The D.A. Breaks a Seal

6

Doug Selby found Rex Brandon in conference with Harry Perkins at the latter’s undertaking parlor, the back room of which served as a morgue for Madison County. The sheriff’s forehead was puckered into lines of thought.

“What’s new?” Selby asked.

The sheriff said grimly, “It could be murder.”

“What happened?”

“You called the turn, Doug. That remaining lump of sugar seems to be pretty well saturated with hydrocyanic acid. The doctor says it looks as though the cause of the death was hydrocyanic poisoning. There wasn’t any poison anywheres else in the room. Carl Gifford wants to arrest the waiter.”

“On what evidence?” Selby asked.

“That’s just it. He wants to arrest him first and browbeat the evidence out of him. I don’t like it.”

Selby lowered his voice, said, “Look here, Rex, I don’t want to stick my neck out on this and I’m not particularly anxious to have it get around but there’s a chance that this is tied in in some way with that will-contest case that comes up for trial tomorrow. There’s somewhere around a million dollars involved in that and some of Carr’s clients would do a lot for a million dollars.”

“What makes you think so, Doug? That it’s tied up with the will-contest case, I mean?”

“Those white gardenias, Rex. Anita Eldon, who has room 617, the one right next to that occupied by the dead man, is Carr’s client in that will case.”

“We’ve made a little investigation there,” Brandon said. “She came into town on the eleven o’clock bus and went directly to the restaurant and got something to eat. Old A. B. Carr met her there. She went to the hotel after we got there and was put in the adjoining room because at the moment it was the only room that was vacant. There doesn’t seem to be any connection.”

“Except that white gardenia,” Selby said.

“Except the gardenia,” Brandon admitted, “and somehow you just can’t say anything about that gardenia business to Carl Gifford. It isn’t the sort of stuff he’d listen to. I wonder how Sylvia’s making out?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything from her. I’ve been up talking with Inez Stapleton.”

Brandon said, “Here comes Carl Gifford now. He may not be too glad to see you.”

Gifford came bustling into the mortuary, but contrary to the sheriff’s prediction, seemed very glad indeed to see the former district attorney back in Madison City.

“How are you, Mr. Selby? Major Selby. It’s really good to see you back, Major. I understand you’re just stopping in for a few days before taking off for parts unknown.”

“That’s right,” Selby said, shaking hands.

Gifford was thirty-two, a stocky, bull-necked, driving individual, lashed by personal and political ambition, and prone to cover up a lack of thought by reaching instantaneous, brusque decisions, and then lunging ahead, relying upon the sheer force of his charge to smash all obstacles in front of him.

“Be very glad to have you give us the benefit of any thoughts you have on this case — unofficially, of course.”

“Thank you,” Selby said. “I haven’t any.”

“Of course, the evidence isn’t all in yet,” Gifford said, “but there’s one inescapable conclusion. The man telephoned down and ordered breakfast. We’ve located the waiter who took the tray up to him, Henry L. Farley. It’s up to the waiter to take the lumps of sugar out of the sugar container, put them on a saucer, and send them up. They don’t send up sugar bowls any more. Farley is trying to cover up. He says he doesn’t remember much about this particular order. He just took it up and knocked and this man opened the door. He’s certain it was this man and that he was alone in the room.”

“Would he have had any motive for murdering Fred Roff?” Selby asked.

“Of course he would,” Gifford snapped, “otherwise he wouldn’t have done it. Of course we don’t know what that motive is yet.”

Selby nodded his head as though Gifford had delivered himself of some statement involving profound thought. “That’s right. You have to find out who the man is before you can find out who would have had a motive for murdering him.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Gifford said. “We’re taking Farley up to the jail to question him. Once the doors of the jail close on him, he’ll begin to weaken. They always do, except the hardened criminals.”

Selby said to Brandon, “Just as a matter of curiosity, I’d like to take a look at what was in the bag and brief case.”

