Mark of Murder

NINETEEN

There was quite a bit of clearing up to do; Mendoza didn't get home until two-thirty again. There were all the reporters swarming around. And they found the Slasher's secret place and the rest of his arsenal; they found out who he had probably been, from an old union card in his wallet. The Railroad Brotherhood. So for a start they looked for that name, John Tenney, on the list of former S.P. employees, and there it was-he'd been hired, briefly, as a trackwalker, some years back.

"In a kind of way, you might feel sorry for him, if he hadn't.. ." said Palliser, leaving that unfinished. And Mendoza said, "That damned lush Telfer! Look at all this mess! Seven people killed--I don't suppose anyone's missing the wino or Florence, or the other Skid Row type we found this morning, but there's the boy, and Loretta Lincoln, and Simms-and several more hurt, including a couple of cops. My God, and if Telfer hadn't been drunk that night we'd probably have picked the Slasher up inside twenty-four hours, with a full description."

"It isn't going to trouble Telfer's conscience," said Palliser dryly.

"No, probably not… "

And when he did get home he couldn't sleep. Had the assauly on Art been tied up to Nestor? How and why? Had to get at that thing again in the morning… Cliff Elger? He still didn't know where the Elgers had been on Tuesday night when Nestor was shot…

But, he thought suddenly, coming to complete wakefulness from an instant's half-sleep, it had to come back to that appointment in Nestor's office that night. Didn't it? He had told his wife he had an evening appointment. It might have been a date with a girl, but- vide Anita Sheldon-they wouldn't stay there. Naturally. So if it had been that, then he must have been killed very close to the eight o'clock margin Bainbridge gave them, or he wouldn't still have been in the office. But if it hadn't been a girl friend…

That scrapbook. He'd been thinking, Nestor not above a little blackmail. Had it been something like that? Have a good look at that list of patients, when the court order came through… By what Bert and the others said, the other women in Nestor's address book had been casual pickups, not exactly the kind to inspire the grand passion-to the point of murderous jealousy. But of course you never did know. People…

Art. If that wasn't linked to Nestor, was the outside thing, where the hell to start looking? Dead end. Hell. Andrea Nestor?

No. No. A man. They knew that much, because it had been a man who got rid of that gun. Maybe two people?

Andrea Nestor scarcely a woman to do murder for, either…

He drifted off uneasily at last, but woke for good at six. El Senor was chattering at the birds outside the window. Mendoza shaved and dressed, went out to the living room and called the hospital. Established routine now, he thought. Part of these long, long days

… The nurse's impersonal voice said, "Oh yes, sir-just a moment, Dr. MacFarlane wants to speak to you personally, if you'll wait a moment."

"All right," said Mendoza. He waited, wondering academically how far his pulse rate had shot up.

"Lieutenant? Yes. He's been increasingly restless," said the doctor. "I think the chances are good that he'll regain consciousness sometime today. I'd like either you or someone else who knows him well to-er-stand by for a call, as it were. You understand."

"Yes, Doctor."

"You'll be called as soon as we know… Well, we're still not making any guesses, of course. Wait and see. You'll have someone standing by?"

"Yes." Much as he would like to be the man, he couldn't; he had things to do today. "Thanks very much, Doctor."

"We'll just keep hoping," said MacFarlane sadly. Even Mrs. MacTaggart wasn't up, this morning. He got out the Ferrari and stopped for breakfast at the Manning's on Vermont, but he couldn't get much of it down; he had three cups of coffee and began to feel slightly more alive.

He got to the office before the night shift was off; told them the latest news. When Dwyer came in he said, "You're taking a little holiday, Bert. Stick around in case the hospital ca1ls." He explained.

"O.K.," said Dwyer, looking grim.

Mendoza looked at the clock irritably; he couldn't decently arrive at the Elgers' apartment before nine o'clock. He sat at his desk thinking about that appointment of Nestor's on Tuesday night.

An appointment with Ruth Elger? And Elger- So X discovered belatedly that he'd lost a button and, just in case he'd lost it in Nestor's office, gave away the jacket if he couldn't replace the button. How were you going to prove it?

A button. Suddenly, now, Mendoza was wondering whether that might have been what Art had spotted. If there was a tie-up. Whether X hadn't noticed the missing button until Art noticed, and questioned him about it. Whether…

Such a very ordinary little button. He got it out and looked at it. And another thought crossed his mind about it too, as a faint possibility of a lead-probably very faint. In these days of mass production. However…

All the morning papers had screaming headlines about the capture of the Slasher.

