The D.A. Breaks an Egg

9

Harry P. Elrod, reporter for “The Blade,” the evening paper which was bitterly hostile to the administration, was quite evidently enjoying himself. “My new publisher, Phillip L. Paden, asked me to extend greetings,” he said. “I understand he had a nice chat with the district attorney yesterday.”

Sheriff Brandon, unmistakably ill at ease, looked at his watch, and said, “We haven’t all day to sit here and swap talk with you, Elrod.”

Elrod grinned. “That means you have a live clue, Sheriff? You’ve already got a live corpse.”

“It means I’m busy.”

“Too busy to talk with the press.”

“We’re talking with you, aren’t we?”

“Do you mean to imply there’s some urgent development that...”

“It means we’re working on a murder case,” Brandon said, “and while we’re willing to play ball with the press, even a hostile paper represented by a...”

Selby interrupted suavely to say, “We’ll be glad to answer any questions we can, Elrod. We have several leads that we’re running down. We can’t tell whether any of them are what you might call hot leads until after we’ve investigated them.”

Elrod, a slender, sharp-tongued, skeptical bit of newspaper driftwood from the big city, turned his attention to Selby. His eyes sparkled shrewdly as he developed the background of what he knew was going to be the story of the year so far as The Blade was concerned.

A shrewd, scheming man of considerable ingenuity, his hard-drinking propensities had caused him to drift from the field of metropolitan journalism into Madison City where he displayed an open contempt for the thick atmosphere.

That patronizing contempt had alienated people whose friendship a successful county seat reporter should have cultivated, but the man’s brilliance, audacity, and facile pen had caused most of the officials to fear his anger or sarcasm. And the net result had been fully as advantageous to Elrod as though he had enjoyed the friendship of those who catered to him through fear.

“It ain’t how you get in that counts, it’s what you take out” was his favorite expression.

“Well, now, Mr. Selby,” he said, “that brings up a very interesting point. How did you happen to make this mistake of identifying the corpse as being that of Daphne Arcola, a young woman who insists, in an exclusive interview given to The Blade an hour ago, that she is very much alive?”

Elrod grinned gleefully.

“I didn’t identify the body,” Selby said.

“Didn’t you tell the night clerk at the hotel...”

“I told the night clerk at the hotel that I was interested in finding out whatever I could about a redheaded woman in her twenties from Windrift, Montana.”

“And how did you know she came from Windrift?”

“There was a label in the jacket she was wearing, showing it had been sold in Windrift.”

“So you searched Daphne Arcola’s room, after first calling in the press — the competitive press, Mr. Selby.”

“I didn’t call in anyone,” Selby said. “The representative of The Clarion was with me when I went to the hotel. If you had been there, doubtless you would have been accorded the same privileges.”

“May I quote you on that?” Elrod asked sarcastically.

“You may quote me on anything I say to you,” Selby said. “If I had anything to say that was off the record I’d not trust it to the discretion of The Blade. And you can quote me on that, too.”

“I’ll do so,” Elrod said, his pencil flying over the folded sheets of newsprint propped against his knee.

Selby waited for the next question. Brandon eyed the reporter with hostility.

“Now let’s see, Mr. District Attorney, you find someone wearing a coat purchased in Windrift, Montana. You immediately grab a representative of the press and go dashing about town for the purpose of breaking into the rooms of anyone you can find who happens to be registered from Windrift, Montana...”

“All right,” Brandon exploded, getting up out of his chair. “You and your dirty, lying...”

“Hold it, Rex,” Selby said.

Elrod glanced from one to the other, grinning gleefully. “Go right ahead, gentlemen. Were you planning on assaulting me, Sheriff? By all means finish what you were going to say. I don’t want all my quotes to be from the district attorney.”

“He was about to tell you that any questions you want to ask of us as public officials, you may ask at this time, but that any criticisms should be saved for publication in your paper,” Selby said.

“Well, well,” Elrod observed. “How marvelous it is that you can read his mind so easily. I had thought he was going to say something entirely different.”

“Did you?” Selby asked suavely. “I’m certain he wasn’t. You see, I’ve known Brandon for such a long time I can tell exactly what he has in mind.”

And Selby’s eyes caught and held those of the sheriff, forcing him, by the insistent steady pressure of their concentration, back to his chair.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Elrod said, “about barging into rooms simply because the occupant came from Windrift, Montana.”

“And answered the description of the woman who had been murdered?”

“Well, that depends on how you phrase the description,” Elrod said. “I’ve seen the body, and I’ve talked with Daphne Arcola. In fact, I have an exclusive interview from her, and...” And Elrod broke off to glance gloatingly at the officials.

“Now, then,” he went on, “the murdered girl had red hair. She had blue eyes. The resemblance just about ends there. There was a difference in height; there was a difference in weight; there was a difference in age.”

“I didn’t have the two to compare,” Selby said.

“Oh, of course, of course. I suppose if you’d been district attorney of Los Angeles and a woman had been killed with the label of a San Francisco department store on her garments, you’d have insisted on searching the rooms of every woman from San Francisco.”

“That’s not a comparable situation,” Selby said, “and you know it.”

“No, I suppose not. I’m just trying to get what you consider is a comparable situation.”

Abruptly, Selby got to his feet, said, “I think we’ve answered all of your pertinent questions.”

“Well, Mr. Selby,” Elrod said, “I have been instructed to advise you that the position of The Blade is that your actions were exceedingly bucolic.”

“The Blade may take any position it damn pleases.”

Elrod pushed the folded newsprint back into his pocket, shoved the pencil into the side pocket of his coat, grinned maliciously, and walked to the door. “That is another good quote,” he called back over his shoulder.

“I think it would be worth what it would cost just to take that guy to pieces,” Brandon said.

Selby shook his head, lit his pipe, said, “It isn’t the man. It’s the paper. And he’s caught me off first base, Rex. I’ve simply got to take it. And The Blade would like nothing better than to have its reporter goad us into making some sort of physical attack.”

“I wouldn’t make a physical attack. I’d just grab his coat collar and hustle him out into the corridor.”

“And then what?” Selby asked, grinning.

“Then,” Brandon said, his eyes suddenly gleaming with anticipation at the thought, “I’d haul off my right foot and see how far I could kick him.”

“Exactly,” Selby said, “and you know the way The Blade would write it up. It would be that the irate sheriff, trapped by evidences of his own stupidity, being unable to offer any explanation for the things he had done, resorted to physical violence on the person of a flyweight disabled veteran who was merely asking for an explanation of the bizarre actions of the power-crazed authorities.

“No, Rex, we’re behind the eight ball and we’ve got to think our way out.”