deep waters, but I may come back to Madison City. I may be a district attorney. I may be a judge. But whatever I am, I’m going to try to remember that every man in every job has to accept a new responsibility. Politicians must give way to statesmen. And always I want to remember that I can best take part in the big things by doing lots of little things well.”

“Such as finding out who murdered Fred Albion Roff?” she asked, half mischievously.

“Such as keeping a friend from being double-crossed by a political cutthroat,” Selby said. “I’m not at all satisfied with the way Gifford is going about this thing. He’s letting old A. B. Carr make up his mind for him, and when it comes to a showdown, if Carr makes a monkey out of the law enforcement officers, Gifford will blame everything onto the sheriff’s office for failing to marshal enough evidence to enable him to get a conviction. And it will look perfectly plausible. There’s enough circumstantial evidence to make the average man on the street feel that Farley really is guilty.”

“But, Doug, isn’t that just one of the things that you can’t avoid? I mean when you’re in the position Rex Brandon is in, you’re more or less at the mercy of the district attorney — in case he wants to give you a double-cross.”

“There’s probably only one answer to it,” Selby said.

“What’s that?”

“If Farley is guilty, get the evidence that will convict him. If he isn’t guilty, find out who is guilty and prove Farley innocent by proving that someone else is guilty.”

“And you think Farley is innocent?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out.”

“When Carl Gifford realizes what you’re doing, he won’t like it.”

“Exactly.”

“Will that stop you from doing it?”

“No.”

“But you just said that you didn’t want Gifford to think that you were horning in.”

Selby laughed and said, “I’m trying to do what I do in such a way that I’ll have it all done before there can be any criticism.”

“And they haven’t enough evidence now to get a conviction?”

“Nowheres near enough. In order to prove a murder case, you nearly always have to prove a motive. In order to prove a motive, you have to know a great deal about the people with whom you’re dealing. The murderer is alive. He’s in a position to cover up. The dead man isn’t. Therefore, the first principle in investigating a murder case is to find out every single thing you can about the corpse.”

“That’s the way you used to play it, Doug?”

“That’s the way Rex Brandon and I used to go about it,” Selby said, “and I think it’s a good way.”

Thereafter, they were silent for several minutes. Sylvia Martin looked out of the window, then closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the cushioned seat, said drowsily, “These murder cases are hectic, but it’s good to have you back, Doug,” and almost immediately fell asleep, her head naturally gravitating over until it rested against Doug Selby’s shoulder.

From the bus depot in Los Angeles, they went directly to the Palm Vista Hotel. The Los Angeles police had been there before them, and the manager of the hotel was inclined to be uncommunicative. He had turned over all of his records, everything he had, to the police. There had been a long-distance call...

“Was it the only one?” Selby asked.

“It was the only one.”

“Did Roff receive any visitors in his room?”

The manager didn’t know. He said somewhat indignantly that he couldn’t be expected to know.

“Any local telephone calls?” Sylvia asked.

The record of that had also gone to the police. The manager believed there had been one call to a downtown hotel, but he wasn’t certain.

Selby nudged Sylvia Martin. “Well,” he announced, yawning prodigiously, “I guess there’s nothing to be done about it. We came in from Madison City and we’re tired. How about vacancies?”

The manager referred him to the room clerk, who found that he had two singles, emphasizing very positively that they were on different floors.

Selby calmly registered and handed Sylvia Martin the pen. She registered, and Selby gravely took out a billfold. “My baggage is coming along later,” he said. “We’ll pay in advance. Is there a good restaurant around here?”

The clerk glumly assured them that not only was there no good restaurant around the hotel, but there wasn’t any good restaurant anywhere in the city: food was terrible, service awful, prices high. His manner was dyspeptically pessimistic as he handed Selby the change from a ten-dollar bill. There had been one or two very nice restaurants near the hotel, but they couldn’t get help and when they did have help, they couldn’t keep it. Then they couldn’t get the food. Now you got things fried in rancid grease, burnt in too hot an oven, served without condiments, and prices were terrible. Selby went up in the elevator, said casually to Sylvia Martin, “See you after a while,” and was shown to his room.

Selby enjoyed the luxury of a hot bath, then, in undershirt and trousers, telephoned for a bellboy.

The bellboy gave attentive consideration to Selby’s request for two packs of one of the more popular brands of cigarettes, and a bottle of Scotch whiskey.

“I can get ‘em, but it’s going to cost something.”

Selby agreed that one must necessarily pay for service, and after the commercial details had been concluded, finished dressing while he was waiting for the whiskey, cigarettes, two glasses, two bottles of soda, and plenty of ice.

“Two glasses?” the bellboy commented blandly.

Selby met his eyes. “Any reason why there shouldn’t be two?”

“None that I know of.”

“How is this place — strict?”

“It doesn’t like noise.”

“No noise, everything okay?”

“Everything’s okay.”

“You on night before last?” Selby asked.

“Uh huh.”

“What is there the manager didn’t want you to tell about Roff who was in 903?”

“I don’t get you.”

“About the dame that called on him,” Selby said, carelessly. “What was the idea?”

The bellboy hesitated a moment, then blurted, “Well, since you know about it — oh, well, you know how it is. It might not look so good in the newspapers.”

