The D.A. Breaks a Seal

8

Doug Selby found Rex Brandon restlessly pacing the floor, something that was most unusual for the sheriff.

Brandon motioned Doug to a chair, indicated the ex-district attorney’s old brier pipe, which the sheriff had once more taken out from his desk, and the humidor beside it.

“Sit down, Doug. Light up. Let’s talk for a minute. If you don’t mind.”

“Not a bit,” Selby said. “I’d like it.”

“I’m perplexed about this whole thing,” Brandon said, “and darned uneasy about it, Doug. Carl Gifford is going ahead like a house afire, but, if anything happens and we get caught in a box canyon, I know just as well as I know anything that Gifford will pull out and leave me holding the sack. I don’t like it.”

“What’s this about the breakfast?” Selby asked.

“That’s just it. The chap had breakfast just before he registered at the hotel. So far we haven’t been able to find where he ate that breakfast, but Doc Thurman says there’s no question about it.”

“Then why would he have ordered another breakfast?”

“That’s just it. The question is did he order another breakfast?”

“You mean someone else ordered it for him?” Selby asked.

“Exactly.”

“You mean someone else in the hotel could simply pick up the telephone and say, ‘This is room 619 and I want breakfast sent up’?”

“Well,” Brandon said, “that’s what I was getting at, but, of course, there’s another possible solution. This Henry Farley takes the orders for breakfast when he’s there. Then he goes out and delivers them. He doesn’t go back to pick up the dishes until the slack time in the morning around eleven o’clock. If the maid makes up the rooms before that, she puts the table and the dishes out in the corridor and they wait there until Farley picks them up.”

“Then this chap Farley could have made up the whole business?” Selby asked. “Simply pretended he’d received an order from 619 and started up there with the tray?”

“That’s what Gifford thinks.”

“But if he’d done that,” Selby pointed out, “the minute he knocked at the door of the room, this man, Roff, would have said, ‘Look here, my man, you’ve got the wrong room. I didn’t order any breakfast.’ And that would also have been the case if someone else had phoned in the order and given the wrong room number.”

“Exactly,” the sheriff said dryly, “but that’s Gifford’s idea. He thinks that the waiter said there’d been some mistake and put the tray down and went off to investigate and Roff decided he’d like to have another cup of coffee and went over and helped himself.”

“That’s absolutely absurd,” Selby said.

“I know it is.”

Selby said, “If you were in a room in a hotel and hadn’t ordered breakfast, and a waiter came up with a table and a tray, you’d tell him there’d been a mistake. You might let him use the telephone, but you wouldn’t want him to bring the breakfast into the room and then go away and leave it, and he certainly wouldn’t want to.”

Brandon nodded.

“Just what does Farley say? What does he claim happened?”

“That’s just it,” the sheriff said dryly. “When we questioned Farley, instead of going at him diplomatically, Gifford started riding him roughshod and started right in on the man’s past — asking him how long he’d been in Madison City, where he came from, whether he’d been in any trouble before and things of that sort. Then it came out that the man had been convicted of minor crimes — that he’d been in trouble for bootlegging during the prohibition era, and had been mixed up in some race track stuff.”

“Then what happened?” Selby asked.

“Then Gifford just about as good as accused Farley of either murdering this man, Roff, or standing in cahoots with the murderer.”

“And what happened?”

“Farley dried up like a clam. He simply sat there and smiled and said, ‘Gentlemen, I think I’ll telephone my lawyer if you don’t mind.’ ”

“Then what?”

“Gifford said he could telephone his lawyer afterwards. He wanted him to answer a few questions first.”

“And what did Farley do?”

“Simply smiled at him.”

“What finally happened?”

“He telephoned his lawyer.”

“Then, what?”

“His lawyer is closeted with him now.”

“And the lawyer?”

“Alfonse Baker Carr,” the sheriff said disgustedly. “Leave it to all these city crooks. The minute they get into a jam they simply pick up a telephone and yell for old A.B.C.”

