The D.A. Breaks an Egg

Selby said, “This telegram was sent from Corona at nine-thirty Tuesday night, and reads:

HAVE FINISHED INVESTIGATION IN MONTANA. YOUR BROTHER ALTHOUGH OBVIOUSLY A FINE MAN WAS LEARNING ABOUT LIFE THE HARD WAY. HAVE MADE COMPLETE INVESTIGATION AND EVERYTHING IS ALL RIGHT. NIGHT BEFORE HE DIED DROPPED FIFTEEN THOUSAND GAMBLING. GAME WAS RIGGED. HAD LOST FIVE THOUSAND TO CROOKED CARD SHARK WEEK BEFORE AND A GIRL HAD TAKEN HIM FOR FIFTEEN HUNDRED AS A QUOTE LOAN UNQUOTE. ALL REPORTS INDICATE HE WAS ENJOYING HIMSELF ENORMOUSLY BUT EXCITEMENT AND TENSION POSSIBLY PRECIPITATED HEART ATTACK. WILL REPORT TO YOU IN DETAIL WITHIN NEXT DAY OR TWO. IN THE MEANTIME HAVE TO STOP OFF MADISON CITY ON ANOTHER MATTER WHICH WILL ONLY TAKE ABOUT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.

SIGNED ROSE FURMAN

Selby said, “May we take this telegram, Mrs. Nutwell?”

She hesitated, then said, “Well, I guess it’s all right. You say she was murdered?”

“That’s right, apparently within two hours after she sent this wire. It seems she returned to Los Angeles, started to type out a report on another case, was interrupted by some client who called for her and insisted she leave immediately for Madison City with him — and she must have sent you this wire on the road to Madison City.”

“And you don’t have any idea who did the killing?”

“No, that’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“She was a mighty competent young woman. She certainly knew her way around. Knew about life and about people. I talked with her. She told me she wouldn’t send me in any report; that she didn’t do business that way; that she took a case and went out and made a job of it. When she was finished she had the story. She told me she wasn’t going to go running up a lot of expenses on me, but that I’d just have to sort of trust her. I felt certain she’d come back with the whole story and tell it to me all at once. She said reports just cramped her style. She said she didn’t want to have to start making guesses before she had all the facts.”

“How long ago did you hire Rose Furman?” Selby asked.

“Must have been three or four weeks.”

“And you gave her money?”

“I gave her four hundred against expenses. I agreed to pay her another four hundred for a complete report, where Carl went the last few days of his life, whom he was with and all that. If you find any notes she made on that, I want ’em.

“And,” Mrs. Nutwell added, with sudden conviction, “you won’t find any. She was too smart to have left as much as the scratch of a pen. You want to bet, young man?”

“No,” Selby said, “I don’t want to bet.”

Sylvia Martin quietly slipped her folded notes back in her purse. She had her story.

15

Driving back to Madison City, Selby studied the mystery of Rose Furman with frowning concentration and Brandon refrained from interrupting the young district attorney’s thoughts.

It was as they were approaching Madison City that Selby said, “Rex, we’re confronted with a peculiar pattern. It isn’t a pattern of coincidence and it isn’t a pattern of accident.”

“What is it, then?”

“Let’s begin with Daphne Arcola,” Selby said. “She came to Madison City. Why?”

“The way it looks now,” Brandon said, “it’s because she knew Frank Grannis had been arrested here and then taken to El Centro.”

Selby said, “The thought keeps recurring to my mind, Rex, that Daphne may have gone to Madison City because of the letter Babe Harlan wrote telling her that she had married A. B. Carr.”

“And she came to visit her friend?”

“Not to visit Mrs. Carr, but to consult A. B. Carr. And that would explain that wire. Don’t forget, Rex, that Mrs. Carr mentioned something in her letter about her marriage and the peculiar circumstances in connection with it; but then went on to state that her husband was a wizard as a criminal attorney and that crooks who were wise would wink at each other and say, ‘It’s as simple as A. B. C.’ ”

Brandon thought that over until they had turned into the main street of Madison City. Then he said simply, “Doug, that’s the right track. Where do we go from there?”

Selby said, “We go to your office, and we call up the sheriff’s office at El Centro. Then we drive down there and start sweating Frank Grannis to see if he doesn’t have some of the answers we want.”

Brandon said, “Sounds reasonable to me.”