The D.A. Calls It Murder

Chapter XII

Herbert Perry sat in the district attorney’s office, facing the light. The sheriff and Douglas Selby concentrated upon him steady stares of silent accusation.

“Now, listen,” he said, “this Marks girl is a nice kid, see? She’s on the up-and-up. Of course, it was a pick-up, but that’s the way things go nowadays. Times are different from what they used to be.”

Selby said coldly, “I still can’t see why you knocked on the door of three twenty-one.”

“Well, that’s what I’m trying to lead up to. She’s a good kid. She wanted to sleep. I’d had a couple of drinks and I was feeling chivalrous. This typewriter was making a racket like a machine gun. The transom was open. You could hear the thing clacking all up and down the corridor. I figured it’d be a swell thing to tell this guy it was bedtime, see?”

Selby exchanged glances with the sheriff.

Perry twisted his neck around inside his collar, took a deep breath and went on, “It was the thing anyone would do under the circumstances. The kid was trying to sleep. Lots of people in the hotel were trying to sleep. I’d had four or five drinks. I was feeling pretty good — not jingled, you understand, but mellow and protective — so I took the girl home and dated her up for a night next week. Then, when I started toward the elevator I felt kind of boy-scoutish, so I tapped on the door.”

“What happened?”

“The typewriter stopped.”

“Did you knock again?”

“Yes.”

“Get any answer?”

“No.”

“Did you say anything?”

“No, not after he stopped typewriting. I figured there was no use doing anything else... You know how it is, you’re in a bedroom and you can hear some guy snoring in the other room. You knock on the wall. He rolls over and quits snoring. That’s all there is to it.”

Perry seemed pathetically eager to have them believe his explanation.

Selby tapped the top of his desk with an impressive forefinger and said, “Now, listen, Perry, you and I might just as well understand each other now as later. You knew this man in three twenty-one.”

“I knew him?” Perry exclaimed, his eyes wide.

“Yes, you knew him. He came here to see you in connection with that lawsuit of yours.”

“You’re crazy!” Perry said, then catching himself, said quickly, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Selby, I didn’t mean that. You know, I was just speaking hastily. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, but the idea’s all cuckoo. I never heard of the man in my life.”

Sheriff Brandon said slowly, “Look here, Perry, we know that this man was interested in your lawsuit. He’d made a collection of newspaper clippings about it.”

“Lots of people are interested in it,” Perry said sullenly.

“But this man had some particular reason to be interested in it.”

“Well, suppose he did?”

“We want to know what that interest was,” Selby said.

“You’ll have to ask someone else, I can’t tell you.”

Once more the officers exchanged glances.

“The typewriting stopped the first time you knocked on the door?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t know how long the typewriting had been going on?”

“No, the man was typing when I got out of the elevator.”

“And you say it sounded like a machine gun?”

“I’ll say it did.”

“It was rapid?”

“Yes.”

“Were there any pauses?”

“Not a pause. The thing was being ripped off at high speed, by someone who knew what he was doing. He could play that typewriter like my cousin could play a piano.”

“And you didn’t go into Helen Marks’ room?”

“No, I just saw her to the door.”

“How long did you stay there?”

“Just long enough to kiss her good-night.”

“Did that take any great amount of time?” Brandon asked.

“What he means,” Selby said, grinning, as he saw the expression on the boy’s face, “is whether you had to lead up to it with any preliminaries.”

“No,” Perry said readily enough. “She... well, I think it was her idea. She sort of turned around and stuck up her chin.”

“And you don’t know any reason why this man was interested in your lawsuit?”

“No,” Perry said, then, after a moment’s hesitation, added, “I wouldn’t want this repeated, but I’m afraid it isn’t much of a lawsuit, Mr. Selby. I’m willing to settle for anything I can get, but I don’t think I can even get an offer. I need money — need it bad.”

“As I see it,” Selby remarked, keeping his eyes fixed on the younger man, “the whole thing hinges on the question of whether a marriage ceremony had been performed. Now, here’s a man who’s a minister of the Gospel who’s taken an interest in the case. Naturally, the first thought which comes to my mind is that he must have known something about a marriage ceremony.”

Perry shook his head and said, “My lawyers have searched the records everywhere. It doesn’t make any difference if a marriage ceremony was performed, if it wasn’t a legal marriage ceremony, and the law says a marriage ceremony isn’t legal unless there’s been a license issued and a ceremony performed in the county where the license was issued, and then there has to be some registration made, some certificate that the marriage was performed. We’ve searched the records everywhere and find that the folks never even took out a license. They thought their marriage in Yuma was good.”

