The D.A. Breaks an Egg

“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.”