Mendoza agreed. It was always better not to produce a notebook at the actual interview with a witness, if you could avoid it, but to write your notes afterward; that would be what Hackett would have done.
'The only other thing that struck me,' said Palliser, 'is that it would have been a lot easier to set up that fake accident if there were two people involved. Because that canyon road's pretty long and winding. The site was about a mile up from where the road starts, above the end of Bronson. It's steep, too. When X had sent the car over, he'd be on foot, unless somebody had driven another car along to pick him up. And look, how would he know that the crash wouldn't be heard right away, bring people swarming around? How's he going to explain himself, there on foot? I think there must-'
'You said the houses, and not many of them, are set back. And that there wasn't really any crash, the Ford didn't hit anything big. A mile's not really very far. Of course it'd be more than a mile, maybe a lot more, because we don't know where X lives, where it happened. It'd have been easier for two people, but it wasn't at all impossible for a single X. I think we can make a few deductions anyway.' Mendoza produced a folded paper from his breast pocket. 'This is what Erwin had to say-and the surgeon at the hospital. The most serious injury is the head wound-massive skull fracture. They don't think he was hit with a weapon of any kind, and they don't think the injury occurred during the fall over the cliff. They say it's too big an area, and on account of certain technicalities and measurements they come up with the opinion that he was knocked against some hard, broad, flat surface with great force. That's Erwin-‘with great force'. Thus adding his own weight to the force of the blow. Erwin suggests a cement wall, the side of a building, or a flat stone hearth. There's a slight bruise under the jaw too, which backs that up. They think that happened a little while before he incurred the other injuries-which was obviously when the car was sent over. Anything occur to you from that?'
'Not much. Except that it's likelier, isn't it, that it happened inside somewhere, not on the street? I don't suppose X had thought it all out beforehand-he probably struck that blow on impulse, and probably just after Hackett had let him see he'd given himself away somehow.'
'I'll go along on that. We can deduce something else, John. Why did X have to take Art's own belt off to tie him up? Obviously, because he hadn't any rope or stout cord handy-or maybe only enough for either the wrists or ankles. What does that say? Possibly an apartment, instead of a house. A house can usually produce something of the sort-clothesline, et cetera-but people living in apartments, unless they habitually wrap a lot of parcels for mailing- Yes.'
'Well, practically all of them do live in apart1nents,' said Palliser. 'The people we've come across so far.'
'There'll be some of Nestor's friends living in houses, I suppose. All right. Say it was Corliss and her boy friend Larry-who I'd like to know more about too. We will. He was there. Suppose she somehow gave herself away to Art, or he spotted some evidence there while he was talking to her, and started to question her hard or even charge her-and the boy friend got mad and hit him, caught him off balance maybe and knocked him against that imitation marble hearth or even just the wall. I'll say this. I think we'll find that Larry is an amiable weak lout- Corliss' kind do pick up that type. Possibly he's had a few brushes with the law himself. So he'd be all too ready to help get rid of a cop.'
'Um,' said Palliser.
'And, if he is that type, it's a type that often comes apart fairly easily,' said Mendoza. 'I don't know but what I like the Elgers better, except that they look fairly normal -for their type-and there's nothing on them at all.'
He told Palliser about the Elgers.
Palliser said, 'You know-what Dr. Erwin said-that he was probably knocked against something. That sounds to me as if he was taken completely by surprise. Because, after all, it's second nature, isn't it?-you're questioning a suspect, a pretty hot suspect, even if you've just found that out-you're watching for any tricks. Aren't you? We've just had a reminder about that, last month-those two fellows stopped for speeding, who shot up the squadcar man. He never thought to check them for arms.'
'Yes?'
'Well, what it might say,' said Palliser, 'is that it was somebody he'd never expect to attack him at all. Physically. Such as a woman or-or an eighty-year-old man, something like that. So he was off his guard entirely, and that was how he was caught off balance. And you know-'
'I rather like that,' said Mendoza, 'because in the ordinary way he would be taking care. Not being a fool, and having some experience. What you were going on to say was that obviously, if he'd had any reason to be suspicious of Cliff Elger, he'd have been taking double pains to be careful, a gorilla like that-bigger than Art himself.'
'That's just what I was going to say.'
'And you'd be right. And come to think,' said Mendoza, 'am I right about that belt? People living in apartments wouldn't have any clothesline lying around, but a good many people do keep cord for wrapping packages. For-for tying up things to put away, like Christmas decorations and winter clothes. I don't know. Maybe it was just the first thing X thought of. But maybe not too. Because-it wasn't a very cunningly faked accident, was it?'
Palliser shrugged. 'The squad car first on the scene spotted it right away. By the tracks. No skid, no try at braking-the car was backed around deliberately to face the drop.'
'Yes. Not a brain, whoever set it up. So he might not have realized that we'd spot how the belt had been used either. On the other hand, it must have made him a little more trouble. When he got up there he had to take the time to put it back on Art-rather an awkward little job, rolling a big heavy man around getting his belt through all the little loops. I think we're safe in saying that he used the belt in the first place because he couldn't lay hands on anything else in a hurry. And why tie him up at all? Yes, why? Here was a badly injured man, unconscious-he wouldn't be getting up and walking away anywhere.'
'Well, so X didn't have any medical knowledge, to know that,'
'Yes, but also that says maybe he stashed Art away somewhere awhile, before he set up the accident… Oh hell,' said Mendoza, and started the engine. 'There's not much in all that. I don't know. Let's go back to the office and see if anything's come in.'
'By the way, you said to the Corliss woman you thought she'd had the same bright idea Nestor had had. What was that?'
'Maybe something to check-if we had any way of knowing where to look.' Mendoza smiled. 'That scrapbook full of the doings of high society. When I looked at it, one thing struck me. Every single clipping, whatever it was about, included a photograph. And every single photograph included at least one young woman… I said I think Nestor was aiming at the moneyed women. He'd get others too, of course. Kinsey has alerted us to the fairly high incidence of abortion in unexpected places. And of course a lot of those customers would give false names. I think Nestor was keeping his scrapbook on the off-chance of recognizing former patients. I don't think he was above a little genteel blackmail.'
'Oh,' said Palliser, enlightened. 'I get you. He recognizes Jane Smith, who came to him last year for a job, as being really a socialite debutante, and puts the bite on her-but how could he? Without giving himself away?'
'He couldn't, really, beyond threatening to tip off her parents, or boy friend, or husband for that matter, anonymously-but a lot of women in that position might not clearly realize that. I wonder if he'd found a victim yet, from all his diligent research? And, if he had, whether she'd paid up. Well, see what routine's turning up for us.'
Routine had turned up a couple of interesting things. Sergeant Lake said, only half kidding, 'I might have known things would start to move, Lieutenant, soon as you got home and had a hunch.'
Landers, making the round of the bars in that downtown area asking whether silver dollars had been part of their take lately, had turned up two leads. A bartender at a hole-in-the-wall joint on Broadway remembered a fellow coming in several times who'd paid with silver dollars. He had made a statement, and if there wasn't much in it, there was something. He couldn't give any kind of description. '?Natuiralmente!' said Mendoza irritably. 'They will keep bars so damn dark.' All he remembered about the fellow was that he was very poorly dressed, in what looked like somebody else's clothes, and usually kept a hat pulled down low on his forehead. Maybe, oh, four, five times he'd been in. Always at night, and once or twice quite late, staying until the bar closed at 1 AM. He was, said the
