The D.A. Breaks a Seal

17

There was still light in the window of Inez Stapleton’s office. Selby climbed the stairs, and fatigue made his feet seem as heavy as his heart. He walked down the corridor, tried the outer door of the office and found it locked. He knocked, then after a moment knocked more loudly.

Steps sounded on the carpeted floor. A hand was on the knob on the inside of the door as though ready to unlock it. Then, apparently some uneasiness caused the hand to hesitate. Inez Stapleton’s voice called out, “Who is it?”

“It’s Doug, Inez.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

She unlocked the door, let Selby in.

She looked thin and white. The skin under her eyes was dark with fatigue. Her features seemed pinched and drawn, but her head was back and her shoulders erect.

“I’ve been gathering a little legal ammunition,” she said, and her smile was merely a distortion of the lips. “It’s mostly duds.”

Selby said, “I want to speak to you. I hate to talk to you when you’re tired.”

“It’s all right. I was just closing up and getting ready to go home.”

Selby said, “It’s after one.”

“I know it.”

Selby followed her into the inner office, took the seat which she indicated on the other side of the desk which was littered with law books. A pad of yellow foolscap showed the top sheet was filled with scribbled notes.

Selby’s voice was kindly, but there was in it the beginning of a probing insistence. He said, “Fred Albion Roff was murdered here at the Madison Hotel. He was in Los Angeles the night before he met his death. The records show that he telephoned you at your office.”

“That’s not new, Doug.”

“It’s preliminary.”

“To what?”

“Henry Farley is the waiter at the hotel who took the poisoned food up to the room. He has a criminal record. Some poison was found in his room.”

“Well?”

“A. B. Carr is defending him.”

“I know all those things, Doug.”

“And Carr rushed Gifford into filing a case against him. I understand that Carr is going to waive putting on any testimony at the preliminary and will consent that this man be bound over. That will mean that Gifford is virtually irrevocably embarked upon the prosecution of that waiter for first degree murder.”

“Well?”

“So far, Gifford hasn’t been able to uncover any motive.”

“And what does all of that have to do with me?”

“It has to do with me,” Selby said. “That’s the thing I’m trying to tell you first. Rex Brandon is my friend. If the case against Farley blows up, it is quite possible that Gifford will bail out. He’ll throw the blame on the sheriff’s office for not having accomplished one single thing from the moment the district attorney’s office filed its case.”

“That’s just an assumption on your part?”

“Just an assumption,” he said. “However, I think it’s a logical assumption. I don’t want it to happen. I want to find out more facts before Farley’s preliminary takes place. I think you can tell me some of those facts.”

“No comment,” Inez said, her lips hardening so that little tired caliper lines came from the edges of her nostrils.

“I know,” Selby said, “but there’s something else that I have to tell you. Tonight I went to Los Angeles, trying to find some evidence.”

“Alone?” she asked and the question was almost taunting in its tone.

“Sylvia Martin went with me.”

“Out of friendship for Rex Brandon, I presume?” Inez said.

Selby didn’t pay any attention to the comment. He said, “We went to the hotel where Fred Albion Roff had stayed. I felt absolutely certain that he must have had something to do with this case. I thought that Anita Eldon might very well have called on him at his room there. I got one of the bellboys talking and showed him a picture of Anita Eldon. It was one of a group of pictures that the Clarion is going to run tomorrow morning. He picked out the photograph of the woman who had gone to Roff’s room, all right, but the photograph wasn’t that of Anita Eldon. It was a picture of you.”

The silence that followed Selby’s statement lasted for what seemed an interminable interval. Selby was conscious of the stale air of the office after the fresh tang of the outer night. His nostrils were also conscious of that peculiar slightly acrid dust smell which is given off by old leather-backed law books that have long lain dormant.

“Well?” Selby asked.

Inez Stapleton tilted her chin even a little higher.

“No comment.”

“You can’t get away with it, Inez,” Selby explained patiently. “I didn’t bring Sylvia with me because — well, because it didn’t seem right.”

“Why wasn’t it right?” Inez blazed at him. “You might as well wear her around your neck! You’ve been here two days and I haven’t seen you over thirty minutes. You’ve been running around...”

