The D.A. Breaks an Egg

8

Selby, walking down the sixth-floor corridor of the Madison Hotel, took from his pocket the key to Room 602, inserted it in the spring lock, clicked back the bolt, stepped into the hotel room and closed the door behind him.

The room was dark, the windows closed. Only a relatively small amount of diffused daylight filtered through the drawn shades into the room.

Selby noticed at once that there had been several changes in the room since he and Brandon had left it, changes which he presumed were due to an invasion by Otto Larkin, the officious chief of the Madison City police.

The suitcase had been unpacked and the garments spread over the back and across the arms of a chair. Bottles and jars had been placed on the dressing table.

Selby frowned irritably. He had wanted to study the way that suitcase had been packed. He felt that he might get a clue to...

Something sounded unmistakably like the creaking of a bedspring.

Selby whirled, noticing even in the dim light that, the bed was no longer neatly smoothed down with the counterpane in place and...

With a quick, explosive motion, the covers were thrown back. A young woman, clad in sheer gossamer silk, gave Selby a glimpse of long white legs as she flung herself out of bed to the floor, stood for a moment with the silken nightgown falling about her. Suddenly as realization of Selby’s presence gripped her, she reached for a robe which was thrown across the bottom of the bed. Then, evidently thinking better of it, she jumped back into the bed and pulled the covers up close to her chin. “What are you doing here?” she demanded angrily. “How dare you enter my room!”

Selby stood, wordless in surprise.

“Why you... you thief... you Peeping Tom... you...!”

“Just a moment,” Selby said. “I...”

“Yes, you what?”

“I... Who are you?”

“I like that,” she said, reaching for the telephone. “I’ll show you who I am. I...”

“Wait,” Selby said. “I’m the district attorney of this county. I’m investigating a murder, and...”

“A murder — what are you talking about?”

“The occupant of this room,” Selby said, “was murdered. The hotel had absolutely no right to rent this room again until it was released by the police. I’m the district attorney of this county, and I...”

“Who was murdered?”

“The occupant of the room.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“It’s news to me,” she said. “So you’re the district attorney.”

“Yes.”

“Switch on that light,” she said. “Let’s have a look at you.”

Selby found the light switch, clicked the room into brilliance.

The girl who was seated in the bed had red hair. Her blue eyes had ceased to be startled and showed amused appraisal. Her skin was creamy smooth, and Selby had seen enough of her figure when she had jumped out of bed to realize that she would have passed muster on any bathing beach.

“Well,” she said, “they have good-looking district attorneys in this community.”

She pushed herself upward in bed, let go her hold on the covers to reach for the extra pillow and, with a careless, graceful gesture of her arm, swept the pillow behind her head as she propped her back against the head of the bed.

She made no move to retrieve the covers which had furnished a protecting screen.

Instead, she reached casually over the bedside table, extracted a cigarette from an open pack, tapped it gently on the edge of the table, placed it in her parted lips, snapped a match into flame, lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, and smiled at Selby’s evident uneasiness.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t you know that women smoke when they wake up in the morning?”

“It isn’t that.”

“Oh I see. You’re married and your wife doesn’t smoke. You don’t approve.”

“No,” Selby said.

“No what?”

“I’m not married.”

“Interesting,” she murmured. “Tell me about the murder.”

“The occupant of this room,” Selby said, “left here and went for a walk in our park. Someone slipped up behind her and slipped a dagger into her back, penetrating her heart. Death was instantaneous.”

“How long did she have the room?”

“Apparently not very long. She arrived sometime between seven and eight, chatted with the night clerk who’s on duty from seven to three, made a couple of telephone calls, bathed, went out and got herself murdered.”

“When?” she asked.

“Last night. The hotel had absolutely no right renting this room again. It...”

“I rented it last night,” she said.

“Well, they had no right to let you have it.”

“It was all in order when I moved in. And I rented it at about seven-thirty or eight, and I remember chatting with the clerk on duty.”

Selby experienced a sensation of sickening apprehension. “What,” he asked, “is your name?”

“Daphne Arcola,” she said. “What’s yours?”

For a long moment Selby stood silent.

“Well?” she demanded.

“My name,” he said, “is Selby. You say that you’re Daphne Arcola?”

“Yes.”

“Any way of proving it?”

