The D.A. Breaks a Seal

19

At the hospital, a nurse summoned Dr. Thurman. The physician’s face was stamped with the fatigue of overwork, long hours, grave responsibilities. His face had once been grooved into kindly lines of benevolence, the heritage of more carefree days when he had been able to find the leisure to take an occasional vacation or have an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Now, his eyelids fluttered slightly as he opened and closed his eyes, and there was a slightly grayish pallor about the skin. There were pouches under his eyes and fines around his mouth.

“She’s weak,” he said. “She’s out of danger, unless her heart gives out. But you can’t go on any fishing excursions, gentlemen. If you have specific questions to ask, she can answer one question or perhaps two. No more.”

“How did it happen?” Selby asked.

“Don’t know,” the doctor said. “Arsenic was ingested in food she ate at the hotel. I’ve traced it to the sugar she put in her coffee. There was a sugar bowl on the table. There was arsenic sprinkled on the top of that sugar. She had been assigned a regular table in the hotel dining room, a small table for two over near the window. Any person who wanted her out of the way only needed to put arsenic in her sugar bowl to be reasonably certain she would get it.”

“Provided, of course, he had access to the dining room,” Selby said.

“It’s a public place,” the doctor pointed out.

“But a transient would hardly have had the chance to put arsenic in a sugar bowl that a regular tenant or a waiter would have had. The tables for regular roomers are off to one side.”

“That’s so, yes.”

“You found out what the poison was rather quickly?”

“Fortunately, the symptoms were typical. I made a correct diagnosis almost immediately and got a stomach pump to work.”

“You saved the contents of the stomach for analysis?”

“Oh, sure.”

“She’s weak?”

“Yes.”

“Frightened?”

“No. She has no idea a metallic poison was administered. She thinks it’s just a case of ordinary food poisoning.”

“You’ll tell her the truth before she leaves the hospital?”

“Certainly. She’s entitled to know — when she’s strong enough.”

“Can we ask her one or two questions now?” asked Brandon.

“Whenever you want. I’ll go in with you myself or have the nurse take you in.”

Brandon said, “Well, let’s go, and...”

Selby said, “Wait a minute, Rex. Let’s think. If we’re limited to one or two questions, we are going to have to make those questions count.”

“Naturally,” Dr. Thurman said, dryly.

“Has she said anything to you?” Selby asked. “Anything that would give you any hint?”

“Not a thing. She keeps talking about some contest she won, and she’s afraid she’s going to get cheated out of the trip which was supposed to be first prize.”

Selby nodded. “I know all about that.”

Selby said to Rex Brandon, “Let’s look at the thing this way, Rex. Fred Albion Roff came out here from Empalma. He arranged to have this witness come out here. He must have had an ace in the hole, a trump card that he could play, something that would enable him absolutely to guarantee a verdict in favor of the contestants in that will case.”

“That’s what he said,” Brandon observed.

“It’s what he said, and it’s what he himself believed,” Selby said. “He pushed his own stack of blue chips into the center of the table on that assumption. He was a crooked lawyer. But he was no fool. He knew evidence and he knew law. He paid his own expenses out here. He evidently paid the expenses of this witness and of a man to see she didn’t get off the train en route. The man took the day coaches so he could watch the Pullman at each stop. That must have been because the woman was his star witness. He bought her a Pullman berth. Roff had to assure himself that she would arrive in good condition. All that business about the contest was, of course, just an excuse, a subterfuge by which the man could get Hattie Irwin to arrive in Madison City at a certain date without letting her have the slightest idea of why she was being sent here. He arranged that so-called ‘contest’ which consisted of one single letter sent to one person who naturally would be notified she had won the first prize — a trip to California. He probably knew she had acquired the habit of trying her hand at mail order contests. You can see he laid his plans carefully and thoroughly. He couldn’t afford to have any slip-up. Therefore when he said he could guarantee a verdict in that will case he must have known what he was talking about. A lawyer smart enough to have arranged all that couldn’t have been merely guessing. He must have known.”