“What I’m getting at,” Selby interrupted, “is that Sylvia Martin is working for a newspaper. She’s a professional woman. She has a job to do. She’s uncovered some news. She’s going to have to publish it.”

“Let her publish it.”

“And when that happens, it means that old A. B. Carr, with that masterly timing of his, will adopt an air of hurt innocence. He’ll let the impression get around that if Fred Albion Roff had lived, he would have blown your will-contest case sky-high; that perhaps you didn’t bring about his death, but that you were certainly in a position to profit by his murder, and that now you’re trying to make hay while the sun shines. In order to accomplish that and win your will-contest case, you’re deliberately letting his client, Henry Farley, take the rap for a murder that could be cleared up if you’d only speak.”

Inez Stapleton’s eyes were no longer tired. They were hard and defiant. “No comment,” she spat at him.

Selby got up from his chair. He slowly walked around the desk. His left arm circled Inez Stapleton’s shoulder. His right hand smoothed her forehead, ironing out the little wrinkles of tension and worry. “Don’t do it, Inez,” he pleaded. “At least tell me. Let’s see if we can’t work something out.”

And then suddenly he realized that his fingertips which were touching her eyes were wet; that she had become limp and that tears were oozing out from under the tightly closed lids of her tired eyes. Her face twisted into a spasm of grief. She pushed his hands away, spread her arms on the desk, put her head down and sobbed.

Feeling awkwardly masculine and utterly futile to cope with this new mood, Selby patted her shoulder reassuringly for a second or two, then quietly moved over to a chair and let Inez cry it out.

It was nearly five minutes later that she raised tear-swollen eyes, wiped her face with a handkerchief, and said, “All right. You win. I guess everyone wins, except me.”

“I’m not winning, Inez, I’m only trying to help.”

“Help whom?”

“You.”

“And Sylvia Martin and Rex Brandon.”

“All right,” he told her, “I’m trying to help all of them. I’m trying to help my friends.”

“Doug, I can’t talk.”

“Why not?”

“Because, if I talk to anyone, it will appear in the paper. And if it appears in the paper, I’ve thrown what little chance my clients have to win this case out of the window.”

“Can’t you talk to me?”

She shook her head. “I’m a lawyer, Doug. I’m representing my clients.”

“If you don’t talk, your case is going out of the window,” Selby said grimly.

“It’s out of the window anyway. A. B. Carr, with his fatherly air of compassionate concern for his client, his grave, gentlemanly old-school gallantry for a damn little gold digger, and W. Barclay Stanton strutting around the courtroom stuffing his shirt full of W. Barclay Stanton — Bosh! I’m sick of the whole business!”

“I think you’d better tell,” Selby said.

She shook her head. “I can’t. I won’t. I’m damned if I do.”

“I think you should.”

“I won’t.”

Selby said, “I’ve got to tell Rex Brandon, Inez. The newspaper already knows. They’ll call the Grand Jury in session. You’ll be subpoenaed.”

“I have a right to a privileged communication.”

“From a client. Not from anyone else.”

“Doug, I can’t tell what happened.”

“You’ve got to tell what happened.”

Suddenly she looked up with a flash of hope. “Doug, do something for me.”

“What?”

“Come in this case.”

“What do you mean?”

“Associate yourself with me. Come in as one of the lawyers. Then I can talk to you. I can tell you the whole thing. It’s an awful mess. You’ll know what to do. I don’t know. I’m groping in the dark. I can’t talk to anyone because I can’t betray the interests of my client. But if you were associated with me — look, Dong. I’ll split the fee with you. I’ll...”

He shook his head.

“No, I thought not,” she said wearily. “You run around and help everybody else, but...”

“No splitting of the fee,” Selby interrupted with a smile. “Pay me what I’m out of pocket on the case if you win, and I’ll associate myself with you — at least until tomorrow afternoon when my furlough runs out.”

She was spilling words at him almost before she realized the terms of his acceptance.

“Doug, this man telephoned me night before last. He was a lawyer. He said that he wanted to discuss the case with me; that he might consider associating himself in the case with me; that he was from Kansas and he had some important new evidence that no one knew anything about; that he would go in it on a contingency basis; that he wouldn’t charge a cent unless he could win the case hands down.