“I’m rather surprised that Carr would have taken his case,” Selby said.

“Why not? In view of what we know...”

“I know, but Carr couldn’t have known all the ramifications when Farley telephoned him.”

“Well, he knows them now,” the sheriff said dryly.

“He...”

A knock sounded on the door of Brandon’s private office. A moment later a deputy opened it and said, “Mr. A. B. Carr would like to talk with you, Sheriff.”

“There you are,” the sheriff said.

Selby smiled. “Well, let’s see what he has to say, Rex.”

“Show him in,” the sheriff said.

A. B. Carr was never more gravely courteous.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m glad that you’re here, Major. I certainly feel that I owe you an apology, Sheriff.”

Brandon made an inarticulate grunt.

“I take it,” Carr said, smiling disarmingly, “that there’s no objection to talking frankly in front of Major Selby?”

Brandon silently indicated a chair.

Carr settled himself in the chair, managing to invest himself as he did so with the manner of a distinguished guest. “My client,” he said, “my poor unfortunate client. My ignorant, obstinate, thick-headed client. My dumb, mulish fool of a client!”

“Farley?” the sheriff asked.

“Farley,” Carr said in his rich, resonant voice that would have been the envy of any actor on the stage. “Of course,” he went on, “you can’t blame the poor man in one way. He’s the product of the cities and of the slums, gentlemen. He’s accustomed to the roughshod methods of the city police — and I take it that you won’t think the comment is disparaging in any way if I say that the manner of your new district attorney was such that it brought back an association of ideas. A certain fear of the police third-degree of — well, gentlemen, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t say it plainly — of the frame-up.”

Brandon, always irritated by Carr’s manner, resentful of his magnetic personality and richly resonant voice, merely settled down in a chair and waited for the criminal lawyer to proceed.

Selby, frankly enjoying the show A.B.C. was putting on, said, smilingly, “Well, of course, Carr, when a waiter who has delivered a poisoned breakfast to a man in a hotel refuses to discuss the matter, there’s always some ground for suspicion.”

“Exactly,” Carr said. “Your point is exceptionally well taken, Major, but if you’ll pardon me, may I point out that his refusal to make a frank statement came after the somewhat belligerent attitude on the part of the district attorney, not, as your comment seems to imply, that the attitude of the district attorney was the result of...”

“Never mind stalling around,” Brandon said. “What’s the story?”

“Quite right, quite right,” Carr said, beaming at the irate sheriff. “After all, gentlemen, you’re busy men. We’re all busy men. You want to get right down to the meat in the nutshell. But please, gentlemen, let me first apologize for the attitude of my client and endeavor to explain it. It was unfortunate. I have told him that it was most unfortunate. He should have made a frank statement. He has sought to justify his position with me by explaining that in view of the attitude of your district attorney he felt certain there was going to be an attempt to frame him for murder on account of his past record, a record with which I am fully familiar, gentlemen, and which comprises only offenses of a relatively minor nature.”

“What does he say?” Brandon asked.

Carr nodded gravely. “He says that he received an order for breakfast, to be delivered to room 619; that he took it to room 619 and found the door locked. He knocked on the door — a rather perfunctory knock such as waiters give on occasions.”

“Go on,” Brandon said as Carr stopped talking to look at the two men, as though making certain that they had a complete grasp of the situation up to that point.

“Then,” Carr went on, “the door was opened. This man had evidently been unpacking his bag, getting some laundry ready to be sent out. The waiter remembers there was a pile of soiled clothes on the bed, that the man was slightly flushed, as though he had just straightened up. He said, ‘Oh, it’s the breakfast,’ or something to that effect, and then said, ‘Put it anywhere,’ and turned back to the clothes on the bed as though he had no further interest in the breakfast.

