maintained. According to the mail slots, they had the left-hand front ground-floor apartment. The small lobby was a little dusty; the whole place was very quiet.
He pushed the door button and heard the shrill buzz from beyond the door. After an interval he pushed it again. He wondered if she'd gone away somewhere. But presently the door opened, a cautious few inches on its chain. 'Who is it? What do you want at this time of night?”
He brought out his badge. 'Just a few questions, Mrs. Nestor. May I come in?'
'Well, I must say it's a peculiar hour to come bothering at me. But I suppose if you must, you must.' She unhooked the chain, stood back ungraciously to let him in. 'I haven't seen you before. There were two other officers-'
'Yes. Lieutenant Mendoza. You remember Sergeant Hackett, who questioned you on Wednesday? You saw him again?'
'Why, yes. I expect we can sit down.' She sat on the edge of the couch. She had undressed and was wrapped in an aged and ugly striped flannel bathrobe, hugging it round her primly. She had put her hair up in curlers, covered it with a pink scarf, and her sallow face was bare of either make-up or vanishing cream. She had on a pair of old run-down black mules with little pompons on the toes.
The room said this and that. Old furniture, most of it belonging to the apartment, very little ornament-the two pictures probably had come with the apartment too. But everything very neat and clean. The one floor lamp she had switched on in the living room cast light into the visible corner of the kitchenette, and it caught reflections from newly waxed linoleum there. She was, without much doubt, one of those persnickety housekeepers. He didn't wonder that charming, easygoing Frank Nestor had sought diversion elsewhere. He had a suspicion that when she'd made up her mind that he'd married her for her expectations and nothing more she'd subtly-and maybe unconsciously-taken revenge by turning herself into the obvious martyr.
He sat down facing her. 'Where have you been all day, Mrs. Nestor? We've been trying to get in touch with you.' 'Oh, have you? Well, I had to go up to Forest Lawn to make the arrangements about the funeral. They had the inquest yesterday, and then that other officer told me they'd released the body, so I could make the arrangements. And then I went to buy a black dress because I didn't have one, and it will look better at the funeral.'
Her voice was quite flat, expressionless, and her shallow eyes were empty. 'But I was meaning to get in touch with you too, because they told me at the bank that you'd been asking questions and they'd showed you all about Frank's account there. I shouldn't think that would be allowed. And I don't understand why I can't have that money-I'm his widow and he hadn't any other relations at all-at least I never heard of any. Do you know, he had nearly five thousand dollars in his account. I never suspected he'd saved up that much.'
And it was another interesting thing, thought Mendoza. Considering that Nestor hadn't stinted himself in any direction-his star sapphire ring, the Buick convertible, the four-hundred-a-month office-he must have been raking it in from somewhere, all right. Just the marked-up vitamins?
'Did Sergeant Hackett come to see you last night, Mrs. Nestor?'
'Why, yes, he did. Just for a short time. Mr. Marlowe was here. Why?'
'Mr. Marlowe?'
'Mr. William Marlowe, he's a very fine man, he was an old friend of my father's.'
'What time was Sergeant Hackett here?' He was watching her. She answered him readily, without hesitation, but without interest either.
'Why, let's see, it was early. About eight o'clock, I think. He asked me a lot of questions all over again, things he'd asked before. I must say it seemed very inefficient to me. And about Miss Corliss too. I don't know much about her, I never interfered in Frank's business. Come to think, it'd've been a little before eight, because I happened to notice the clock when Mr. Marlowe left and that was ten past.'
'Mr. Marlowe was here when the sergeant came?'
'That's right. It was nice of him, he came to see if I might need a loan to pay for the funeral, you see. He's a very wealthy man.' And all the while her expressionless eyes stayed fixed on him as if she was memorizing him.
'He left before Sergeant Hackett?'
'Oh yes. Mr. Marlowe said he knew I was tired and didn't want company, and he left, and Sergeant-whatever the name was-he took the hint finally and left too, about half an hour later.'
'And that was the last you saw of either of them?'
'Well, yes,' she said. She dabbed at her mouth with a wadded-up handkerchief. 'Why do you want to know all that? I'm sure, you all ask the oddest questions-I should think you'd be out looking for whatever burglar it was shot Frank, instead of bothering me.'
'We're wondering whether it was a burglar, Mrs. Nestor,' he said casually. 'Whether it wasn't someone your husband knew. Or someone you knew.'
'I?' she said blankly. 'Why on earth should you think that? I don't know any burglars, for heaven's sake. Of all the ridiculous ideas. And to come asking questions at this hour of night, when I'd already gone to bed-'
Essentially an ignorant woman? Concerned with the practical matters only? The self-made martyr so wrapped up in herself she was oblivious to anything outside? Or something a lot deeper?
The tiredness was catching up to him now. The long, long day, most of it spent in enforced inactivity in the planes, with the frantic worry gnawing at his mind.
Art… He got up, and he had to haul himself up by the arm of the chair.
'All right, thanks very much, Mrs. Nestor,' he said. 'We'll be in touch with you.' He pulled the door open.
'I'm sure I don't know why,' she said. 'That's the queerest thing I've heard yet, thinking I might know the burglar. I don't know why you have to come bothering me.”
'Don't you?' said Mendoza, swinging around on her suddenly. 'Was there a burglar at all? We don't think so, you know. Have you ever owned a gun, Mrs. Nestor?' She stepped back, but there wasn't any shock or fear in the shallow eyes. 'Well, for heaven's sake,' she said flatly.
'I should think anybody could see how Frank came to get murdered. Of course l've never owned a gun. I must say I don't see the point of all this. That sergeant getting me down there for some kind of test, now I think it over, it's nothing more or less than an insuIt. I'm a good Christian woman and-'
The cordite test. Negative, but it wasn't always reliable by any means.
'We'll be in touch with you,' said Mendoza wearily, and went out. It was ten o'clock. He got into the car and drove back downtown to drop it at the garage. He called a cab and had himself driven home, to the house on Rayo Grande Avenue.
There were lights in the living room. It seemed years since he had last walked up this flagstoned path, opened the wide oak door to the square entry hall.
'You shouldn't have stayed up, amada,' he said as he kissed Alison. Bast and her daughter Nefertite ran to meet him, talking loudly, and he bent to pick them up, stroking the sleek heads. He sat down heavily in the nearest chair.
'You'll not sleep without you have a bit of whiskey in you,' said Mairi MacTaggart. 'Wait up indeed. Would we be going off to bed and you not in, as long a day as we've all had even so? I'll fetch it.' Her kind, wise blue eyes smiled a little; she trotted out.
'Luis-'
'Well, they're not saying one way or the other,' said Mendoza. 'The longer he hangs on, of course, the better his chances-I suppose. He could stay in a coma for days.' He roused himself to tell her the details, briefly, and what they thought about it.
'Oh, God,' said Alison tiredly. She had, probably, had a bath and was wearing her newest housecoat; she had probably also had a meal, if he knew Mrs. MacTaggart.
'We got Angel to bed-she'd been sitting there since three this morning, you know-and Mairi coaxed some hot broth and toast into her, and I got her to take three aspirins, I hadn't anything stronger. But if it's going to be that long before we know-' She wandered around the room distractedly, sat down on the couch to stroke Sheba, who was diligently applying herself to the last bath of the day. Bast and Nefertite purred on Mendoza's lap; dimly he realized that it was nice to be home again, with the cats, and presumably the twins safely asleep in their own beds.
