The D.A. Breaks an Egg

“I guess so. She must have... well, now wait a minute. Now that you ask the question, I... I don’t think she did.”

“She must have had some reason for coming here.”

Mrs. Carr nodded dubiously. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“Perhaps it would help to find that reason if you’d tell us a little about her background,” Selby said.

She said, “I’ll be frank with you, Mr. Selby. You’re a good scout. Of course you understand that my relationship here is a strange one. While our marriage was sudden, it was... Well, you understand the circumstances.”

Selby nodded.

She said, “I wasn’t foolish enough to walk into it with my eyes closed. When my husband suggested that we get married in the interests of what I would call self-preservation, and what you would call thwarting justice, I was smart enough to realize that temporarily I had the whip hand. I insisted upon a marriage settlement which would give me something of what I wanted. I knew, of course, that my husband intended only to seal my lips for the three years during which the statute of limitations would run, and then he would get a divorce. And I know that he’s shrewd enough so that when he wanted to get that divorce he would make it appear that I was absolutely in the wrong, so he could throw me out without a cent.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this except that... well, you were nice to me and you’re a square shooter and I like you. I want to get the cards on the table and help you just as much as I can, but I’m not kidding you about this marriage, and I’m not kidding myself.”

“Go ahead,” Selby said.

“All right,” she said. “You know my background. I wasn’t any gilded lily. I tried to keep my own self-respect, but... well, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Selby said.

“I tried to use my head. I had a living to make. I wanted some of the good things of life. I tried to get them. A girl needs friends. There are times when she wants the companionship of her own sex, but situated as I was, such friendships are dangerous. However I formed a few.”

“Daphne Arcola?” Selby asked.

“She was one.”

“What about her background?”

“Naturally,” Mrs. Carr said, “under the circumstances I was hardly in a position to select my friends from the social register.”

Selby nodded.

She said, “Daphne and I shared an apartment in Windrift, Montana.”

“Wasn’t that rather an isolated place for you?” Selby asked.

She smiled. “During certain seasons of the year it wasn’t at all isolated. Not when I was there. There were two dude ranches a short distance out of Windrift and the place was fairly crawling with Eastern dudes who had money, wanted to wear cowboy clothes, and had roving eyes.”

Sheriff Brandon clamped his lips in a straight line of disapproval. Selby nodded encouragingly. “Go ahead.”

She said, “You know the way I played the game, Mr. Selby. I met old A. B. Carr when I was helping with entertainment. I... I wasn’t exactly a party girl. I tried to make my living, however, out of men who wanted entertainment — my dinners, some of my clothes — little things. If a man had a business deal he wanted to put across and wanted the right sort of background... well, I was that background. And the dude ranches wanted something easy on the eye as local cowgirls.”

“And Daphne Arcola?” Selby asked.

She narrowed her eyes and said, “I never asked any questions of Daphne, nor about Daphne.”

“She was playing the same general game you were playing?” Selby asked.

“Apparently she was, and yet... well, I’ll tell you one thing about Daphne. She was the most close-mouthed, secretive person I ever knew in my life. And I’m no party line myself. I realize that when a woman is lonely, sometimes when perhaps she doubts whether she’s making the most out of her life and thinks perhaps she should have — or could have — well, perhaps when she wants to reassure herself, she has a great temptation to confide all to some sympathetic woman companion.

“And it’s the most deadly, dangerous thing any woman can do. Women are essentially ruthless with each other.

“Of course, it’s dangerous to generalize, but basically women can never have the same frank, free friendships that men have. A woman is essentially a trapper. Man may be the one who hunts and pursues, but when it comes to a showdown the woman is the one who traps... What am I saying? I’m...”

“No, go ahead,” Selby said. “I’m interested.”

“Well,” she said, “I’ll put it this way. Every woman has some definite objective, something she wants for herself. Some women want marriage, some want enough money to have financial security... Perhaps with most of them it’s financial security through marriage... Well, Mr. Selby, the point is that I never knew what Daphne wanted.”

“And you wrote her and asked her to come here and visit you?” Selby said.

“I didn’t invite her to come and visit. I wrote her that I had married, and I... well, I admitted to her that the circumstances surrounding the marriage were a little unusual.”