“They might have gone out of the state somewhere and married and this man might have known about it.”

“Then why didn’t he get in touch with me?”

“Perhaps he intended to.”

Perry shook his head and said, “No, that’s out, too. The folks made one trip up to Oregon. Aside from that, they stayed right there on the home place. You know, they were pretty much stay-at-home sort of people.”

“When did they go to Oregon?”

“About a year ago.”

“And you’re certain they didn’t get married in Oregon?”

“Yes, we’ve traced them everywhere. Of course, Mr. Selby, I’m telling you this in strict confidence. My lawyer’s putting up the best bluff he can and trying to get a settlement. He’ll get half if he does, so he’s working hard. I’m not supposed to tell this, but if you’re interested in this preacher and figure he had anything to do with the case, I want you to have the low-down on it.”

Brandon said, not unkindly, “That’s all, Herbert. Go on back to the service station, and don’t tell anyone you’ve been questioned. Just keep quiet about everything.”

When Perry had closed the door behind him, the sheriff and Doug Selby hitched their chairs closer together. “The kid’s telling the truth,” Brandon announced.

“I know it,” Selby said, “but it’s such a peculiar coincidence that he should have been the one to knock on the door.”

“Coincidences happen like that in real life all the time. Think of what a coincidence it was that the real Charles Brower should have come walking into the hotel and found his wife there.”

“That wasn’t a coincidence,” Selby pointed out. “There are basic reasons back of that. That’s no more a coincidence than it is that a man playing a poor game of chess suddenly finds his king where he can’t make a move. Brower came to the hotel to claim the money. His wife came here to identify his remains and thought she saw a chance to collect her traveling expenses and perhaps a little extra. So she stayed on.”

“Well, nothing’s a coincidence if you want to look at things that way,” Brandon said, “because there’s a reason for everything.”

Selby said slowly, “I’m wondering if there’s a reason that this Marks girl picked up this particular young man and brought him to the hotel at a certain particular time.”

Brandon shrugged his shoulders.

“And you can’t get anything out of Brower?” Selby asked.

“Not a thing,” Brandon said. “He’s close-mouthed as a clam. And his wife smells a rat somewhere. She wants him to talk — but to her, and not to us. She rushed out and got him a lawyer... Where do you suppose Larrabie got that five thousand dollars from?”

“That’s a problem,” Selby remarked. “Hang it, I never saw a case which looked so beautifully simple on the face of it. But everything we touch goes haywire. His wife says he never had five thousand dollars or five hundred dollars. If he had as much as fifty dollars ahead, he thought he was rich. They lived on starvation wages, and the church was behind in the salary most of the time. They were paid in produce, promises and abuse.”

“I think the actress paid it,” Brandon insisted.

Selby laughed. “Don’t be silly. In the first place, why would she have paid it? In the second place, if she had, she isn’t the kind to have lied to me about it.”

“We can’t be too sure,” the sheriff said slowly. “People do funny things. There may have been blackmail mixed up in it.”

“Not with Larrabie,” Selby said. “He’s too absolutely genuine. He was busy making the world a better place to live in.”

“Maybe he was,” Brandon agreed, “but I’m not so sure about Brower.”

“I’m not so certain about him either,” Selby admitted.

“Somehow, I think Brower’s our man,” Brandon said slowly. “He may have something on his mind besides the murder, but I think Brower either did it or knows who did it.”

“It’s funny he’d keep silent.”

“He won’t say a word, and his wife rushed right out and hired Roper to defend him.”

“What did Roper do?”

“Demanded to see his client. Told him to keep still and not say anything, to answer no questions whatever. And then he demanded we put a charge against him or turn him loose. He claims he’s going to get a writ of habeas corpus!”

“Let him get it,” Selby said, “and in the meantime we’ll trace every move Brower made from the time he left Millbank until he showed up here.”

The sheriff nodded. “The Los Angeles sheriff’s office is going to co-operate. They never got much co-operation out of the old gang here and they’re tickled to death to work with us. By tomorrow I’ll know everything about Brower, whether he wants to talk or not.”

He pulled the cloth tobacco sack from his pocket, opened a cigarette paper and sprinkled flakes of tobacco into the paper.

“Well,” he said as he rolled the cigarette, “I wonder what The Blade will have to say about it tonight.”

“Probably plenty,” Selby admitted, then went on to say, “You can gamble on this: Brower and Larrabie hatched up some sort of scheme. Larrabie came here as a part of that scheme.”