She laughed. “The situation,” she said, “is not without its humorous aspect. A man surreptitiously enters my bedroom and then asks me if I can prove my identity.”

“The name of the woman who was murdered was Daphne Arcola,” Selby said.

“Say, who are you kidding?”

“No, that’s the truth.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m rather a healthy corpse. Look me over. But, I guess you already have. Say, what sort of a gag is this?”

“Can you prove that you’re Daphne Arcola?”

“Of course I can.”

“We might start with a driving license,” Selby said.

“Oh, I see what you’re getting at now.”

“What,” Selby asked, “am I getting at?”

“My purse was stolen. Apparently you have some way of knowing that.”

“When was it stolen?”

“I went to a movie. My purse was on the seat beside me. When I got up to leave the purse wasn’t there.”

“Did you complain to the management?”

“Don’t be silly. The management isn’t responsible for purses. I had it coming to me I guess, and I had a lot of money in it, too.”

“How much?”

“Oh, a hundred-odd dollars in small stuff, fifteen hundred dollars in big bills, and some travelers’ checks.”

“And what time did you come in and get to bed?”

“What’s the matter, is there a curfew in this town?”

“I want to know.”

“Is it any of your business?”

“I think it is.”

She said, “You’ve been asking a lot of questions. Suppose you show me that you’re the person you’re supposed to be.”

Selby took a cardcase from his pocket, moved over to show her one of his cards as district attorney of Madison County. Then he showed her a driving license.

She studied them thoughtfully, said, “Yes, I guess you’re okay,” and moved her feet over, making a place for him to sit on the foot of the bed. “So I’m supposed to have been murdered,” she said.

“What time did you get back to the hotel?” Selby asked, “and how did you get in?”

“By asking the clerk who was on duty at the time for the key to this room. It wasn’t the one I’d chatted with earlier in the evening.”

“Then it must have been later than three in the morning.”

She laughed. “What powers of deduction you have, Mr. District Attorney!”

“What time did you get in?”

“I’m certain I couldn’t say. What time is it now?”

“It’s getting along toward ten o’clock.”

She said, “That’s a mean trick getting a girl up at this hour. I intended to sleep until one or two o’clock.”

“You still haven’t told me what time you got in.”

“Well, it’s none of your business.”

“I think it is. Not only were you supposed to be murdered, but I haven’t convinced myself yet that you’re the person you claim to be.”

“Oh, come, Mr. Selby. I wasn’t that suspicious with you.”

“You didn’t have to be. I showed you a card and a driving license.”

“I’d show you mine if I hadn’t lost my purse.”

“So that now you’re without money?” Selby asked.

“I’m left without money. What’s more, I’m left without lipstick. Fortunately I had some extra cigarettes in my suitcase. As a matter of fact, Mr. Selby, I now find myself broke in a cruel world. I don’t even have money enough to pay my hotel bill, and I understand that’s a crime — beating a hotel bill. Can I count upon your interceding in your official capacity?”

Selby said doggedly, “I want to know what time you got in.”

“Well, if it’s any of your damn business,” she flared, “it was about four-thirty this morning.”

“Wasn’t that rather late?”

“It depends on what you think. It evidently was pretty late for this hick town.”

“And where were you?”

“If you want to know, I met a man. He looked good to me. He had a nice car. We went for a ride. He wanted to show me the lights of the town from up here on the mountain. I presume that’s the local equivalent of showing a girl your collection of etchings.”

“Do you know who this man was?”

“Not a bad chap,” she said. “He said his name was Jim. Anyway, he let me have everything I wanted to drink, including the choice brands of Scotch. He took me where I wanted to go, and he paid the bills.”

“Know his last name?”

“I didn’t ask him his last name and he didn’t ask me mine. When you come right down to it I suppose he’s married and has a family, but he was on the loose for an evening, and I was stuck here in this burg and didn’t want to go to bed with the chickens, so we stepped out and...”

“Could you identify him if you saw him again?”

“Of course I could. I wasn’t blind. I’ll let a man pick me up once in a while if he appeals to me, but I don’t go out with every Tom, Dick, or Harry. In other words, I’m selective.”

“Did you say anything to him about losing your purse?”

She laughed, and said, “Don’t be silly. Why should I spoil a beautiful evening?”

“You mean casually mentioning that your purse had been stolen would have ruined a beautiful evening?”