“My client arranged the tray and rather hung around for a moment, expecting that he would receive a tip, but the tenant of the room dismissed him with a curt, ‘That’s all,’ and that’s every single thing my client knows, gentlemen.”

“There’s no question of identity?” Selby asked. “It was the same man?”

“Unquestionably. The dead man seems to have had a distinctive appearance, and my client identifies him positively.”

“There wasn’t any woman in the room?”

“No, the man was alone, save, of course, that my client didn’t look in the closet or bathroom. The man seemed rather brusque, perhaps a trifle put out about something. Aside from that, there was nothing unusual about the entire affair. It differed in no way from hundreds of other room-service orders.”

Selby glanced at the sheriff, said abruptly to Carr, “What’s your idea?”

Carr’s face was utterly guileless. “Gentlemen, I haven’t any idea, because I don’t know enough about the facts of the case. I understand generally the man was found dead in that room and that there is some contention that the coffee had been poisoned. I think that Henry Farley is the victim of circumstances. He has a record of several minor crimes, and a peculiar coincidence has sucked him into the vortex of events having to do with murder. But, nevertheless, he should have told his story fully and frankly. He has nothing to conceal. I am willing to admit that I have rebuked him for the attitude he adopted. But that, gentlemen, is all water under the bridge.

“Gentlemen, I haven’t any definite theory, but, of course, the human mind may always speculate, and the mind that has had some experience with murders is prone to do so. All I can do now is to speculate. I believe my client. I have known him for some time. His mind is perhaps somewhat warped in its sense of right and wrong, but he is in some ways an admirable client. He tells his lawyer the absolute truth. In fact, gentlemen, you will sometimes find that this most commendable trait is more developed in the underprivileged who have been accused of crime than in the more fortunate persons who so frequently try to deceive their own counsel.

“Of course, the laundry on the bed is a significant item. Remember also that the doors of the hotel have no spring locks. I do feel almost certain that the man went on with the checking of his laundry, that for some reason he stepped out of his room. Perhaps — and this certainly isn’t beyond the bounds of reasonable conjecture — he was deliberately lured out of the room, decoyed by some message, something that had been deliberately planned.

“Then you can realize what happened, gentlemen. I need not even bother to point it out. The fleeting shadow, slipping out through the door of an adjoining room, gliding furtively into the room where the breakfast lay so invitingly on the tray. The swift motion of a hand containing a medicine dropper. For the moment the acrid odor of the poison. Then the sugar cubes absorb their deadly potion and remain innocently white on the tray. The murderer backs slowly away. His work is done, well done. He darts out of the room and back into the adjoining room from whence he had come.

“Then after a few moments the victim returns. Whatever had been on his mind now troubles him no longer. He is tired from a long journey, perhaps on a crowded bus, perhaps on an equally crowded train. He is hungry. He draws a chair up to the table with its snowy linen and its tempting array of dishes. He pours out steaming amber coffee. He adds thick cream, the sort of cream, gentlemen, that one is able to find only in a rural community, in the midst of a rich dairying country. And then, gentlemen...”

Carr paused dramatically, reached one of his hands out as though picking up lumps of sugar, “...then he picks up the sugar. One lump. Two lumps.” Carr’s fingers went through all the motions of picking up the sugar lumps, conveying them to a cup of coffee, dropping them in. “And he stirs the coffee with a teaspoon, thinking perhaps of his business, totally unaware of the deadly potion that he holds in his hand.”

Carr stopped for a moment.

Brandon started to say something, moved impatiently.

Selby checked him with a glance.

