The D.A. Breaks an Egg

“You’d better get it firsthand,” Hardwick said. “So far he hasn’t given us much except that this Furman dame was doing something for him, and he’s trying to contact her to find out what she’s learned. We’ve got the guy parked over here in my car.

“His name is Barton Mosher. He lives up in Windrift, Montana. Come on over and get his story.”

“Does he know anything about what we’re investigating?” Selby asked.

The deputy flashed him a quizzical look, said, “We’re not that dumb, Mr. Selby. That guy just knows we’re looking for Rose Furman, and that’s all. Come on over and meet him.”

They walked over to the deputy’s car.

Hardwick said to the man who was seated in the automobile, “These are a couple of friends of mine, Mr. Selby and Mr. Brandon. And this is Barton Mosher.”

The men shook hands.

“Will someone kindly tell me what this is all about?” Mosher demanded.

“That’s what you’re going to tell us,” Hardwick said. “Now, you’ve been hanging around Rose Furman’s apartment, and...”

“I tell you it was simply a matter of business. I told you what it was.”

“All right, tell us again. My friends might be interested.”

“I asked Rose Furman to do something for me. I don’t know as I should be telling all this,” Mosher said.

“Suit yourself,” Hardwick told him. “We can take you up to headquarters and let you think it over just as well as not. If you have anything to conceal, you’d be foolish to incriminate yourself.”

“What do you mean, incriminate myself?”

Hardwick explained patiently, “I’ll give it to you all over again. Concentrate on it, now. Rose Furman isn’t home. She hasn’t been around her apartment for a while. You’ve been hanging around there. You’re acting mighty suspicious. The people in the neighborhood begin to wonder what it’s all about. One of them telephones in. So we come out and ask you, and you start playing button, button, who’s got the button with us.”

“Say, what are you talking about? You fellows can’t do this. I could go phone my lawyer.”

“Come on, let’s go down to headquarters and you can phone your lawyer from there.”

“I don’t want that. There are newspapermen hanging around police headquarters.”

“Sure. You afraid of them?”

“Yes. That is... well, I can’t stand... I don’t want publicity.”

“Maybe you’d like to talk here, then.”

“My lawyer...”

“Keep on being cagey with us and you’ll need a lawyer.” Hardwick yawned. “One of you guys got cigarettes? Guess we’d better go on down to the sheriff’s office.”

“Rose Furman is a detective,” Mosher blurted, “and a good one. She’s done work for me in the past, and has always done a very fine job.”

“Go on, buddy. Keep talking.”

“I live in Montana and, I’ll be frank about it, I run a place there where I try to give the boys a little action, nothing too much out of the way, but a little blackjack, roulette, poker, and a few games of chance.” Mosher hesitated.

“Go on,” Hardwick prompted. “You’re started now.”

“A couple of months ago, on the twenty-sixth of July, to be exact, a girl who hangs around and plays the dude ranches, came in and had a winning streak. It was a winning streak that looked mighty suspicious to me. She cleaned up about six thousand dollars. Now I could afford to lose that if everything was on the up-and-up, but a little birdie whispered in my ear that the deal might have been fixed up with one of my men. Of course, those boys are professionals, and it would be pretty hard to fix them. You couldn’t do it with money, but this girl is quite a dish, and... well, I started wondering, that’s all. Finally I decided I’d send a few hundred dollars along with the six thousand just to find out. So I got Rose Furman to try and locate this girl, and...”

“She’d left town?” Brandon interrupted.

“That’s right. She dusted out the day after she made the winning. She was gone for perhaps two weeks or so, then she came back for a little while, and then she left again. The way she acted and everything, I was plenty suspicious.”

“All right, what’s the rest of it?”

“Well, Rose phoned me that she had a definite answer; that if I’d be here to meet her at her apartment she’d give me complete proof of what I wanted.”

“And then she didn’t show up?”