She said, “I thought for a while you were going to be different, but I can see you’re not. You’re just a sweet, unsophisticated lad from a hick town.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She said, “Suppose you’d picked up a girl right after a movie. You take her out to a couple of night spots. You buy drinks and dance, and begin to look her over carefully, wondering just where she came from, just how sophisticated she is, and just how far she’ll go, and then she suddenly tells you that she hasn’t a cent in the world; that someone just stole her purse while she was sitting in the movie; that she’s lost sixteen hundred bucks in currency and six or seven hundred dollars in travelers’ checks. What happens? I’ll tell you what happens,” she went on, answering her own question. “The guy immediately thinks you’re a professional; that you’re taking a nice way of putting a price tag on yourself and he starts thinking in terms of cold hard cash, and from there on your evening is ruined any way you’ve a mind to take it.”

“Yes,” Selby said thoughtfully, “I can see your point.”

“I can get the travelers’ checks back,” she said. “They’ll replace them when I make an affidavit of loss. I won’t have to wait too long for that. I suppose the hotel will give me credit until then, under the circumstances — although they may get nasty. I don’t suppose I can use you as a reference?”

“Reference to what?”

“To the fact that I lost my purse.”

“The only way I know you lost your purse,” Selby said, “is because you’ve told me you’ve lost your purse. Why don’t you tell the management of the hotel the same story?”

“I can see the skeptical legal mind at work. I guess you’re the district attorney, all right. Oh, well, I’ve been on my own before. I can take it, I guess.”

“So you were out with a man whose name was Jim. You were out until four-thirty this morning. You don’t know his last name.”

“That’s right.”

“Nor the license of his car.”

“It was a slick convertible. I didn’t take the license number. I’m not that kind. Of course, if it had been serious, I’d have found out a little more about him. As it was, it was just an interlude helping pass yesterday into today, and reconciling me to the fact that I’d come to a place where they roll the sidewalks up and put them in mothballs at nine or ten o’clock at night.”

“Why did you come here?” Selby asked.

“I came here because I wanted to. I suppose, Mr. Selby, that if I’d really been murdered, that would have given you a legal right to have asked me a lot of questions which, under the circumstances, I wouldn’t have been in a position to answer.”

She smiled at her own joke.

“And in view of the fact that you haven’t been murdered?” Selby said.

“I certainly don’t have to let you invade the privacy of my bedroom to hold me to account for not having been murdered. And now, Mr. Douglas Selby, District Attorney of Madison County, if you’ll get the hell out of my bedroom, I feel the urge to take a shower, inasmuch as you have disrupted my night’s sleep.”

“But I want to know...”

“I daresay you do. I want to take a shower. I’ll see you later.”

“Look here,” Selby said, “is there anyone in town who can identify you, anyone whom you know?”

“Yes, but I hate to call on her.”

“Who?”

“She’s a girl I used to know. She’s married now. I don’t want to bother her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Her name’s Babe, but now she’s married to some attorney, a man by the name of... Let me see... I can’t recall it. I’ll have to look it up. Damn it, and that letter was in my purse, the one that was stolen.”

“What was her name before she was married?”

“Babe Harlan — that is, we called her Babe, but I guess her real name was Eleanor.”

“And you don’t know the name of the man she married?”

“Perhaps I can recall it after a while, but I’ve forgotten it. I don’t suppose you’d be a good scout and ask the hotel to okay my charges for a few days until I can make an affidavit on my lost travelers’ checks? I guess I’ll have breakfast sent up to the room and at least be that much ahead.”

Selby said, “Did you receive a wire from...?”

“Mr. Selby, I’ve told you that I’m going to get up out of bed and take a shower. I’m going to put on a robe and have breakfast in my room. I...”

“I’m interested in knowing whether you came here as a result of a wire you received.”

“You say you haven’t been married,” she said. “In about four seconds you’re going to learn a lot about the way a woman performs her toilette, because I’m going to get up and...”

“I want to know...”

“I presume,” she said, “this being a small town, the local inhabitants would be quite scandalized when the waiter who brings up my breakfast finds you sitting here tête-à-tête with a nude woman.”

“You’re not nude,” Selby said.

She flung back the covers. “But I’m going to be.”

Selby opened the door and walked out.

Mocking laughter followed him into the corridor.