“By this time,” Carr went on in his smoothly resonant voice, “the coffee has become cool enough so that it can be imbibed in deep gulps. You will notice the importance of that, gentlemen, because it not only coincides with the facts, but bears out the theory I have advanced. The fact that the coffee has stood long enough to become slightly cool is a necessary precedent to the murder. The stage is all set. The victim holds the coffee cup in his hands. He takes three or four deep gulps before he suddenly notices a peculiar aroma, a rather unpleasant taste. He puts the coffee cup back on the saucer, reaches for his napkin, starts to get up out of his chair, and falls over on his face. There is a convulsion, a pathetic last-minute attempt to crawl to the telephone, then a shudder and the man lies still in death, leaving the murderer to check out of the hotel and mingle with the stream of the traveling public, an unidentified bit of human flotsam.

“I have, perhaps, enlarged somewhat on the dramatic aspect of the case, gentlemen, because it seems to me to be almost the perfect crime. Certainly a most puzzling crime, one that compels my interest because of the very interesting possibilities it presents and the baffling circumstances with which you must find yourselves confronted.”

The sheriff said, “That’s all right, but you just overlooked one thing. The man didn’t reach for that breakfast in a hurry because he...”

Selby interrupted hastily, “I take it, Carr, that you’ve remonstrated with Farley for his attitude in the matter.”

“Indeed I have. The man has nothing to conceal. He should have told his story frankly. I am only too well aware, Major, that his initial reticence is merely another black mark on the record against him. But I can assure you that the man has absolutely convinced me of his complete innocence.”

“You’re going to represent him?”

Carr’s eyebrows raised in astonished incredulity. “Surely, Major, he’s not going to be charged with anything!”

“If he is charged, you’re going to represent him?”

“Well now,” Carr said, “that of course is looking rather far ahead, but I would say offhand that my answer would be in the affirmative. I am interested in justice. I am particularly interested in protecting the underdog. And here is a man who seems peculiarly entitled to such protection as I can give, a man who has had perhaps an unfortunate record but who is working diligently in an attempt at social rehabilitation. Yes, gentlemen, if he is charged with anything, you may take it for granted that I will represent him.”

“All right, that’s all,” Brandon said angrily. “Is he going to give us a statement now?”

“I certainly see no reason why he shouldn’t. I should suggest that as a matter of courtesy it might be well for me to be present when the statement is given. I am to act as the man’s lawyer in the event he should be charged with anything.”

Selby said, “We can take that up later, but in the meantime, Carr, there’s something the sheriff wanted to ask you about.”

Brandon gave Selby a quizzical glance, as though trying to read his friend’s mind.

“Why, certainly,” Carr said with easy affability. “I am certainly at your service.”

“I don’t know how much you know about the circumstances surrounding the finding of the body,” Selby said.

“Hardly a thing,” Carr replied. “The first I had heard of it was when Farley summoned me to the county jail, and that which he told me was just the information that had been picked up by the employees there at the hotel, a certain amount of backstairs gossip, you know, gentlemen.”

Selby nodded.

“Apparently, shortly after he had entered the room, this man who registered under the name of Roff called up one of the florists and asked to have a white gardenia sent to him.”

“Indeed,” Carr said, and his face was as a wooden mask.

Selby kept his eyes fixed on Carr’s. “I happened to notice this morning that you were at the train when I came in.”

“I didn’t see you,” Carr said. “Of course, I hardly expected to see you, and then in your uniform — one sees so many uniforms these days.”

“Never mind that,” Selby interrupted, “but the point is that you were wearing a white gardenia.”

“I was,” Carr said. “I was indeed.”

“And that you met two other people who were wearing white gardenias.”

For a moment Carr seemed completely puzzled, then suddenly he threw back his head and laughed with every semblance of genuine, wholehearted enjoyment.

It wasn’t until he caught the look in Selby’s eyes and saw the glowering suspicion of Brandon’s countenance that Carr abruptly ceased laughing.

“You’ll pardon me, gentlemen. I certainly trust you’ll pardon me. I didn’t want to appear impolite, but the humor of the situation thrust itself forcibly upon me. Here I have been commiserating with my client because of an unfortunate combination of coincidences, and now I myself seem to have become the victim of just such a series of coincidences.”

