small doubt.
'We'll send prints,' said Mendoza to Hackett happily, 'but it does look like a foregone conclusion. So there's our motive-and I wonder, considering that they were tried the same year Twelvetrees-Trask was, I wonder if that's where he met them. Or saw and remembered them. In a courtroom corridor, somewhere like that. And it's also nice to know that he'd apparently settled on gentlemanly blackmail as an easier racket than what he'd been in-you see how the pattern worked out with Whalen.'
'Yes, he couldn't leave it alone.' They had just joined forces outside the Temple. 'You're going to spring it on them straight?'
'Might just give them enough of a jolt to come out with something damaging, yes.'
Boyce asked if there was likely to be a roughhouse about the arrest.
'Nada, they're con artists, grifters-never any trouble with that kind.'
The entrance to the place was dark, only the discreet sign lighted, and the door locked; but there was a bell push. They waited, and presently a light went on and beyond the glass-paneled double doors Kingman could be seen approaching unhurriedly, neat and respectable in his navy suit and immaculate white shirt, the light shining on his rimless glasses. He looked like a verger about to welcome the congregation. He swung back the right-hand door, and there they were, close, crowding in; he took a couple of steps back, but his genial expression didn't alter.
'Why, Lieutenant Mendoza-good evening, sir-'
'Good evening, Mr. Turner,' said Mendoza, grinning amiably at him. 'Let's go upstairs and include Mrs. Turner in this little gettogether, shall we? And no fair communicating telepathically on the way! My friends and I think it's about time for you to start telling us the truth-about various things, but mainly about your dealings with the late Mr. Robert Trask, and just how you came to murder the poor fellow.'
Kingman took another step back. His round ruddy face lost some of its color. He said dispiritedly, 'Oh, hell. Hell and damnation?
THIRTEEN
'Oh, dear,' said Cara Kingman. 'Well, I suppose you'd better come in. I was afraid they would find out, Martin, you know I said at the time, let it go and be thankful it was only the twenty-three hundred. You see what's come of it, not that I'd dream of reproaching you, dear, you only did what you thought best.' She looked at Mendoza resignedly.
Kingman put an arm around her. 'Now don't you be frightened, Cara, but it's a bit more than that, they think we did it, you see. I-'
'Murdered him? Oh, Martin! Well-well, we'd just better tell them the truth-”
'I'd advise it,' said Mendoza, sitting down. 'And not the kind of truth you've seen in a crystal ball, Mrs. Turner. Of course there's quite a lot you don't have to tell us. I know that Trask was blackmailing you, and what he had-that last business in Philadelphia. Your present little flock wouldn't like hearing about that, and how well you knew it. A spotless reputation is the chief thing in your business, and it annoyed you considerably when Trask showed up. You had to play ball with him, but that five hundred a month was quite a bite out of your take-'
Kingman said gloomily, 'You couldn't speak a truer word.'
'It was wicked,' said his wife. 'After all the bad luck we'd had, it's not a very steady living after all-those awful night clubs and so on-horrible places most of them, but I shouldn't be uncharitable, perhaps all this liquor does serve some purpose of destiny. But when everything was going so well, and we'd quite settled down- We're neither of us getting any younger, you know, Lieutenant, and we must try to save toward our old age, and besides it's been so nice here, so peaceful, we'd quite felt we were settled for good until that wicked young man came. He was, truly. Going to all the trouble of sending back East for that copy of the Telegraph-the one where the trial was reported, you know, and our pictures in it too, quite good ones, I'm sorry to say-and he had it, what do I mean, Martin, photo-?'
'Photostated,' sighed Kingman. They sat side by side on the couch, holding hands, looking at the police solemnly; a little of Kingman's precise manner dropped away, but not much-he'd played his part for so many years, he'd grown into it. 'Oh, it was awkward, I can't deny it. In a way, the most annoying thing about it was that, well, it wasn't as if we'd been convicted of any wrongdoing-”
'However, you had been before-in Chicago,' said Mendoza, and mentioned the year.
'That terrible jail,' said Madame Cara, and closed her eyes.
'Now wait just a minute here,' said Kingman fussily, adjusting his glasses. 'Wait a minute. (Don't fret, my dear.) I do not think of myself as a-a confidence man, Lieutenant, nor do I hold any sort of grudge against the police for doing their duty. That unfortunate affair in Chicago was due to a misunderstanding on my part regarding Illinois law. We have always made an earnest effort to see that we conform to the law-it's only common sense, after all. When you come down to it, Lieutenant, we are only selling a service the public wants and is eager to buy. And I confess I do not see the difference between presenting an-ah-act to amuse an audience, and doing essentially the same thing without the footlights.'
'I always hated all the traveling about,' said his wife. She looked about the room sadly. 'This is such a nice place, and I did think we were settled down at last. But-but it doesn't really matter, Martin dear, we'll get along as well somewhere else, I daresay, the main thing is to explain to them that of course we didn't kill him. Why, I'm sure such an idea never entered our heads, even when he was being horridest. Really, Lieutenant Mendoza, we're not that kind of people.'
'Boyce, close your mouth,' said Mendoza sotto voce, 'and try to look more dignified. Now to go on a step further-we'1l hear your side of it in a moment-the annoying Mr. Trask had recently increased his demands, hadn't he? He was asking too much, and it decided you not to be bullied any longer. You had had a few words with him that Friday afternoon, and far from not being sure what mood he was in, you knew he was feeling ugly. A little side racket he'd been planning had fallen through-' He paused, ostensibly to light a cigarette, watching Kingman: did he know what the side racket had been?-but the other man only nodded glumly. 'You had a show to put on here at eight, you couldn't chase after him then, but as soon as you could get away, you drove out to his apartment. You got there about a quarter past ten-'
'I remember noticing,' said the woman, 'it was exactly a quarter past by my watch as we drove into that- that court. Oh, please don't hesitate to use that ashtray, Lieutenant, that's what it's for. Really, for the time of night and the traffic-so nerve-wracking-we made excellent time. You see, Martin, how very clever they are to find all this out.'
'My dear, you needn't say I told you so.”
'But I never would. I do believe in destiny, so it's no use. Do you know, Lieutenant, we'll have been married thirty-one years on the twentieth of this month, and never any serious disagreement between us. I put it down chiefly to the fact that we do always remember to be polite to each other, although it is true that Martin is a very even-tempered man.'
Mendoza grasped grimly at the tail of his last remark. 'There was a quarrel, and you hit Trask-with the butt of a pistol which-'
'Now wait just a minute, please, sir,' said Kingman. He leaned forward with a kind of desperate earnestness. 'I don't know exactly how we're going to prove it to you, because naturally there were no witnesses present. And I must say I do understand how you came to pick on us, though how you found out we were there that night I don't know. But I do assure you that you have-um-leaped to a wrong conclusion when you accuse me of killing that-that most unpleasant young man. I hope to God I can convince you, sir, that we hadn't any hand in the murder. Never had such a shock in my life as when you turned up and told us-' He whisked out a handkerchief and polished his bald head.
“Now suppose I just tell you the whole business straight, so to speak, and if I miss out anything you want to know, you ask, because I don't know all the ins and outs of the-um-circumstances of the murder. You've got it right up to that night, sir. Trask… Perhaps I had better explain that that time in Philadelphia he was being held for trial, on a very nasty low charge too, at the same time I was, and that's how he knew me, and knew to send back for that newspaper report. And it wasn't only the money that made the situation awkward and annoying-it was
