'Far as I know, still in his office, why?'
'I want you to look at it. Meet me at Federico's at twelve-thirty for lunch.' Mendoza got up, reached for his hat, and was out of the office ahead of them.
EIGHT
He stopped to have a few words with the captain-Wiley, who had got that desk when Holmes retired last year. Wiley was always a little on the defensive with Mendoza; he thought it should have been Mendoza's promotion; Wiley had been a fixture in the Forgery office for years. As a matter of fact Mendoza had been as pleased to stay where he was; as captain he'd have had an even more sedentary job, and he always hated to delegate authority.
'I hated like hell to call you back,' said Wiley, 'but I knew you'd want to come anyway when you heard about Hackett-the hell of a thing-and, damn it, I'm a delegate to this Peace Officers' convention in Denver, flying out tonight.' He turned the whole mess over to Mendoza with undisguised relief.
Mendoza went to look at Frank Nestor's office. Hackett, the trained and experienced man, was also by nature a careful man. He remembered lessons and precedents. Unlike some others, he had it always at the back of his mind that through accident or some other cause another man might be taking over a case he was working; and sometimes you got asked tricky questions in court, too. Hackett took carefully detailed notes, not just cryptic jottings as self-reminders.
Sitting at Frank Nestor's desk, Mendoza opened Hackett's notebook again and reread two filled pages. He found the appointment book on the desk and looked through it thoughtfully. Quite an artistic job, he thought. He put it in his pocket and made a tour of the office.
The whole place had been searched, and the boys were usually thorough; but that was before Art had been sent over the cliff-maybe in connection with this thing. If they were doing it over now, they might take the place apart a bit more. Just in case, Mendoza looked. He upended the soiled-clothes hamper in the lavatory and was rewarded with a white smock that had a smear of old dried blood down its front.
He rather liked that, so he looked further. Stuck to the bottom of the metal wastebasket in the rear examination room he found a tiny scrap of paper with the two letters MO printed on it. It wasn't much, but he put that carefully away too.
He looked at the scrapbook full of high-society doings, and the start of a very tentative theory formed in his mind about that. He went down to the nurse's desk and looked that over very thoroughly, but evidently she'd been allowed to clear it of personal belongings. There were all five of the city telephone books there. A tedious little job for somebody, probably Sergeant Lake, but they'd have to be gone through; some people jotted down things in phone books, or underlined numbers. He took them out to the Ferrari.
He went back and looked at all the rooms again. He opened the top of the sterilizer; it was empty. He wished (as Hackett had before him) that Hackett hadn't overlooked the precaution of leaving a guard here that day, or had come back a little sooner. Couldn't be helped now. He took down the white smock hanging in the locker; it was unstained. But, after thought, he took the rubber gloves along with him. Give the lab boys a little more work.
He found, in the nurse's desk, a ledger. Whoever had kept the accounts had kept very sketchy ones. Maybe on purpose. He took that along too.
He had looked up the address and phone number before he left the office; now he dialed and asked whether Mr. Marlowe were home.
Yes, he was, who was calling, please?
Mendoza thought that sounded like a servant. Did anyone have butlers these days? A man's voice, anyway. He identified himself, said he'd be obliged if Mr. Marlowe could give him a few minutes, if he came by.
The address was on Kenniston Avenue, the other side of Rimpau. A very classy district indeed: wide quiet streets of big, very expensive houses. A good many houses sprawling over two or three city lots, with outsize pools behind them and walls everywhere for privacy. The Marlowe house, when he found it, was one of those. It looked vaguely as if it had been modeled on a French chateau,‘it had a three-car garage, and what looked like an honest- to-God butler opened the door.
He was a small man, pale-faced, in a neat dark suit; and Mendoza was a little surprise to him. He repeated his name doubtfully, taking a second glance at Harrington's tailoring, the Sulka tie, and the conservative black homburg he'd taken from Mendoza's hand. Mendoza suspected he'd check the brand name in that behind his back.
'If you'll come down to the library, sir,' he said, wooden-faced. Mendoza followed him down a very wide carpeted hall, past a pair of double doors and several ordinary ones, all closed, to a door at the end on the right. The man opened this and stood back. 'The-ah-lieutenant,' he murmured. Very likely, before he saw the tie he'd have said, 'The policeman.'
Mendoza went into a large square room filled with heavy furniture that belonged in a British men's club and was another little surprise to the man who rose to welcome him. 'Ah, yes-' said William Marlowe, and stopped as if he'd blown up in his lines. He eyed Harrington's tailoring and the tie too; he couldn't keep the brief flicker of surprise out of his eyes. Mendoza let his expression go very bland. He knew Marlowe's type at a glance, and he knew what Marlowe had expected to meet in a Lieutenant Mendoza.
'Well, and what can I do for you, Lieutenant? Do sit dowr1, won't you?' Marlowe was not a big man-about Mendoza's own height, Five-ten--but broader and stockier. He was about sixty, and well preserved: he'd kept his hair and not taken on much weight. He had a roundish face, regular features, the inevitable important-executive horn rims. His voice was an unfortunately high-pitched tenor, with the hint of a British accent. More probably New York and/or Harvard, thought Mendoza.
And Marlowe, prepared to condescend to a police officer, had expected one out of a 1930 detective story, had expected possibly the accent and low-class grammar, the deference to a rich man.
Harrington's Italian silk had shaken him. Mendoza sat down, smiling at him. Marlowe was wearing a dark blue suit of excellent and conservative cut, and a plain navy tie. Mendoza glanced at his shoes and said affably, 'Do you visit England very often, Mr. Marlowe?'
'I-why- Usually once a year or so,' said Marlowe, taken aback. 'How-'
Mendoza smiled. 'The very British tailoring. Savile Row? Personally I like Harrington quite well, if you keep an eye on him.' Marlowe would probably know how Harrington charged. 'Just a few questions, Mr. Marlowe. You know Mrs. Nestor. You went to see her on Friday evening, I understand'
'Oh, it's about that,' said Marlowe. 'Yes, I did. I've always felt rather sorry for Andrea-I knew her father, poor man. She's always-' He hunched his shoulders. 'She's one of those people, nothing ever turns out right for her. Perhaps it's partly her own fault-I shouldn't say so, but she's a rather stupid woman. That husband of hers, poor fellow, had all the drive and the brain.'
'I believe you lent him the money for the chiropractic course?'
'Yes, so I did. I saw he was-in earnest about it, you see, and I had every confidence that he'd repay me. Which he did. That's a tragedy there. Such a wanton thing. I most certainly hope you'll find out who was responsible.'
Marlowe bent to proffer a silver bowl of loose cigarettes.
'Thanks so much, I'll have one of my own,' said Mendoza. 'When you were at Mrs. Nestor's apartment on Friday evening you met one of my men there-Sergeant Hackett.'
'Yes, that's right,' said Marlowe, leaning back.
'Seemed a very pleasant fellow. He wanted to ask Andrea about a few things. That's a tragedy indeed, poor Frank getting killed that way. Just when he was doing so well. Probably one of these juveniles, or-'
'I understand that you left before the sergeant? Mrs. Nestor said-'
'Why, yes. Why?'
'I'd like to hear all the details,' said Mendoza.
'Well, I'm afraid I don't quite see the point…' Marlowe looked puzzled.
'Sergeant Hackett had a most unfortunate accident later on that night,' said Mendoza. 'We're trying, just for the record, to trace his movements, see where he'd been and why he might have driven up to-the site of the