“I can’t begin to tell you how low I was right then. I’d been working on the case. I realized that the law made it almost impossible to establish a case of undue influence in a will-contest. It was necessary to show the undue influence right at the very moment of executing the will, and old A.B.C. had his fine Italian hand in that. Well, you know how it was. My witnesses were beginning to get indefinite, and I saw what I was up against.”

Selby nodded.

“When someone comes to you to take a case, you listen to what they have to say and feel that they have a case and think, ‘Oh, sure, things will work out as I begin to develop the evidence,’ and you go right ahead and are full of optimism. Then when you begin to prepare for trial, you realize that it’s just the other way around; that your witnesses put their best foot forward when they talked with you the first time; that as they realize what they’re up against, and know that Carr is going to cross-examine them, they begin to get more and more indefinite. And Carr, with that deft, sure touch of the absolute genius, manages to make everything come out all right for him. His side keeps getting stronger, and yours keeps getting weaker.”

“So you went in to see Roff?” Selby prompted.

“I talked with him for a little while over the telephone and he wanted to see me. I told him I’d see him the next day, and he said that wouldn’t do — I had to see him right away if I wanted to do business; that otherwise it would be too late.”

“So you went in?”

“Yes, I had enough gasoline to make the trip. I jumped in my car and drove in. I left the lights on in my office while I was gone — just as a blind in case anyone was checking up on me.”

“And you saw him?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Doug, it was the most awful thing I ever listened to in my life.”

“Go ahead.”

“He said that he had one course of action that would enable me to win the case; that he had the witnesses and everything; that on the other hand, he could throw the case the other way just by lifting his little finger. He said that he had a witness coming on the train the next day — he didn’t mention who it was — who could either win or lose the case. He told me that if I made a deal with him he had something that was absolutely bullet-proof; that I could win the case hands down but that I could never win the case on my theory of undue influence, not with the witnesses I had. And then he came to the part that made me mad. He said that he wanted fifty cents on the dollar.”

“You mean half of your fee?” Selby asked.

She said, “Not of my fee but half of everything in the estate. He said that he would take it in the form of a contract by which he would absolutely guarantee to win the case. But in return, he had to have that money paid to him as a fee, and he would take care of the witnesses and I gathered — well, at least one of the witnesses wanted to be paid, and another one was to be suppressed — sent out of the country. That was a witness who would swear that Eleanor hated her brother and sister and had said so before Martha Otley ever started working for her.”

“What did you do?”

“I told him there was absolutely nothing doing, and I thought he was just trying to chisel in on the case.”

“Then what?”

“Then he smiled and said that he had thought perhaps I’d adopt that attitude, but that he wanted to give me a chance. He said that he’d be in Madison City and that if I wanted to change my mind before nine-thirty the next morning I could get in touch with him at the Madison Hotel; that after that it would be too late.”

“So what did you do?”

“I came back home.”

Selby said, “Now let’s get this straight, Inez, because it’s important. Did you say anything to your client?”

“Yes. I told her about it.”

“You mean Barbara Honcutt?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“About eight o’clock the next morning I telephoned her at the hotel.”

“Why did you tell her and what did you tell her?”

“I told her exactly what had happened and exactly what I had done. I told her I thought the man was a chiseler; that I didn’t like the idea of suppressing evidence and I didn’t like the idea of blackmail, even when it was put up in that form.”

“And your client agreed with you?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say anything to her brother?”

“I think she did.”

“And to W. Barclay Stanton?”

“Heavens, I hope not.”

“But you don’t know whether or not they said anything to him?”

“No.”

“Did you see Fred Albion Roff after he came to Madison City?”

“No.”

“Did you try to?”

“No. I made up my mind I’d paddle my own canoe. I didn’t want to be mixed up in the case with that type of lawyer.”

“And why didn’t you tell Rex Brandon about what had happened?”

“Doug, don’t you see? Can’t you see? Then I’d have had to tell the whole story, that a witness would swear Eleanor had hated her brother and sister. A witness who must have come to Madison City on that train. You remember that Roff telephoned down to find out if the train was on time. If I say anything, it will give Carr all the information he needs to hunt up that witness, and then what little chance I stand of winning the case will be absolutely lost.”

