' Por todos angeles negros y demonios de Satamis! ' he exclaimed aloud. Of course, of course. He must be getting old. Marian Marner.. .
SIX
'… a special kind of model,” he said to Hackett the next morning, 'it was only her hands they used. You know, for soap advertisements, hand lotion, wedding rings, and so on. But that was nearly twelve years ago, whether she's still in that job is anybody's guess. I'1l have a look at the agencies. And the damn funny thing is, I don't even remember where she lived-not that she'd likely still be in the same place, of course. And I didn't, I will say, know her very long. But it's odd how the mind operates sometimes.'
'I wouldn't say odd in your case that you mislaid one little wild oat out of the field of them you've sown,' said Hackett.
'True. You know the only other thing I remember about her at all is that she had a funny-shaped appendix scar, with a little hook at one end.'
'Now that's real helpful,' said Hackett. 'We'll just camp out on the beach until some day she comes by in a Bikini and we can identify her. I think the agencies are a better idea. I don't suppose she'll be much use when we find her.'
“ Por que no? '
'Oh, well, I was just thinking of the snapshots-not what you'd call really good portraits, but the best is that one of him with this blonde. If he was really much interested in this Marner girl, he'd have provided himself with a better picture, wouldn't he? This thing'-Hackett 1 looked at it again-'it might be any woman with dark hair.'
'Something in that, sure. I'll have a look around for her anyway, and we'll see. I wanted to go after this blonde myself-'
' Como no -naturally, naturally!' said Hackett.
'-But I also want to see Arnheim and get whatever he may have on this Mystic Truth and the Kingmans, as well as following up Marian Marner-and I think I'll let you handle the blonde. You might see this Miss Webster too. The blonde'-Mendoza consulted the list of members Kingman had given him-'is one Mona Ferne, at least I deduce she's the one, the only Mona on the list. Whether Miss or Mrs. it doesn't say. She lives out in West Hollywood, here's the address.'
'O.K.' Hackett stared at it absently. 'Mona Ferne. That rings a faint bell in my mind-'
'Don't tell me this is one of your wild oats intruding on the same case. Coincidence has a long arm, but-'
'My past is pure as a virgin's dreams-compared to yours, anyway. No. It's- Mona Ferne, now what does it say to me?-up in lights, sure, there was a star by that name a while back. Quite a while back it'd be, I seem to remember I was just a kid when… Wouldn't be the same, I shouldn't think, not young enough for this one.'
'Well, go and ind out.'
'I'm going, I'm going. Enjoy yourself with your old girl friend if you find her.'
The address, when Hackett found it on one of the older residential streets out west of La Brea, proved to be a single house. This was a neighborhood of solid money, twenty-thousand-a-year-and-up class: the houses were bigger than most California houses, many of two storys. This was one of them. It tried to look like the traditional Southern mansion: it was white, it had pillars, but on a city lot there was space only for a strip of lawn, and the enormous blue spruce in the front yard dwarfed it, towering the height of the house again above the roof, and probably darkening all the front rooms. The wrong tree, as it was the wrong house, for a city lot.
But plenty of parking space. He parked and walked up the path indicated by sunken steppingstones to the low brick porch. The woman who opened the door to him was obviously a domestic; her only association with this house would be strictly the dollar-and-a-half-an-hour kind. She was middle-aged, plain, neat, and dowdy, with a mouth like a steel trap.
'Miss-or is it Mrs?-Ferne,' said Hackett. 'I'd like to-'
'Miss Ferne, and she's not here, but she don't buy at the door.'
'I'm not selling anything.' He produced his credentials. A detective sergeant of police made no more favorable impression on her than a salesman; she looked down her nose at him.
'Miss Ferne ain't got nothing to do with the police. If it's a traffic ticket-'
'Detectives,' said Hackett, 'don't have anything to do with that part of the business. I happen to be from Homicide, and it's important that I see Miss Ferne. When will she be home?'
The maid retreated a step. 'Murder, you mean-'
'Well, that's not the legal definition but it'll do in this case.'
'Miss Ferne couldn't have nothing to do with a murder-'
'We all have opinions. When will she be home?'
'I couldn't say,' snapped the maid. “I guess you better see Miss Carstairs.' She retreated farther in tacit invitation and shouted, 'Oh, Miss Angel!'
Hacket went into the entry hall. He was right: the tree made all these rooms so dark that you'd want the lights on even at noon, to avoid the furniture. The several open doors off the hall looked like entrances to caves. Only the open front door shed any light here, on a polished parquet floor, a couple of fussy little pedestal side tables bearing knick-knacks, a grandfather's clock, a carpeted stairway.
'Well, what is it now?”
'The police,' said the maid succinctly.
Hackett couldn't place the girl coming down the stair. No housekeeper or secretary or-were there still such things as governesses?-would hold her job a day looking like that. She looked about twenty-five, and she didn't have bad features but she hadn't done anything about herself at all, for a long time. Lank brown hair was pinned back carelessly to straggle, overlong, past her shoulders; she wore no makeup, even lipstick was missing: she had on a drooping black skirt too long for her and an ancient darned gray sweater too large, no stockings, and flat- heeled brown shoes.
'Oh,' she said. She stopped at the foot of the stair and looked at him, neither surprised nor much interested, apparently, by her flat tone.
“Homicide,” said the maid. 'He wants to see your-Miss Ferne.”
'Has she killed somebody?' asked the girl. 'That'd be a little change, and very nice too, if they put her in jail.'
'You oughta be ashamed? said the maid viciously. 'A nicer, kinder, sweeter woman I never-and you-'
The girl said detachedly, 'You're hired as a maid, Winter, not a nursemaid. I'll talk to the policeman.' She jerked her head at him. 'You can come in here.'
It was, when she switched on the lights, a big, stiffly formal, cold sitting room. She threw herself into a chair and told him ungraciously to sit down. 'What do you want to see Mona about?'
'A murder, Miss Carstairs. Someone she knew has been murdered, and we'd just like to hear a few little things, like when Miss Ferne last saw him and so on.'
'She's just left, what a pity-she'll enjoy that like anything.' Evidently she wasn't interested in who had been murdered. 'A man hanging on her every word-even a policeman. Heaven knows when she'll be home, she's gone to see her agent. I suppose you could find her there if it's all that urgent-Stanley Horwitz, two doors from the Cha-Cha Club on the Strip. She'd be delighted to be chased down.'
Hackett watched her curiously. 'Thanks very much, I may do that.'
She was thin enough, even a little too thin: she might have a nice figure under that sloppy outht. It wasn't the deliberate sloppiness some girls affected, thinking they achieved the casual air: it was just carelessness. Uncaringness. 'You haven't asked who's been murdered.'
'Wel1, I know it wasn't Mona, more's the pity, and if it was one of her friends, it's not likely to make any difference to me.'
