The D.A. Breaks an Egg

He held on to the phone, then after a few moments said, “Hello... yes, hello. Mrs. Kerry? This is Sheriff Brandon speaking. You’re very friendly with Moana Lennox and I’m trying to check up on some jewelry she has. Would you know the jewelry if you saw it again?... I see, you would... When did you see Moana last, Mrs. Kerry?... Oh yes... What time?... I see... All right, thank you. I was just trying to check up on that jewelry. We don’t have too good a description. We may be on the trail of something. I think we may be able to find the burglar, and if we do we’re going to require an ironclad identification. As a matter of fact, we’re on a hot trail right now... Well, thanks a lot.”

He hung up, said, “Moana was up there last night all right. She drove up and she and Constance talked almost all night. Mrs. Kerry says she was in quite a state of nerves and seems all broken up about the fact that Dorothy is suspected of the murder. She says it will ruin her brother’s life, and the girl is on the verge of hysterics.”

Selby puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. “Of course, Rex,” he said, “with all of the emotional problems that are confronting her, it’s only natural that she’d like to go and see her best friend, but — hang it, Rex, somehow, I can’t help wondering if there isn’t something more to it than that.”

“Oh, I suppose so,” Brandon said, wearily, “but the point is she wasn’t with old A. B. Carr and Frank Grannis, so there’s nothing in that lead.”

“Hang it,” Selby said. “I suppose I’m getting jumpy. Every move we make we run up against old A. B. Carr, and I suppose my perspective is becoming warped, but... Rex, do you suppose there’s a possibility Moana wasn’t up there; that this is an alibi that’s been cooked up by Carr?”

“Why would she want an alibi?”

“I don’t know,” Selby said, and for several moments gave himself up to thoughtful contemplation as he puffed slowly at his pipe.

“I feel that jewel burglary was an inside job, Rex.”

“So do I.”

“I don’t think it could have happened exactly the way Moana described it. Now then, whom would Moana be protecting?”

The sheriff said, “You’re getting into deep water there, Doug. The Lennox family is firmly entrenched in this town, and any time we start opening their closet doors looking for skeletons, we’re going to have to know which closet and what skeleton.”

Selby said, “If Moana is up to anything — if there is any connection between her and old A. B. C., she’ll have been warned against betraying herself by any unconscious slip.”

Once more Selby sought solace in his pipe, then suddenly he said, “Rex, suppose we could get her away from her family. Get her up here in the office under such circumstances that she thought she was here for another purpose, and then suddenly start grilling her on where she was last night.”

Brandon said, “It would have to be done very cleverly, Doug, and you couldn’t afford to let her know you were doubting her word about anything until you were certain you had the goods on her. The family has lots of friends and The Blade would like nothing better than to claim we were trying to dig up a red herring to compensate for having lost out to Otto Larkin on a solution of the case.”

Selby said, “We’re on a spot, Rex. Everyone will expect us to go ahead and prosecute Dorothy Clifton for murder, but there isn’t one scrap of evidence connecting the murder weapon with her. Anyone could have gone out and planted that murder weapon in the hedge after knowing that Dorothy Clifton had been questioned. I don’t think Dorothy Clifton’s guilty, and I don’t want to prosecute her.”

“The only way we can get out of prosecuting her is to find the person who did do it,” Brandon pointed out.

“Let’s assume that burglary was an inside job, Rex. Who did it?”

“Dorothy Clifton might have,” Brandon said. “About one chance in a million. Mrs. Lennox might have had some reason for doing it. Then when Moana wakened she could have hurried out of the room, up the back stairs, and into the upper corridor, and down the front stairs.”

Selby nodded.

“But,” Brandon went on, “the most logical suspect is Steve. Steve may have found himself trapped in some predicament, something that a youngster gets into. He had to have money fast. And then, of course, there’s one other possibility.”

“What’s that?”

“Moana could be protecting herself — but we need evidence, Doug. We can’t play hunches in a matter of that kind.”

Selby cupped the warm bowl of his pipe in his hand. “Rex, suppose we should recover that stolen jewelry.”

“That, of course, would be the answer,” Brandon said.

“And if Moana were protecting anyone, when she knew that we’d recovered the jewelry, she’d blurt out the whole story.”

“If we’d recovered the jewelry, she wouldn’t need to blurt out anything,” Brandon said.

“But suppose she thought we’d recovered the jewelry. Then she’d tell her story, wouldn’t she?”

“Probably.”

“You have sketches of the jewelry, Rex?”

The sheriff nodded.