“Well, if Larrabie got the money and that was all there was to it, why didn’t he go down to Los Angeles and join Brower or telephone for Brower to meet him back in Millbank? He had no business staying on here, if that’s all he came for.”

Selby nodded slowly.

“If you were a stranger in town, Doug, and wanted to get five thousand dollars, how would you go about it?” the sheriff asked.

Selby laughed as the sheriff, shaking the cigarette into a perfect cylinder, peered steadily at him.

“I’d hold up a bank or something.”

“Or perhaps indulge in a little blackmail.”

“You’d have a sweet time getting five thousand bucks in blackmail out of anyone in this town,” the district attorney said. “And even then, there wouldn’t be any excuse for sticking around afterwards.”

“And in five one-thousand-dollar bills,” the sheriff remarked significantly, starting for the door. He turned as he opened the door to say, “I keep thinking about that actress angle. Those bills look like outside money to me.”

“Forget it,” Selby insisted. “I had a good heart-to-heart talk with her.”

“Yeah,” the sheriff remarked through a crack in the door, “you might have had a better perspective on the case, if you’d talked over the telephone.”

He slammed the door as Selby jumped to his feet.

Selby was still scowling savagely when Amorette Standish tiptoed into the room and said, “Sylvia Martin’s out there. She wants to see you.”

“Show her in,” Selby said, looking at his watch.

Amorette Standish held the door open and said, “Come in.”

Sylvia bustled into the office with quick, businesslike efficiency, a folded newspaper under her arm.

“How’s it coming?” she asked. “And what’s this about Brower?”

“Brower tried to claim the money at the hotel,” Selby said.

“What money?”

“Five thousand dollars that was left in an envelope by Larrabie.”

“You mean Larrabie had five thousand dollars?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t tell me about this.”

“I was keeping it a secret. I didn’t know about it myself until some time after viewing the body. Cushing had the envelope in his safe. Of course, he didn’t consider it as being very important.”

“Where did Larrabie get the five thousand dollars?”

“That,” he told her, “is what we’re trying to find out.”

“And why did he take Brower’s name?”

Selby shrugged his shoulders and said shortly, “You guess for a while, I’m tired.”

Sylvia sat down on the edge of his desk and said, “Listen, Doug, how about that actress?”

“Oh, well,” Doug said, “I may as well tell you the whole truth. I guess you were right after all. The Blade will publish the story, if you don’t, and it’s better for you to publish it the way it is than to let people read about it the way it wasn’t.”

He began at the beginning and told her the entire story of his meeting with Shirley Arden.

When he had finished, she said, “And there was the odor of perfume on that money?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of perfume?”

“I can’t tell you,” he said, “but I’d know it, if I smelled it again. It was rather a peculiar perfume, a delicate blend of scents.”

“That would mean the money came from a woman.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“And the only woman you know of that this man contacted was the actress.”

“I don’t suppose,” Selby said wearily, “it would do me any good to tell you that this actress isn’t the sort who would lie. She told me the truth.”

“Did you,” Sylvia asked, watching him with narrowed eyes, “take the precaution to find out what sort of perfume she was using?”

Selby nodded wearily and said, “I regret to say that I did.”

“Why the regrets, Doug?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It was cheap. It was doubting her word, somehow.”

“And the perfumes weren’t the same?”

There was an intent something in Sylvia’s voice, like a cross-examiner getting ready to spring a trap.

Selby’s voice contained a note of triumph, “I can assure you,” he said, “that they were most certainly not the same.”

Sylvia whipped from under her arm the newspaper she was carrying. She jerked it open, spread it out on the desk and said, “I don’t suppose you bother to read the motion picture gossip in the Los Angeles’ daily periodicals.”

“Good Lord, no,” Selby exclaimed. “Why should I?”

Sylvia ran her finger down a syndicated column dealing with the daily doings of the motion picture stars.

“Here it is,” she said. “Read it.”

Selby bent forward and read:

Selby looked up into Sylvia Martin’s steady eyes, then reached for the telephone.

“I want to get Shirley Arden, the picture actress, in Hollywood,” he said to the operator. “If I can’t get her, I’ll talk with Ben Trask, her manager. Rush the call. It’s important.”

He slammed the telephone speaker back into its pronged rest. His lips were clamped tightly shut. His face had changed color.

Sylvia Martin looked at him for a moment, then crossed to his side and rested her hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Doug,” she said, and proved the extent of her understanding and sympathy by saying nothing more.