The sheriff frowned dubiously, said, “Well, of course, right at this hour the prisoners are all asleep, and... probably the first thing in the morning... I wouldn’t hold you to visiting hours, but...”
Sylvia Martin, moving around behind the sheriff, tugged frantically at his coat tails in a series of quick telegraphing jerks.
Brandon looked back over his shoulder at her, then suddenly grinned and added, “However, under the circumstances, Horace, I guess you’re entitled to have most of the rules set aside. I guess Dorothy would be willing to be wakened in order to see you.”
He turned to his deputy. “Get the matron on the phone. Tell her we’re sorry to wake her up, but it’s important that Dorothy Clifton have a visitor, and...”
Lennox grabbed Brandon’s hand gratefully. “Sheriff,” he said, “you’ll never know what this means to me. I caught a night plane and... I know Dorothy is lying awake over there waiting for me. I told her I’d get here just as soon as I possibly could.”
“You’ve seen your family?” the sheriff asked, conscious of Sylvia Martin’s breathless eagerness.
“Yes, I came here and was told that I couldn’t do anything until you returned, so I went out to the house and talked with my mother. She’s very bitter. And I talked with Steve who’s inclined to be reasonable, if it wasn’t for Mom’s influence.”
Sylvia Martin stepped forward. She said, “I’ve never met you, Mr. Lennox, but I’m Sylvia Martin, of The Clarion.”
Lennox suddenly became cautiously dignified. “Oh, yes,” he said.
“And,” Sylvia went on, “our opposition paper, The Blade, is trying to make it appear that Dorothy Clifton is guilty of this crime and I’m absolutely certain that she isn’t. I’d like to have an interview with you after you’ve seen Miss Clifton, and see that... well, that her side of the story gets properly presented to the public. The fact that you’ve had enough faith in her to... well, you know, the general understanding is that all the members of your family don’t feel the same way, and...”
She broke off to let a pleading smile finish the sentence for her.
Horace Lennox said, “Few people understand the situation. The family, of course, are very nervous and... well, you might say, hysterical. I don’t think they’re in a position to have any real perspective as yet. I sympathize with them but their outlook is... well, the chief of police here has completely pulled the wool over their eyes.”
Sylvia Martin slipped her hand in the bend of Horace Lennox’s arm, gently piloted him to one side. “While the sheriff and the district attorney are having a conference,” she said, “and during the few minutes that it will be necessary to wait before the matron can get Dorothy ready to see you, I’d like to have you amplify that statement just a little so I can explain to my editor...”
Brandon, taking the hint, grinned at Selby, said, “Well, let’s go put through that telephone call, Doug.”
They retired to the inner office. Brandon rushed through an emergency call to the sheriff’s office at El Centro.
“Hello,” he said, “this is Rex Brandon, sheriff of Madison County, talking from Madison City. You’re holding a Frank Grannis down there, and we want to come down and talk with him. Well be down just as soon as... What’s that?”
The sheriff listened for a matter of nearly a minute, then said, “Well, I guess that settles it then. Who did you say this fellow was?... I see... I see. All right, thanks.”
The sheriff hung up the phone, turned to Doug Selby. “Well,” he said, “that does it.”
“What is it?” Selby asked.
“Late this afternoon,” Brandon said, “counsel for Frank Grannis managed to get bail for his client reduced to three thousand dollars, and within thirty minutes surety bail was furnished by a ‘friend’ of the accused.”
“Who was the friend?” Selby asked.
“The friend,” Brandon said, dryly, “was a man whom the sheriff says he’s satisfied Frank Grannis had never seen before in his life, but he put on a good act of backslapping cordiality. As soon as Grannis was admitted to bail, this friend loaded him in an automobile and whisked him out of the county.”
“The attorney, of course, was old A. B. C.?” Selby asked.
“That’s right.”
Selby put tobacco in his pipe, said, “Well, Rex, as the game starts flushing out of cover we begin to get more of a pattern.”
“It isn’t flushing out of cover,” Brandon said. “It’s getting into cover.”
“Well, let’s ring up that great super-sleuth, Otto Larkin, and find out about the murder weapon.”
Brandon picked up the telephone, grinned as he said, “Get me Otto Larkin. Tell him I want him up here. Tell him if he has any evidence in that murder case to bring it up.”
Brandon hung up the phone and said, “At least The Clarion will be able to run the story in the morning edition showing that we’ve identified the corpse and perhaps with an innuendo or two about the mysterious case on which this detective was working when she was murdered. That will give the other side something to worry about.”
Selby nodded, looked at his watch, and said, “I’ll bet Otto Larkin would like to cross the next half-hour right out of his life.”
16
Otto Larkin’s wide-eyed, cherubic innocence failed to hide his embarrassment.
“Gosh,” he blurted out, “I didn’t know I was going to run into a deal of that sort. I guess I just got caught in a political squeeze play, and...”
“What about this murder weapon?” Brandon interrupted.
Larkin eased his ponderous frame into a chair. Eager affability oozed out of him like the perspiration on his palms. “Now, look, fellows,” he said, “I tried to get in touch with you on that but it was a last-minute development.”
“And so you got in touch with The Blade instead?” Brandon asked.
“It just happened that they had a man in touch with me, and... well, I didn’t know just what to do. I thought if I held out on them we’d make them hostile and... well, you know how it is. There isn’t a case against Dorothy Clifton except for that murder weapon. Of course, we have bloodstains and it was her car that was in the park, and all that, but... well, you know, I don’t want to go off half-cocked.”
“Well, what about the murder weapon?” Selby asked.
“Well, you see it was this way, fellows. I covered the garages looking for the murder car and of course I spotted this one and learned it belonged to Dorothy Clifton, so I thought I’d go talk with her. As soon as I talked with her, I knew that she was concealing something, so I put a little pressure on her and found out about her wild story that the car had been taken the night before. Well, she left the Lennox place and went to the hotel. I waited around and after she went out I got a passkey, and...”
“But what about the murder weapon?”
“I’m coming to that,” Larkin said. “I found a blouse with some bloodstains on it in her suitcase and Doc Carson made a test for me and said they were human bloodstains.”
“Did you get a type?” Selby asked.
“Yes, he was able to give me a type — Type A.”
“Just what made you feel that a woman stabbing another woman would get bloodstains on the front of her blouse?” Selby asked.
“Well, now,” Larkin said, fidgeting, “I was working pretty fast there, fellows. I didn’t have a chance to go into all the angles on this thing the way you would before a trial.”