“Perkins has got them all spread out in there,” Brandon said. “The doctor’s going to work on the body, so you’ll have to sit in on the post mortem if you want to see that, Doug, but the man’s things are all spread out in there. Go take a look at them.”

“Thanks, I will.”

“You don’t want to come up and listen to what Farley has to say?” Gifford invited cordially.

“No, thank you,” Selby said. “I’ll just take a look at those things. You know how it is. I can’t seem to dismiss the matter from my mind, and...”

“Certainly, certainly,” Gifford interrupted with booming cordiality. “Go right ahead. Help yourself, Major. Anything you want. We’re glad to have your assistance. Mighty glad to get any ideas you might have. Aren’t we, Sheriff?”

Brandon nodded wordlessly.

“My own idea,” Gifford went on, “is that we’ll have a confession out of Farley before night. Come on, Sheriff, let’s go give him the works. I’ve got a court reporter ready to take down everything he says in shorthand. He’s shivering in his boots right now.”

Brandon glanced over his shoulder at Doug Selby, hesitated as though searching for some excuse by which he could remain, then finding none, went out with the new district attorney.

Selby, accompanied by Harry Perkins, went on back to a room where the contents of the brief case and the leather bag were spread out on a bench. Selby studied them carefully. The brief case had held a new pad of yellow, legal-size foolscap and two pencils. The bag had held three suits of underwear, one clean pair of pajamas, some new socks, two shirts, shaving things, hair brush, comb, clean handkerchiefs freshly folded, and a pair of Pullman slippers.

“Laundry marks?” Selby asked.

“Not a one,” Perkins said. “Some of the things are new. The others, such as the handkerchiefs, haven’t even a laundry mark. That means he must have lived at home and his wife had a laundress.”

Selby looked at the brief case. On the inside of the flap had been stenciled in gold, “Fred Albion Roff.”

“Where do you suppose he slept last night?” Selby asked.

Perkins raised his brows. “I don’t get it. What does that have to do with it?”

Selby said, “His pajamas are clean, freshly ironed. Everything in the bag is clean. Unless he sent out some laundry, he must have started from his home this morning, with his bag all packed for a stay of several days.”

“He’s supposed to live in Los Angeles,” Perkins said, “but there’s no label on the inside of his suit.”

“Let’s take a look at the front left shirt tail of those shirts.”

“Why?”

“Sometimes the figures there tell a lot. The size of the shirt is stamped there, also some figures that frequently give a clue as to the place where the shirt was sold.”

They unfolded the shirts. There was a series of cabalistic numbers stamped in indelible black ink. “I think a haberdasher can tell you something about those,” Selby said. “Perhaps the shipment of shirts can be traced from the factory. What was in his pockets?”

“Thirty or forty dollars, a handkerchief, clean; a watch, knife, fountain pen, and a leather key container with half a dozen keys.”

“No cards?”

“Not a thing.”

“The handkerchief clean?”

“Just like you find it there.”

Selby regarded the brief case thoughtfully. “Looks rather well used.”

“Dees for a fact,” Perkins agreed.

“Yet it hasn’t been scuffed up much, and it’s held its shape — strange thing that everything he had was clean. Don’t suppose he sent out any laundry?”

“The hotel says not. He registered, ordered breakfast and croaked.”

“And everything the man had was clean, not a soiled garment in the outfit. It’s a good-sized bag, Harry. How does all this stuff fit in it?”

“Room to spare.”

Selby pondered thoughtfully over the collection of objects on the coroner’s counter. He picked up the brief case, regarded the polished underside of the handle. “If Los Angeles doesn’t give you any clue, Harry, wire the State Bar Association and see if he’s a lawyer.”

“What makes you think he’s a lawyer, Doug?”

“The brief case, the whole thing.”

“If he came from some place other than Los Angeles, where are the clothes he wore on the train?”

“I’ll bite,” Selby said cheerfully. “I’m just a bystander here, you know, Harry.”

The coroner tried a pun. “Well, he sure as heck came clean from Los Angeles if he lived there.”

Selby left the coroner grinning at his own joke.