'It fell out of the sky on him, maybe?'
'He said, all gratuitous, he'd had some lucky windfalls at Santa Anita. Now listen to this. For roughly the last two and a half years Nestor's been paying some nice round sums into his account every month. Paying some out too, but we know where that went-the Buick, the office, et cetera. It's run all the way between one and two thousand a month; lowest it ever fell was eight hundred. And about ninety per cent of it in cash.'
'Yes, naturally,' said Mendoza. 'He'd ask for cash. He'd spread it out over each month, not to pay in a suspiciously large sum all at once. There'll have been a few checks for small amounts--he had some genuine innocent patients, the ones still on file.'
'That's right,' said Palliser. 'And a couple of times when he did deposit a large amount told the teller-all very garrulous-he'd picked a lucky horse or had a lucky poker session. It does look as if you might have something. But what about this appointment book? When I looked at it before it didn't have a tenth of all those names in it-”
'Can you swear to that?'
'Yes, I can.'
'Good,' said Mendoza. 'Right under Art's nose, by God. The nerve of the woman-I tell you, I don't think we'll shake her. I think we'll have to go the long way round to prove it.'
'If Nestor was in that trade it'd be pretty certain she was in it with him, I see that.'
'Almost without question. Because the money was coming in hand over fist-he must have been doing a roaring trade-and it's not the kind of business you put box ads in the Times about. Some woman helped him build up that trade. You notice it took a little while-about six months-and then the profits started rolling in. I could tell you a little story about it.'
'You always tell interesting stories,' said Palliser..
Mendoza looked at his steak meditatively. 'Well, Clay said Nestor was out to get his, however it came. Also said that he'd probably have been very competent at his profession. I can see him, when he started in practice, envisioning possibilities in a mill, a first-class one, absolutely safe and reliable. Everything guaranteed. Aiming to draw the high-class females who could afford to pay a stiff price for the super service. I don't know where he picked up Corliss-she's not in our records but I think she may be in somebody's, because on all the evidence she's tough and experienced. I'll tell you what I think. I think that, round about three years ago, word began to get round here and there in the suitable places, about what number a girl should call if she was in the market for the super service. Around all the places where there'd be innocent daughters of wealthy fathers, any kind of money in combination with the kind of girls and women apt to find themselves in the market-married or not. In other words, he was trying to corner the market in that field, and I'd say he made a pretty good stab at it, judging by his income.'
'That's quite a story,' said Palliser. 'Have we got anything to back it up?'
'The bank account. Overpriced vitamins wouldn't quite account for that kind of income. And at that, I expect all was grist to his mill, apologies for the pun, and he'd do some cut-rate ones to keep in practice. We've got a smock with a bloodstain on it, a pair of rubber gloves, a small scrap of a label which was once, probably, on an ampoule of morphine. And-'
'But listen,' said Palliser, 'if that was so we'd have found all sorts of evidence there! There'd be his instruments, and drugs, and hypos-'
Mendoza sighed. 'We all make mistakes. Art was ready to kick himself when he began to suspect, from his notes. You started the usual routine on it, the photographs and printing and so on, but didn't begin an official search-and then Art sent you on the other case. And didn't bother to put a man on guard there while he went and had lunch.' He finished his coffee and picked up the bill.
'Come on, let's go try to scare Corliss.'
'I'll be damned!' said Palliser. 'You mean she- With him there? For God's sake. But-do you think she's the one shot Nestor?'
'I do not,' said Mendoza. 'In a left-handed sort of way, you've got to admire the woman. She must have had the hell of a shock when Mrs. Nestor called and told her. And what a gamble to take- I tell you frankly, in her place I'd have packed a bag and bought a plane ticket to Japan. And the fact that she didn't-well, I don't think we'll get much change out of her.'
Margaret Corliss faced the four men unblinkingly, stolidly. 'A search warrant?' she said. 'Well, reely, I never was so insulted-as if I had anything to hide! What the world is coming to, with the police thinking they can accuse honest women-' And she looked like a very ordinary honest woman, plain and indignant, in the middle of her ordinary, rather shabby apartment living room.
'I haven't accused you of anything yet,' said Mendoza. 'But we're going to take some short cuts, Corliss, because I'm not feeling very tactful or talkative. Go over there and sit down. All right, boys'-he nodded to Dwyer and Scarne-'take the place apart.'
'Reely, I-'
'Sit down, I said! I know all about it,' said Mendoza, standing over her where she flounced into a sagging armchair. 'And if you don't come apart and admit it, we'll go the long way round to collect the nice legal evidence to prove it. So one way or another you're due for a little holiday at the taxpayers' expense. I'd guess a one-to-three, it you've never been inside before. Now, Frank Nestor was operating an abortion mill and you were in on it. He-'
'I don't have to listen to your insults-dirty Mex-'
'Sit still and pay attention!' he said coldly. 'You'd done some leg work on it, passing the discreet publicity. Between you, you'd built up a nice business, profitable as all hell because you were charging what the traffic would bear.'
Both he and Palliser were watching her for any betraying gesture or expression; she just sat, a plump plain fortyish woman, and stared back with cold eyes. But Palliser thought the eyes were watchful.
'I'm not asking you, I'm telling you,' said Mendoza hardly. 'This I know. I know the hell of a lot. Everything had been running smooth as silk-you'd been doing a land-office business. Dios, at the prices you probably got, two or three a month would make a damn nice living for both of you. And as word got round by satisfied customers- everything guaranteed safe, a real doctor-business picked up, didn't it?'
'Talk all you please,' she said stolidly. 'I don't have to listen.”
'You'll listen. You had one hell of a shock when you heard that Nestor had been shot-'
'Oh, I thought you were going to say I shot him. Reely, blackening Doctor's name like this-wherever you got a nasty idea like that-'
'Weren't you at all surprised when his wife told you first that he wasn't feeling well, was at home, and then called to say he was lying murdered in his office? Did you know anything about Nestor's private life, or was it purely a business arrangement?' He looked her up and down, contemptuously. 'Obviously he wouldn't be interested in you that way-probably nobody-'
She reddened indignantly: the one slur a woman might rise to. 'Of course there wasn't anything between Doctor and me! I've got my own gentleman friend, he-'
'Oh, have you?' said Mendoza. 'That's interesting. Was he here with you last Friday evening? What's his name?'
'I don't have to tell you anything! Coming here and-You've got me all confused-what's Friday got-'
'Never mind. When you heard Nestor had been murdered you knew you'd be in one sweet mess unless you could clear the evidence out of that office. You were taking the hell of a chance, but you moved fast and you had luck. You found the office open, and you found the evidence where it had been left, so you knew probably we hadn't searched the place thoroughly yet. You bundled it into your car trunk-and don't think I can't tell you what it consisted of.' He gave her a wolfish smile. 'There'd have been a few surgical tools, probably in the sterilizer-and whatever supply was on hand of the morphine he used for anesthetic-and we'll find where he was acquiring that too, probably from some local pusher-and I really do think Doctor had kept a record of all his under-the-counter patients, and while he never let you lay hands on it, you knew where it was and you took that too. Once we had made any kind of search, the whole thing would have been obvious-and how obvious that you'd known all about it! As it was, there were a few more details you had to take care of, but just as you started back to the office your luck ran out. A big tough sergeant of cops drove up.' Mendoza stopped; her silent tight-lipped watchfulness was raising wrath in him, Palliser thought. He'd heard that Mendoza was one of those, a drink or so turned him belligerent; and