“You’re making a lot of deductions,” Brandon said.

Selby nodded and observed simply, “We’ve got to, Rex. The murderer put the seal of silence on the lips of Roff and now he’s tried to seal the lips of Hattie Irwin. We’ve got to break that seal.”

“All right. Keep talking,” Brandon said. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re doing fine.”

Selby said, “I’m making a guess, Rex, that the man was a stooge, a guard, a sort of chaperon. The woman was the one Roff really wanted. She must be the one who has the really valuable piece of information, the thing on which Roff was willing to stake his big gamble. Roff was making an investment, and he wanted to keep that investment as low as possible, but he took every safeguard to see that Hattie Irwin traveled in comfort.”

“All right. I’ll agree with you that far, Doug.” Dr. Thurman’s eyes were sparkling with interest now. He said, “I have never before realized just how you lawyers had to parallel our reasoning in making a diagnosis.”

Selby said, “We have here a will-contest. The principal ground of contest is undue influence. At the time of making the will, old A. B. Carr had the stage all set with that shrewd mind of his...”

“That crooked, unscrupulous mind of his,” Brandon interrupted.

“All right, have it that way if you want, but whether it’s crooked or unscrupulous or whether it isn’t, you must admit that it’s shrewd. He carefully set the stage, knowing that there would be a contest on the will, and feathering his own nest so that he could be assured of winning that contest and making the will stand up.

“Eleanor Preston was a wealthy and an influential woman here in Madison City. She heard about Carr’s skill and went to his office to have her will drawn, or perhaps it was Martha Otley who consulted Carr. Yes, it was probably Martha Otley who told Carr she wanted an absolutely bomb-proof will drawn up. Now, what single legal fact could absolutely throw that will out of court?”

“That’s a legal question,” Brandon said. “You’ve got to answer it.”

“Something in the execution of the will itself?” Dr. Thurman suggested.

“Ordinarily, you would say that would be the answer. But the will was executed in Carr’s office. There were two witnesses who were under Carr’s domination. The most we’ve been able to show is that the affair was stage-managed by Carr’s agile brain. But that isn’t going to affect the execution of the will. It only contributes something to the question of undue influence. Moreover, Hattie Irwin had never been out of Kansas, at least during the period in question. She knows none of the parties.”

“All right, then that’s out,” Brandon said.

“Now then, what else could there be — nothing except some declaration which would have come directly from the lips of the testatrix which would prove that there had been some undue influence, and even then the unsupported word of Hattie Irwin would hardly be sufficient. It would have required a letter, something in writing. But Hattie Irwin doesn’t know Eleanor Preston. She never heard of her. She doesn’t know Martha Otley. She has never heard of Martha Otley.”

“Could there have been anything else?” Brandon asked.

Selby shook his head. “Nothing that would insure a verdict in favor of the contestants on the ground of undue influence — nothing that I can think of.”

“It isn’t a letter,” Dr. Thurman said. “I asked her if there was anything at the hotel she wanted, and asked her particularly if there were any papers or correspondence she’d brought with her. I thought perhaps... well, you know, I just wasn’t taking any chances.”

“Well,” Brandon said, “that puts us up against a brick wall.”

“If you haven’t any really pertinent questions to ask her at this time,” Dr. Thurman said, “I’d much prefer to have you wait for another day or two.”

“We can’t wait,” Selby said. “The way that case is going up there, Judge Fairbanks is going to throw it out of court. We can’t prove any undue influence sufficient to even get our case to the jury. At any rate, I don’t think we can.”

“Well, then this witness doesn’t know anything,” Dr. Thurman said.

“She has to know something. Everything that Fred Albion Roff did shows that she must have known something. She must have... Wait a minute.”

Selby began pacing back and forth. Suddenly he turned, said to Dr. Thurman, “All right, Doctor, I’m ready.”

“To question her?”

“Yes.”

“Not more than two or three.”

“That’s right.”

There was a gleam in Selby’s eye. His manner showed suppressed excitement. “I’m taking a gamble, Rex,” he said quietly, “but I think it’s a good gamble.”