“That the only visitor he had?”

“Far as I know she was. He’d had some hootch sent up before she came. Personally, I think it was on the up and up, but in the newspapers... well, you know, it was just one of those things that there wasn’t any need to talk about. How did you know about it?”

“Oh I know her,” Selby said casually. “She certainly is a darb, isn’t she?”

“I’ll say she’s a darb — the real McCoy. She came breezing in just like she owned the place and got in the elevator and wanted the ninth floor. We knew she wasn’t roomed here, and when a jane comes in and pulls that line, we make it a point to see where she’s going. So we spotted her into 903 and the manager told me to walk past the room a couple of times and see if there was any noise.”

“There wasn’t?”

“No noise. She was a regular little lady — came out about an hour afterwards and went on about her business. Personally, I don’t think she’d even had a drink. Don’t say I spilled anything in case... well, you know how it is.”

“I know how it is,” Selby assured him and handed him another dollar.

When the bellboy had left, Selby gave Sylvia Martin a ring. “Come on down and have a drink.”

“Is it all right, Doug?”

“It’s all right, just so you don’t make any noise. I have that assurance from headquarters.”

She laughed, said, “I’ll be quiet, but it will be five minutes.”

Selby opened the door when he heard her tap on the panels. He poured out drinks, splashed in soda water, smiled at her over the bubbling brim of the glass, and said, “Here’s to crime.”

“Here’s to crime. Why do you have that expression of the cat that has just successfully looted the canary cage?”

Selby said, “I was putting myself in Roff’s position.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Well, you know if I were a lawyer who had uncovered something that might be pretty much worth while, and I started to peddle the information, I’d naturally want to peddle it to the highest bidder.”

“Well?” she asked.

Selby said, “Roff came west on the train. That train went right through Madison City. He didn’t get off. He went on to Los Angeles. He stayed here in this hotel. After he’d been here for a while, he called Madison City. Now, if he’d been wanting to talk with someone in Madison City on a matter of importance, he could have gone there first. When you’re selling information to the highest bidder, you don’t talk with only one bidder.”

“Doug, you mean you think he talked with old A. B. Carr?”

Selby said, “I think he talked with Anita Eldon. I don’t think he wanted to deal with another lawyer. I think he wanted to deal with clients first, and not with lawyers unless he had to.”

“But he called Inez Stapleton.”

“Because he had to. There were two clients on the other side. Inez Stapleton was the only one who was in a position to get them both together, but on the proponent’s side on the case, there was only one — Anita Eldon.”

“Are you sure it was she?”

“No. I can only surmise it, and I lack the official power to make that identification absolute. I wish we had a photograph of her.”

“But I have, Doug.”

“You have?”

“Good heavens yes. You didn’t think the Clarion would let a million-dollar will-contest come to trial with a beautiful blonde trying to climb aboard the gravy train and not have photographs?”

Selby’s eyes were sharp with interest. “A photograph of the blonde the way she was, or the way Carr has dressed her up.”

Sylvia laughed. “That’s once where old A. B. Carr slipped up. He forgot about the vanity of his client. She might be willing to appear in court as the demure, plain little girl who is dazed by the greedy world, but she wasn’t going to have her photograph in the papers looking that way.”

“You have the picture with you?”

“Not the picture; but a proof we pulled.”

“Let’s take a look at it.”

Sylvia took from her purse a folded sheet of newsprint some eight by ten inches, on which appeared reproductions of three photographs. In the center was the glamorous, blonde beauty of Anita Eldon. On the left was old A. B. Carr in a pose that emphasized the strength of his clean-cut, thoughtful features. Over on the right was a photograph of Inez Stapleton and below the pictures was printed: “Glamorous principal and opposing attorneys who are battling for million-dollar estate in the will-contest which is now being tried in Superior Court here.”

“I think that will do it,” Selby said, and holding the newsprint in his hand went to the telephone, asked for the bellboy, and was careful to specify that bellboy number four was the one who was to answer the call.

Selby opened the door as soon as he heard the boy’s knock.

The bellboy regarded Sylvia Martin with the cynical appraisal of a man of the world who has no illusions whatever, then turned to Doug Selby, his manner expectant.

Selby said, “I wonder if you’d recognize a picture of the woman who went to room 903 the other night?”

“I could try,” the bellboy announced grinning. “I darn seldom forget a pretty girl,” and he favored Sylvia with another glance.

Selby extended the sheet of newsprint with its three photographs, and its caption.

“That the one?” he asked.

The bellboy squinted his eyes thoughtfully, looked at the paper for some five or six seconds, “That’s the one,” he announced.

Selby’s voice showed his excitement. “You’re positive?”

“Sure I’m positive. It’s a good picture of her.”

“In other words,” Selby said, “if it comes to a showdown you can swear absolutely that this woman,” tapping Anita Eldon’s picture, “went to the room that was rented by this man Roff...”

“Hey, wait a minute. Which one are you talking about?” the bellboy asked.

Once more Selby tapped Anita Eldon’s picture.

The bellboy shook his head. “This is the broad that went up there,” he said, and placed his finger firmly and positively on the picture of Inez Stapleton.