The D.A. Breaks an Egg

In a last desperate attempt to conceal their failure and presumably to try and detract from the credit due Otto Larkin for apprehending the Number One murder suspect in connection with the killing of Rose Furman, Doug Selby, the district attorney, and Rex Brandon, the sheriff, have perpetrated what is probably the greatest comic opera scheme of them all.

It has now been definitely established that these men went to a collector of antique jewelry and borrowed some pieces which would answer the description of the jewelry which was taken from the Lennox home in a burglary last Tuesday night.

They next sent for their staunch ally on The Clarion to be certain there would be plenty of favorable publicity, and then notified Moana Lennox that her jewelry had been recovered and asked her to come and identify it.

It happened that Moana Lennox, who had been prostrated by the shock of the burglary in addition to events indirectly connecting her family with the murder of Rose Furman, was unable to keep the appointment, but she knew that A. B. Carr, the distinguished lawyer who has seen fit to honor this city by making his home in our midst, was an expert on antique jewelry, an avid collector, and a shrewd appraiser.

It happened that Carr had seen Moana Lennox’s heirlooms and so she asked him to drop by the sheriff’s office and see if it would be possible to make an identification.

Not only did Carr fail to identify the jewelry as that of Moana Lennox, but to the discomfited surprise of the red-faced county officials, he made a positive identification of the jewelry as being a part of the collection of Stacy Bodega, the local jeweler who has for a long time made a hobby of collecting interesting bits of antique jewelry.

It was only the work of a few minutes to confirm the hoax which the officers had attempted to perpetrate in order to secure favorable publicity from a friendly newspaper. Stacy Bodega reluctantly admitted that the officials had borrowed this jewelry from him earlier in the day.

In the past, these officials have enjoyed the fawning support of a sycophant press, and favorable publicity has been lavished upon them in screaming headlines whenever they blundered upon any clues which automatically led to the solution of such crimes as they were investigating. One would have thought that these men were combinations of Sherlock Holmes and Solomon.

Then came the murder of Rose Furman, and the comedy of errors which resulted when the district attorney and the sheriff, starting out in their usual bungling way, attempted to muddle through.

Had the breaks been with them, it is probable that once more the subservient Clarion would have been screaming at the top of its vociferous lungs that the astute county officials once again had solved a murder which would have baffled any detectives other than those super-shrewd sleuths who are guarding over the destinies of Madison County.

As it was, Otto Larkin quietly, unostentatiously, and with no fanfare of trumpets, went out and solved that murder case. At least he has the prime Number One suspect in custody, and while it is not the policy of The Blade to attempt to try cases in the newspaper, or to anticipate what a jury may do, we will, nevertheless, state that the evidence which can be introduced, and which should be introduced by a special prosecutor appointed by the attorney general, will be damning.

Rex Brandon was probably a good cattleman. He should be back in the cattle business. There is some question as to whether Doug Selby possesses sufficient brains to make a living in private, competitive practice of law. Selby probably knows better than anyone else. And his own opinion is shown by his actions. Immediately on his return from the Army, he used the halo of his military service to plunge once more into the haven of a job where the taxpayers of this community would see that he enjoyed a fixed income.

It will be interesting to see what Doug Selby can actually do when he is retired to private life, because the chances that he will retain the office of the district attorney after the next election are figured by shrewd gamblers at about ten thousand to one.

Elsewhere in the news columns will be found the story of a meeting of the citizens for the purpose of petitioning the attorney general to send in a special prosecutor to relieve the unwilling and incompetent district attorney’s office of the prosecution of Dorothy Clifton, who is at present under arrest awaiting trial for the murder of Rose Furman.

An attempt by Selby’s sympathizers to stampede the meeting resulted in a disorderly exhibition of name calling which finally broke up with no definite action taken. But the citizens are grimly determined to see that something is done, and another mass meeting will be called in the near future where Selby sympathizers will be so far outnumbered there will be no opportunity for “packing” the meeting.