course. The way she behaved. I've seen her look quite-quite wild, sometimes, when we were going out somewhere together. These young girls… But it would have made difficulties. Brooke was so understanding, he hadn't said a word to me, yet, but we both knew-you do see what I mean?'
Hackett said he did. She added suddenly, a little nervously, 'I do hope you won't have to question her, Sergeant-she's so odd, she never shows what she feels. Now I simply can't help it, a bundle of emotions, but then most women are, aren't we? But she hasn't been herself at all the last-well, since we knew, I expect it's been, though she's been very quiet and strange for a week or so. I really wouldn't like her upset further-'
'I don't think it's necessary.' Hackett didn't know when he'd been more anxious to get out of a place; it was an unhealthy house, as if a miasma hung over it like that damned tree, darkening the spirit as the tree darkened the rooms. He went out to the entry hall, her high heels clacking sharp and light on the parquet floor there, behind him. And there was the girl again, swinging the door open for him, mocking, metallic…
'What, isn't he arresting you, Mother dear? What a disappointment!' He felt the hate like an invisible sword poised.
'Darling, you mustn't joke to the police, they might take you seriously. And I hoped you were lying down, you've not been at all yourself lately, you know.'
'What d'you mean? I'm all right! What on earth-oh, I see, showing how solicitous you are of me! How ridiculous, I-' And she caught his glance, that held anger and pity because he couldn't help it, and suddenly, astonishingly, shamed color flooded her face. She flung around furiously and ran away from both of them, up the stairs.
'So difficult-young girls,' murmured the woman. 'So unpredictable. Quite wild, sometimes-she has always been- But I mustn't bore you with my troubles. I do hope you'll find whatever wicked person did this dreadful thing, soon. You've been so kind and understanding, Sergeant-'
ELEVEN
There was, of course, one obvious thing to do with this new information, and Mendoza did it; he came back to headquarters and set about getting a search warrant for the Temple and the Kingmans' apartment. As that would take a little time, he deferred his visit there until after lunch and meanwhile did some looking at various other odd bits of news that had come in, and some thinking about them.
They didn't have much on Twelvetrees' close associates aside from the Temple crowd; but barring the emergence of a girl friend with a grudge, or a rival ditto-something like that, maybe from among his theatrical acquaintances-the Kingmans still looked like the best bet, because when it came to motives for murder, money was always high on the list. That Miss Katherine Webster, the old lady, had been about the only one of the crowd who hadn't liked Twelvetrees, but it scarcely looked like anything that would have led to murder. She was one of the Kingmans' prize pigeons, a very wealthy old lady indeed; it was a little confirmation of his idea about Twelvetrees blackmailing the Kingmans, that in the face of old Miss Webster's dislike and openly voiced distrust, they hadn't obliged her by getting rid of him.
Miss Webster employed a chauffeur and had a four-year-old black Cadillac. It had curved-up fins.
The Kingmans had a three-year-old dark gray Buick with curved-up fins.
Mrs. Bragg, urged to remember, said she had at various times seen cars belonging to Twelvetrees' visitors standing in front of his place but, beyond the fact that one she'd noticed once was dark-colored and big, could give no details. He hadn't had many people come to see him; he wasn't there much, and had never given parties, anything like that. She herself had a two-year-old dark red Olds, and (depressingly) it too had curved-up fins.
But there was nothing to guarantee, of course, that Walsh had been right about that, his brief glimpse of that car.
At least, if this rather curious story of the exotic lady who'd bought the serape from Mr. Perez and taken that cab ride out to Polk Street, had come unexpectedly, still it served a useful purpose: it pinned down the night pretty definitely. Again, not exactly solid evidence, but suggestive. Coincidences did occur, but that missing glove button, the scuffed brown leather suitcase, the obvious attempt to evade recognition, and the areas in question-near where the Porsche had been found, near the apartment-all pointed to the fact that she had something to do with this business. Even more eloquently was that indicated by what he'd got from a phone call to that address on Polk Street: people named Fawcett, sounded like a young housewife he'd talked to, baby crying in the background: no, they had not expected any out-of-town visitor that weekend, no one had come to the house all that Friday evening.
And about that time Mendoza remembered Dr. Graas on Fairfax Avenue, and the allergy: not much in it, he'd thought, but you never knew. He called Dr. Graas; and what he learned then sent him calling elsewhere… When Sergeant Lake came in with the search warrant about noon, he was brooding over a half page of notes. He tucked the warrant into his pocket, told the sergeant to have Piggott and Landers meet him at the Temple at one o'clock, and went out for lunch, meeting Hackett in the corridor.
'Let's catch each other up over a sandwich. You're looking gloomy » about something, what's gone wrong?'
'Just human nature generally,' said Hackett. When they were settled in a booth in the hole-in-the-wall cafe, he described the Mona Ferne set-up.
Mendoza listened in thoughtful silence, and at the conclusion said irrelevantly, 'It'd be a help if we could get that gun identified. I do wonder if it's the same one Twelvetrees used in that play. No, no particular reason it should be, but you know those amateur groups-makeshift arrangements-they need something as a prop, somebody says, ‘Oh, I think I know where I can get one.'… It might have been his own. Quite a few honest people don't bother about a license, and I doubt if Twelvetrees would have… Bainbridge thinks, by the way, that it may have been the weapon. The wrong end of it, that is. Failing anything else there-we know the man wasn't knocked down against the bedpost or something, the way it's always happening in books-I'm inclined to agree… Yes, nasty-those women-just as you say. And a kind of culmination of everything else between them, if the girl was in love with Twelvetrees too-'
'Not too,' said Hackett. 'That woman's never been in love with anybody but herself.'
' Es claro. And neither of them, probably, meant anything to dear Brooke. He'd have taken up with La Ferne to begin with thinking she could do him some good in the way of theatrical contacts, but he must have found out by now she doesn't have a pull there any more. It was her money kept him dangling-an ace up his sleeve, tal vez. I'll bet you she'd given him other little presents than that fancy cigarette case-maybe those expensive shirts and ties, the flame-of-love bottles.
Nuances in these things, sure-nothing crude about it, pay for services rendered-he'd make the graceful protests on the ground of his pride and so on, he'd have been good at that. And in case worst came to worst, and all his other rackets played out on him, and he'd got nothing in prospect better, he might have married her. She'd have jumped at that?'
'Oh, very definitely, I'd say.'
'Mmh. But it'd have been a last resort for him. I'll bet you something else, that the services rendered wouldn't, shall we say, call for overtime pay. That kind of woman is always cold as a fish, and Twelvetrees could have picked up something a damn sight more bedworthy…We ought to get something from Pennsylvania some time today. Meanwhile, I'll tell you what I've got… '
Hackett listened, said, 'Well, maybe it's a good thing I didn't lay any bets on Walsh's business. Though I still think- But anyway, it begins to look as if it was that Friday night. You don't really think you're going to find that light coat with dark trimming, or a glove with a missing button, or the serape, at the Kingmans' apartment, do you? Neither of them is that stupid.'
'You never know. One thing to remember here, somebody got one hell of a shock on Saturday night or Sunday when it first came out in the papers that the body had been found. That hadn't been the idea at all, and it's quite possible that until then whoever it was hadn't thought it necessary to get rid of those things. Maybe there hasn't been a chance since. We can hope, can't we? And I've had another idea-to start with, you remember what I said about a laundry bag? Well, I've got some idea of what went into it.'
'How?”