“Not at all,” Selby said as suavely as old A.B.C. himself. “I was merely suggesting that under the circumstances you might care to give us something of an explanation, in view of the fact that you have rebuked your client for his refusal to cooperate with the authorities in their investigation.”

“A neat point,” Carr said, nodding approvingly. “Very neatly expressed, Major.”

“Well, go ahead. Tell us,” Brandon blurted.

“And that,” Carr went on without even turning to look at the irate sheriff, “would account for the persistent inquiries of that very charming newspaper reporter, Miss Sylvia Martin, who was apparently getting ready to ask me a somewhat similar question when the ringing of the telephone interrupted our conference — the telephone call, of course, being the summons of Henry Farley to come at once to the jail on a matter of the greatest importance.”

“You still haven’t answered the question,” Brandon said.

“The answer to that question is quite simple,” Carr replied, turning now to look at the sheriff and moving his hands in a gesture that seemed to bare his very soul to the scrutiny of the county official.

“I am engaged in a case involving the contest of a will in an estate involving perhaps a million dollars. The case goes on trial tomorrow before a jury, and naturally there are certain last minute preparations. Strange as it may seem, my negotiations have been through a third party, my only contact with my client by mail. So you see, my client, whom I’d never met, was to have joined me today for a conference. She talked with me over the long-distance telephone day before yesterday and wanted to know how she could make herself known to me. I have no office here, and since I am a bachelor, she hardly cared to drive directly to my house — well, I suggested that she might wear a white gardenia and that I too would wear a white gardenia. I believe you saw me at my conference in the restaurant. In fact, that conference seems to have aroused the interest of Miss Sylvia Martin.”

“It still doesn’t account for the two other people you picked up at the train,” Selby said.

“That is the interesting part of it, Major. I went to the train, expecting to meet this client. I see no reason why I should be at all reticent concerning her identity. She is Miss Anita Eldon, the daughter of Martha Otley.”

“Go ahead,” Brandon said gruffly.

“Well, Miss Eldon neglected to tell me by what means she would arrive. She said that she would be here this morning, and that I could meet her at the depot. Rather foolishly, I failed to take into consideration the fact that she meant the bus depot. I went down to the railroad depot to meet the only train which arrived in the morning. There I saw a woman wearing a white gardenia. I knew that she could hardly have been the person I expected, but I thought perhaps Miss Eldon had been detained and had sent this person with some message. So I introduced myself, and asked this woman if she had a message for me. She nodded and said she did. And then, as I was escorting her to my automobile, I found there was still another person, this time a man, wearing a white gardenia, who seemed to attach himself to us as though he really belonged. I thought at the moment he was traveling with the woman who had the message for me, so I took them both in my automobile and drove them uptown. It wasn’t until they were ensconced in the car that it turned out they had no message for me, but were merely expecting to meet someone who would be at the train to receive them. Under the circumstances, I hardly knew what to do. Suddenly it occurred to me that my own client had meant she would fly to Los Angeles and then come here by bus and so be at the bus depot. So I went to the bus depot and parked my car, went inside and made interrogations, and, sure enough, learned that a person who answered the description of the party I was expecting had waited for about five minutes, then had impatiently announced she was going out to get something to eat. I think that you gentlemen saw this woman and realize she is hardly the type who would wait very long for anyone.”

“Go on,” Brandon said somewhat wearily. “It’s a good story. We’ll hear all of it while we’re about it.”

“But that’s all there is to it,” Carr assured him. “When I returned to my automobile, I found that my two passengers had departed. Undoubtedly they had compared notes, realized that I wasn’t the gentleman that they expected to meet and had gone on about their own business.”

“So,” Selby said, smiling, “I take it you looked in the principal restaurants, found your party sitting there, eating, introduced yourself to her, apologized and joined her.”

“Exactly,” Carr said, “and expressed very succinctly, Major.”

Selby glanced at Brandon.