“What happened in court this afternoon?” Selby asked. “After the afternoon recess?”

She said, “Nothing much. They put one of the subscribing witnesses on the stand — or rather, W. Barclay Stanton did. Any witness we don’t call is deemed to be one who would have testified against us. That’s the presumption under the law and... well, after all, when you’re fighting a desperate case, you clutch at straws. We just went fishing, trying to find something that would help.”

“What happened?”

“This witness, Franklin L. Dawson, went on the witness stand. He made a terrific impression. He told about Eleanor Preston coming in there to sign the will, about how she said to Martha Otley, ‘Now you stay right out here. I don’t want you anywheres around when I sign this because that brother and sister of mine are apt to try and make trouble if they see my money slipping through their greedy fingers.’ ”

“Then what?”

“Then she went into Carr’s office and signed the will, and Carr wanted witnesses. One of them was his secretary, and the other one was this Franklin L. Dawson who was waiting in the office to see Carr about another matter, and Carr called him in and asked him to witness the will. So he went in and of course swears that Eleanor Preston was absolutely normal, in her right mind, and in full possession of her faculties, and said that she wanted him to execute the will as a witness.”

“Anything else?”

“Oh,” she said, “W. Barclay Stanton ranted and raved around the courtroom and every time he opened his mouth he put his foot in it, until finally even the jury got to laughing at him.”

“And the witness was excused?”

“No. I’m supposed to question him when court opens in the morning... I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do, but Stanton insisted we had to take a chance on these subscribing witnesses. Otherwise they’d claim we were relying on circumstantial evidence as to the things that influenced the testatrix at the time the will was executed, and failing to put on the best evidence — the subscribing witnesses. What I was trying to do was to show that Martha Otley accompanied Eleanor Preston to Carr’s office and was with her right up to the minute she signed the will.”

Selby pushed back from the desk, got up and paced the floor. “You’ve got to tell about that interview with Roff,” he said.

“But you can see what will happen.”

“If you don’t,” Selby went on, “it’s going to come out anyway. It isn’t a privileged communication. It didn’t consist of anything your client said to you. It consisted of something that was said to you by Fred Albion Roff, and it may furnish a motive for his murder.”

“Sure,” she said. “Leave it to old A.B.C. Hell make it appear that I told my client, and that she went right out and murdered the man and...”

“That part,” Selby said, “is something you can sit tight on. You don’t have to tell them that you told your client.”

“I may not have to tell them that, but Carr will tell them for me. And Carr will probably dig up this witness and...”

“Don’t be too sure there is any witness, Inez.”

“What do you mean, Doug?”

“I mean Roff was in a dangerous position. He didn’t dare to put his proposition boldly and truthfully because you might find out what he had in mind. He may have had two witnesses, or he may have had only one witness. Personally, I think he had just one witness, a woman. The man who was also on the train was a stooge, someone to keep a line on the witness. He was probably sent along to be sure she didn’t leave the train at any intermediate stop. That’s why he traveled by day coach. In that way he could get off at every stop — to watch the Pullman car where the woman was riding — making certain she didn’t take a powder.”

“Doug, what are you talking about?”

“But,” Selby went on, “Roff evidently had some theory by which he thought he could win the case; otherwise he wouldn’t have made you such an offer.”

“Sure — by suppressing the evidence of a witness.”

“You can’t win a will-contest merely by suppressing evidence. He had something that was hot enough so he came all the way out here from Kansas, something that caused him to — let’s think the thing over pretty carefully, Inez. We’ve got to put ourselves into the mind of a dead man and reconstruct his thoughts. Then we’ve got to find out the method by which he expected to win his case.”

“But what are we going to do first?”

“First,” Selby said determinedly, “whether you like it or not, we’re going to notify Rex Brandon of exactly what happened.”

“And Sylvia Martin?” she asked.

Selby met her eyes. “You’re going to give Sylvia Martin an exclusive interview,” he said. “Remember, I’m associated in the case now.”

And Selby calmly picked up the receiver and dialed a number.