Dr. Thurman didn’t waste any time. He moved over and held the door open. “Very well, gentlemen,” he said, “if you’re ready let’s go.”

They walked down the long hospital corridor. Dr. Thurman gently opened the door of a private room. A nurse, standing by the bed, glanced up, smiled reassuringly at the doctor, and moved away.

Dr. Thurman held the door open for Rex Brandon and Doug Selby to enter.

Hattie Irwin seemed pathetically fragile as she lay on the hospital bed, the white covers accentuating the small compass of her body. Her eyes were closed, and without the animation of those eyes, the face seemed robbed of all life, merely a work-weary mask modeled in some inanimate gray substance that had the very faintest tinge of red vitality mixed with its gray pallor. The gray hair had been combed back from the forehead and only the white pillow slip served to bring out the fact that that hair had once been dark, perhaps lustrous with the sheen of youth.

Dr. Thurman stepped over to the patient, ran his hand down along her arm, raised the slender, bony wrist, placed a professional finger on the pulse. “How are you feeling now?” he asked.

The lids slowly opened over the deep-sunken dark eyes. The woman smiled. “Better.”

“You’re doing all right,” the doctor assured her. “Mr. Selby wants to ask you just one or two questions. Don’t let yourself get tired or excited. And the minute you begin to feel weary, just close your eyes. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

Selby stepped forward. “Mrs. Irwin, were you in Olympus last fall, and did you see an automobile accident?”

For a minute, her eyes showed surprise, then she said, “Not the accident. I was there right after the accident. They were taking out the bodies.”

“Two women?” Selby asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you see them clearly?”

“Yes. They put them on the sidewalk.”

“One of them was dead?”

“The blonde one, yes.”

“And the other?”

“I don’t like to think about it. She was screaming. Then the screams died away into a gurgle. After a while they took them into a drugstore.”

Selby was silent for a moment. The eyelids of the woman on the bed fluttered.

“That’s all,” Dr. Thurman warned in a low voice.

Selby said, “I think it’s all right, Doctor,” and stooped to pat Hattie Irwin’s shoulder reassuringly. “I think you’re going to be all right now,” he said, “and you don’t need to worry about the trip you won as your first prize. You’re going to Sacramento to see your niece.”

Selby nodded to Brandon.

Dr. Thurman looked puzzled as he followed them out into the corridor. “I don’t get it,” he said.

Selby smiled, “There’s one thing about Anita Eldon which isn’t artificial. She’s a natural blonde.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Brandon asked. “After all, she... Oh, oh! Here comes Gifford.”

Carl Gifford came bustling into the hospital with the manner of a man who knows exactly where he is going and what he intends to do when he gets there.

“Hello,” he said, including the group in his comprehensive greeting and then, turning to Dr. Thurman, said, “I understand we have another poisoning case. Another poisoning case from the same hotel, a Hattie M. Irwin this time.”

“That’s right,” Brandon said.

“I want to talk with her,” Gifford announced. “I want to find out some of the facts about that case. It may have a very direct bearing on this murder we’re investigating.”

“I’m afraid you can’t talk with her now,” Dr. Thurman said.

“Why not?”

“She’s too weak to stand another interview.”

“Another one!” Gifford exclaimed.

Selby said, “Rex Brandon and I just asked her a couple of questions, Gifford.”

Gifford’s face darkened. “She only had strength for one interview, and that was given to Major Selby, a man who has no official status in this county, a man who resigned the office of district attorney and who had better keep his fingers out of...”

Rex Brandon pushed forward. “That interview, my boy,” he said, to the angry district attorney, “was given to me, the sheriff of this county. Any objections?”

“Lots of them,” Gifford said, his chin out, his fists clenched.

Selby pushed forward. “Try making them to me, then.”

Gifford glared at Selby, caught the cold, purposeful glitter of Selby’s eyes, said, suddenly, “All right, if you folks want to play cutthroat polities, go ahead. We’ll see who wins out on that game.” He turned on his heel and walked off.