The D.A. Breaks an Egg

7

Promptly at eight o’clock in the morning the telephone rang.

Selby, who had showered and shaved, picked up the receiver and heard Brandon’s voice saying, “You remember Dorothy Clifton who was out at the Lennox’s house?”

“Yes.”

“She wants to talk with you. She says it has to be completely confidential. She phoned me and I told her I’d slip her in through the back door of the Courthouse and into your office. She wants to talk with you alone.”

Selby said, “Okay, I’ll be right up.”

“She sounds terribly excited and upset,” Brandon said.

“I’m on my way, Rex.”

Selby dashed out of his apartment, rushed to the Courthouse, and found Dorothy Clifton sitting on the edge of a chair in his private office.

“Hello,” he said. “You’re early. I take it you have something important to tell us?”

“Mr. Selby, I have a confession to make.”

“In connection with that case last night?”

“In a way, yes.”

“You’re the one whom Daphne Arcola called?” he inquired, and his eyes suddenly became wary and watchful.

“No, no. Heavens, no, not that! But I do find myself in possession of the purse which I believe belonged to Miss Arcola.”

“Suppose you start at the beginning and tell me just what happened, just how you met Miss Arcola, and...”

“I’ve never met her. I don’t know her, Mr. Selby.”

“Yet you have her purse?”

“Yes. I found it in my automobile.”

“Indeed,” Selby said.

“Now, please don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Selby. Someone took my automobile last night, someone took it without my permission. I... I don’t like to make guesses as to identities. All I know is that I saw a figure. At the time I thought it was that of Moana Lennox, but afterwards I realized that it could have been Mrs. Lennox, or it might have been one of the servants.”

“That’s rather indefinite,” Selby said.

She hastened to explain. “I was looking down from the window of my bedroom. There was moonlight, but I was looking into shadow. It’s rather difficult to make recognition under those circumstances. Remember, I was almost directly above the figure.”

“Well, suppose you tell me exactly what happened.”

She went over the events of the evening, her voice calm, realizing as she talked that the district attorney was watching her closely, listening to her every word, not only for the purpose of following what she had to say, but searching for weak points, trying to determine whether her story was a complete fabrication. And, as Dorothy Clifton talked, she began to realize how damning her story sounded.

“Well,” Selby said, when she had finished, “first, let’s look in the purse and make an inventory of the contents.”

She opened the purse.

“You’ve already gone through it?” Selby asked.

“Yes.”

“So your fingerprints would be on the various articles?”

“I’m afraid so, yes... There... there’s a large sum of money in there. I didn’t count it. And there’s a driving license and a letter and a telegram.”

Selby opened the purse, spread the articles out on his desk. There was a key to Room 602 at the Madison Hotel, a bundle of currency, lipstick, compact, and a letter.

“Did you read this letter?”

“No.”

“Take it out of the envelope?”

“No. I just saw that there was an envelope and a letter. Believe me, Mr. Selby, you’ll never know the temptation I had to fight — the temptation to simply drop this purse somewhere in the park where it could be found and try and keep myself entirely out of the picture.”

The district attorney thought that over, nodded.

She said, “Try to put yourself in my position. The minute I walked into this office I burned my bridges behind me. Now, my whole life’s happiness is shattered.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Of course it is. Just look at what happens now. I show up with the purse. I get my name in the papers. It makes for notoriety. But, worse than that, it’s a notoriety which irritates the Lennox family.

“You have to know something of the Lennox temperament in order to appreciate the position in which that leaves me, and what it will mean. However, I suppose you’re not interested in my personal problems, but only in the evidence.”

“On the contrary,” Selby said, “I’m very much interested. Go ahead.”

“Well,” she said, “whoever it was that took my car last night was careful to be exceedingly surreptitious about it, and probably to lie about the telephone call. Naturally, the members of the family will hang together.

“Let’s suppose for the sake of argument it was Moana who went out and borrowed my car. Then I’ve dragged the Lennox family into the newspapers, and I have the purse of the murdered girl. Oh, I’m all washed up no matter how you figure it!”

“Where is your car now?”

“Downstairs.”

Selby said, “I’m sorry about this, Miss Clifton, but we’re going to have to check the tires and see if the tracks agree with the tracks of an automobile which had been driven onto the walk near where the body was found.”