“I guess that’s all,” the sheriff said wearily.

“Thank you,” Carr said, “and once more let me apologize for the attitude of Mr. Farley and explain to you just what caused his reticence.”

Brandon said nothing.

Selby bowed Carr out of the office, his manner matching that of the adroit criminal lawyer. “I think,” Selby said, “we understand your position thoroughly.”

“Thank you, Major. Thank you very much.”

Selby closed the door, turned back to Brandon.

Brandon made a grimace, said, “There you are. That story isn’t Farley’s story, it’s Carr’s story. Farley summoned Carr. He told Carr just what the situation was, and it took Carr just about ten seconds to think up the best way of presenting a yarn that...”

“I don’t know,” Selby said. “I’m not so certain that story isn’t the truth. I’d better tell you what I’ve found out.”

“What?”

Selby told Brandon of his interview with Coleman Dexter, and the sheriff listened attentively, rolling himself a cigarette in typical cow-puncher manner as he listened, then closing the sack by catching the drawstring in his teeth, finishing with his cigarette and snapping a match into flame with a single motion of his capable thumb.

“Humph!” he said when Selby had finished.

“Now then,” Selby went on, “Dexter thinks there was a paper that fell out from under the woman’s arm. You can see what that means, Rex. She had gone through the man’s brief case. She had taken out his papers, and in order to cover that theft, she had taken the soiled clothes from the man’s bed and placed the papers in them — making it appear she was a maid leaving the room with some laundry.”

“And she dropped one paper,” Brandon said. “Did she stoop to pick it up?”

“Dexter doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know that she dropped one.”

“Suppose she did. Then what became of the paper?” Brandon asked.

“Norwalk is checking, trying to find out. But it occurs to me, Rex, the papers that were in the man’s brief case may have been the motive for the murder. The entire thing was staged in an attempt to get possession of those papers and to seal the man’s lips.”

“Well, we don’t seem to be getting anywhere with motive,” Brandon said.

Selby said, “The name Fred Albion Roff is the man’s name. It’s stamped on the inside of his brief case. My best guess is the man’s a lawyer.”

“What gives you that impression?”

“Quite a few things. I think he’s a country lawyer. There are no laundry marks on his clothes. In some of the country towns in the Midwest it’s possible to get a laundress regularly. In the cities, or out here on the coast, you just can’t get help now, not regularly. And as for his having been a lawyer, his brief case is legal size. It’s seen considerable use.”

“He might have been a salesman.”

“A salesman usually carries more papers,” Selby pointed out. “He needs a price book, book of blank orders. He carries some correspondence. He carries some descriptive literature. Notice a salesman’s brief case and you’ll nearly always find that it’s pretty well pushed out of shape, bulging with a variegated assortment of material, thrown around in an automobile, badly scuffed up. This brief case is old and worn but it has still retained its shape. It’s a brief case in which a lawyer might carry papers from his office to the courthouse; from his hotel in the State Capitol to the Supreme Court. It...”

The telephone rang.

Brandon picked up the receiver, said, “Hello... yes, this is Brandon speaking... all right, Norwalk, what have you found?”

The sheriff listened for a few seconds, then said, “Okay, we’ll be down.”

He turned to Selby, dropped the receiver into place.

“One of the bellboys found a sheet of legal paper with some typewriting on it lying on the carpet in the corridor of the sixth floor of the hotel. He picked up the paper, saw that it seemed to be part of a legal document, took it down to the office and left it with the telephone operator telling her that if anyone missed it he’d found it on the sixth floor. Norwalk has just found out about it.”

“What sort of a document?” Selby asked.

“Norwalk says it’s apparently a typewritten legal argument of some sort.”

“There’s no name on the paper? Nothing printed at the bottom?” Selby asked excitedly. “Sometimes lawyers have their name and address printed on each sheet of legal paper they use.”

“Not a thing, just plain legal paper. Let’s go take a look at it.”