because nobody else would put up with him. He's got no sense at all except for planning deliberate mischief, and that he's very damned smart at. I call him El Se n or for convenience-sometimes it's Se n or Estupido, and sometimes Se n or Malicioso, and other things. I believe he must have been a witch's familiar in another incarnation. But even when he's being stupid, he can look down his nose at me as superior as the other two.'
'Madame Cara,' said Sergeant Woods, regarding his Beef Stroganov thoughtfully, 'says that the highest point of animal reincarnation is represented by cats, and they're all of them superior human souls on the way-er- up the ladder again.'
'And who in hell is Madame Cara?' Goldberg wanted to know. Woods grinned. 'This thing I'm on now. That embezzlement. I suppose I should say ‘alleged,' like the papers-I've got no proof he did it, and as far as I can see I never will unless I catch up to him-and it looks as if maybe he borrowed one of their spells and made himself invisible.”
'Oh, that Temple of Mystic Truth thing,' said Goldberg.
'What is mystic about the truth?' asked Mendoza.
'There you've got me, Lieutenant,' said Woods. 'All I know is what it says on the sign out front. Myself, I thought at first it ought to have been handed over to somebody in Rackets, but of course however the Kingmans came by the money it did belong to them-that is, to the-er-church, which is officially incorporated as a nonprofit organization-'
'Now there's what they call labored humor,” said Goldberg.
'-And this Twelvetrees hadn't any title to it just as their treasurer. Yes, I thought,' said Woods, looking intellectually amused, 'that I'd learned pretty thoroughly what damned fools people can be, but Madame Cara Kingman and her husband've given me another lesson. Twenty-three hundred bucks, if you'll believe me-one month's take.'
'Good God,' said Goldberg, 'I'm in the wrong business. Just for telling fortunes?'
'Well, it's dressed up some. Quite fancy, in fact-fancy enough to attract people with money and-er-more sophistication than the kind who patronize the gypsy fortune teller at the amusement pier. But nine out of ten people are interested in that sort of thing, you know, it's just a matter of degrees of intelligence.'
'Twelvetrees,' said Mendoza meditatively. 'He absconded with the take?'
'That he did, at least he's gone and the money's gone, and at the same time. Where I couldn't say. I've been looking for six days, and not a smell. Mr. Brooke Twelvetrees has pulled the slickest vanishing act since vaudeville died.'
Mendoza laid down his fork. 'Mr. Brooke Twelvetrees. Elegant-sounding name. Did it really belong to him, I wonder?'
'Your guess is as good as mine. Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn't it? And sort of gratifying in a way-you know, the biter bit and all that-the Kingmans seem to have trusted him absolutely. Yes, he's done a very nice flit, overnight-left a note for his landlady and not so much as a bag of dirty laundry to provide a clue, and disappeared into the blue.'
“I suppose you've looked at his recent quarters, then-as well as elsewhere. Out on 267th Street.'
Woods stared at him, also laid down his fork, and said, 'How d'you come to know that, Lieutenant? I didn't know Homicide was interested in Twelvetrees. What-'
It ran a small finger up between Mendoza's shoulder blades, the feeling he'd waited for before in vain. 'Woods-when did he go?' he asked softly.
The sergeant cocked his head at him curiously, and then, as if divining his urgency, answered, terse as an official report. 'A week ago last night. Last seen four in the afternoon by the Kingmans. They came in Monday to lay a charge.'
Mendoza said, ' Donde menos se piensa solta le liebre -isn't it the truth, things happen unexpectedly… Indulge me a minute, Sergeant-he's just vanished, no sign at all of his leaving for anywhere, even in disguise?'
'Not a smell. We've been working our tails off looking. His car was found abandoned down near the Union Station-nothing in it. None of the personnel there could identify his photograph, and he's a man you'd remember if you'd seen him-especially a woman. Nobody remembered him at an airport or a bus station either. Or any of the places he might have gone to buy a disguise-false whiskers or something. If he dyed his hair, he didn't do it with anything he bought at a drugstore near where he lived or near this-er-Temple. Oh, yes, we've looked in all the indicated places, but maybe he's been too smart for us. And now, why?'