“Very well.”

“In fact,” Selby went on, “as you yourself suggested, we’re going to have to do a lot of checking, and I’m afraid the situation is going to be embarrassing to you.”

“Embarrassing is a gross understatement.”

“And, of course,” Selby went on, watching her closely, “we are faced with the possibility that this nocturnal prowler who borrowed your car may have been Mrs. Lennox herself.”

Dorothy said, “Every time that thought comes to me I can feel my flesh crawl. Horace’s mother!”

Selby picked up the telephone. “Get me the sheriff’s office, please.” Then, after a moment, he said, “Rex, I’m coming down to your office. Wait for me there, please, and see that no one knows just what we’re talking about.”

“I’ll be in my private office,” Brandon said.

Selby hung up, put the things back into the purse, picked up a brief case, dropped the purse in the brief case, and said to Dorothy Clifton, “You wait here, if you will, please, Miss Clifton.”

He left the office, walked down the corridor to the sheriff’s office, found Brandon in the private office, and said, “Well, Rex, it’s a mess. Some member of the Lennox family is mixed up in this thing. We have a darn nice girl in the office who is throwing away her chance at happiness, and no matter how we play things we’re going to be in a mess. However, first, let’s go through this purse together.”

“How did you get it, Doug? Did Dorothy have it?”

Selby nodded, then briefly told the sheriff the story Dorothy had told him.

“There’s a letter in here,” Selby finished. “I didn’t want to read it while I was with her in there because I didn’t want her to know what’s in it. You’ll get a jolt when you look at the return address on the envelope, Rex. It’s that letter from Mrs. A. B. Carr!”

Brandon whistled.

They bent over to read the letter, written on perfumed stationery in a large hand:

Brandon cocked a quizzical eyebrow at the district attorney. “Interesting,” he said.

“I’ll say! Now take a look at the rest of this stuff, Rex. Here’s a book of traveler’s checks issued in denominations of ten and twenty dollars. Now that’s strange.”

“Why?” Brandon asked. “That’s the way...”

“Sure, that’s the way most women in her position would travel,” Selby said, “but look at the wad of money she has. Something over sixteen hundred dollars in currency, and yet she has this book which now has... let’s see what was in it when it was issued.”

Selby counted through the traveler’s checks and the torn-off stubs, said, “It was originally issued for seven hundred and fifty dollars. The hundred-odd that’s been cashed could just about be her... Oh, oh, here’s something folded up very tightly. Looks like a telegram.”

Selby unfolded the telegram, said, “Get this, Rex,” and spread the yellow paper out on the desk.

The telegram, sent three days before, addressed to Daphne Arcola at Windrift, Montana, simply said, UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES WILL BE GLAD TO SEE YOU. SUGGEST YOU COME TO MADISON CITY, REGISTER IN MADISON HOTEL UNDER YOUR OWN NAME, AND THEN CONTACT.

“And the telegram is signed simply ‘ALPHABETICALLY SIMPLE.’ ” Brandon said, “and was sent from Los Angeles.”

The two men looked at each other.

“Well,” Selby said, “we have one trump card this time.”

“What’s that?”

“The man can’t commit bigamy,” Selby explained, grinning. “He can’t marry any more witnesses.”

Brandon grinned. “You have something there, Doug.”

“Let’s go down and look at the tires on that car and see if they check with the impressions we found there in the soil,” Selby said.

They walked down the stairs of the Courthouse and then out the back way to the parking lot in the rear which was usually reserved for county cars.

“Take a look for one with an out-of-state license,” Selby said. “A... here it is, two-door convertible. Let’s be a little casual about looking it over, Rex. We don’t want to attract a crowd of spectators.”

They walked around the car, giving careful attention to the tires.

“Well?” Selby asked.

“It’s the one,” Brandon said grimly.

“Well, let’s keep it to ourselves for the moment, Rex. We’ll have to impound the car, of course, but we can do it so it won’t attract attention — and I’m going to take that key, go back to Room 602 in the Madison Hotel and search that baggage some more. Now that I know what we’re up against, I’m going to feel my way.”

“Just what are we up against?” Brandon asked.

Selby said simply, “We’re up against Old A. B. C.”