' Aqui esta, wait for it-wait. Now what is this, what could it-? What kind of a car-did it have long tailfins that curved up at the ends?'
Woods opened his mouth, shut it, and said, 'Well, no. It's a two-year-old Porsche, an open roadster.'
'You don't tell me,' said Mendoza slowly. 'You don't tell me. Now, I wonder… A two-year-old Porsche. And twenty-three hundred dollars. That cancels out in a way, doesn't it? Not like a battered ten-year-old heap not worth fifty bucks on a turn-in. And he couldn't retire on twenty-three hundred. Not a very big job, was it?-‘worth all the trouble of a disguise, covering his tracks so thoroughly-leaving the car-? I mean, surely he could have accumulated a bigger take than that if he'd planned to steal any money at all… ' What was it in his mind, struggling up to the surface? He sat very still, letting it find its own way out. 'Woods-when and how did you take a look at that place Twelvetrees lived?'
The half-untouched food congealed on their plates. Goldberg went on eating, watching and listening interestedly. 'Mix-up about that,' said Woods. 'We couldn't get the address for a while-the one the Kingmans had was three years old, the place he'd lived when he hooked up with them nearly four years ago. They knew he'd moved, they thought they had the address somewhere but couldn't find it. There'd evidently been no occasion to contact him at home. Thought they had the phone number too, but couldn't find that. That kind of peop1e-or making out they are-unworldly, you know. In the end we got it from one of the-er-members of the sect, phone number that is, and that was Wednesday morning. When I got the address from the phone company, I went out there, of course-Wednesday afternoon-and I looked it over. Well, I didn't take the floors up, but-'
'You didn't take the floors up,' said Mendoza. 'Maybe you should have done just that, Sergeant. Maybe. That-that perpetual talking machine Mrs. Bragg-she didn't follow you around pointing out all the amenities, I take it.'
'I don't,' said Woods, 'encourage people to watch me work, no. I shut the door on her. And just how do you know about Mrs. Bragg and 267th Street? What's your interest in Twelvetrees?'
'I don't know that I've got any-yet. But I think you and I and my Sergeant Hackett will go out there right away and take a closer look at a couple of things. I'l1 explain it to you on the way, it's a funny little story-and I may be seeing ghosts, but it just occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Twelvetrees is being slandered… All that blacktop, so inconvenient. And a trowel. Of all things, a trowel… Vaya, I must be seeing ghosts-it's even more far- fetched than what Walsh- But no I have to make sure.'
They stood in the middle of the little living room, the three of them, at two o'clock that afternoon, and Hackett said, 'You haven't got much to make this add up, Luis.' They had got rid of Mrs. Bragg by sheer weight of numbers and official supremacy, but she might well be lurking outside, suspicious of their intentions toward her good furniture and rugs. 'If you're just relying on a hunch, and the damnedest far-fetched one I ever knew you to have, at that-'
'Not at all,' said Mendoza. 'Sober deduction from sober fact, it's just that I happened to have a couple of facts Woods didn't have. I admit to you I've had a little funny feeling that something's fishy-it's been growing on me-but the facts are there to be looked at, and very suggestive too. Anybody could add them up. I don't say it's impossible Twelvetrees didn't decide to decamp with a month's take when he could have made it the whole bank account, and we all know from experience that people can disappear without trace. But it's odd he should go to so much trouble for a relatively small amount, when it involved abandoning an expensive car and the promise of more opportunity to come-after all, he'd been with this racket for four years, didn't you say, Woods? Evidently it paid off. Why should he walk out on it just for twenty-three hundred he wasn't entitled to? It isn't reasonable-I know crimes get committed for peanuts, but not by people of this kind.'
'Which,' said Woods, 'did occur to me, Lieutenant, but there's a couple of ways it could have happened.