Nine o'clock found him using the knocker on the Elgers' apartment door.

Ruth Elger let him in; she wasn't dressed yet, but looked better this time-no hangover, and make-up.

"Well, for heaven's sake, what do you want?" she asked rather crossly.

"Answers to a few questions, Mrs. Elger, if you don't mind." The room wasn't much neater than when he'd seen it first, and it hadn't been dusted in some time. She told him ungraciously to sit down, perched herself on the arm of a chair.

"Well?"

"Do you remember what you and your husband were doing on Tuesday night a week ago? A week ago yesterday?"

"Heavens, I don't know. I suppose we were here, if we weren't- Oh no, the Werthers' party was on Wednesday, wasn't it?"

"It's not so very long ago," said Mendoza.

"Why on earth you want to know- Oh. That-that was the night Frank was shot, wasn't it? For heaven's sake. You can't be thinking we had-"

"Just try to remember, please."

"Oh well! It was-yes, we went out to dinner-to the Tail o' the Cock, I think. Tuesday. Oh, I do remember, yes, as a matter of fact we were arguing all through dinner about that silly charge-account thing, and all the way home for that matter, and it wasn't long after we got home that Cliff got really mad and sort of slammed out-"

"Arguing over a bill you'd run up?" said Mendoza. "And he left the apartment. When?"

"Heavens, I wasn't watching the clock, about half past nine, I suppose… No, I don't know where he went. What does it matter? I expect to a bar somewhere, he was a little high when he came home."

"At what time?"

She shrugged petulantly. "About midnight, I guess. I was in bed."

"Mrs. Elger, has your husband ever owned a gun?"

"A- Well, of course not," she said. "What on earth-You simply can't be thinking- Frank? Good heavens, it was just--just an episode. Not important."

"What's important or not," said Mendoza, "depends on who's looking at it. Thanks very much… "

He sat in the car thinking about that. Cliff Elger in a temper, and he might be quick to hit out at a man, but probably not the type to knock a woman around; so, rushing out, in his temper. To a bar? Or had he, on the way, started brooding over Ruth and Nestor again? And. ..

Wait a minute. How could he have known Nestor would be in his office at that hour? Had he known Nestor's home address? Well, it was in the phone book. He'd have tried there first, wouldn't he? But he hadn't.

Mendoza was still liking the idea of Cliff Elger for Nestor, because-admit it-he'd like to think the Nestor thing was behind the assault on Art, and Elger was the only man they'd run across so far who could certainly have handled Art without too much trouble.

All right, he thought. Suddenly he saw another, more plausible picture. Elger rushing out to a bar. Downing three or four highballs. Maybe it affected him the way it affected Mendoza; but whether or no, say he was brooding. And worked up a rage at Nestor. Maybe she'd been lying about the gun, or maybe he kept one at his office and she didn't know that, maybe Nestor had had the gun unknown to Madge Corliss. That sounded more plausible; a man Nestor's size might well reach for a gun, if he had one, when a gorilla like Elger came in mad. Yes, say that whatever Nestor's appointment had been, it was over, and Nestor was maybe just about to leave when Elger burst in- Why Nestor's office? How had he known- Say he was drunk, but- Hell.

He drove back to the office. The hospital hadn't called. They had, however, got an ident on that unknown victim of the Slasher, through the Greyhound Bus office and the San Diego police. His name was George Snaid, and he'd been picked up for vagrancy in San Diego and given the usual twenty-four hours to leave town. Nothing more was known about him. Another of the victims who wouldn't be missed.

The court order to open Madge Corliss' safe-deposit box hadn't come through yet. "Damn judges," said Mendoza. He wanted to see that list.

He sent Lake out for coffee. He sat at his desk chain smoking nervously. Dwyer, with nothing special to do, was playing solitaire desultorily, laying out the cards on top of a filing case, wandering over to stare at the phones on the desk every Eve minutes. He wasn't much of a cardplayer, and his inept, awkward shuffling of the deck got on Mendoza's nerves.

"I did think of something," he said presently. "A little thing. You know how that dame in the room next to Florence Dahl said the Slasher kept shouting something like ‘Every ham's gaining on me'? It came to me what it was. Every man's hand against me. Out of the Bible, isn't it?"

"I couldn't say," said Mendoza. "Very likely. Yes, that's probably what it was. I wonder if we could trace him back at all. Where he started, how he got that way. That landlady on Boardman Street said he had a Southern accent."

But he wasn't thinking about the Slasher; that was over and done, and there was other work to do. "Bert?"

"Well?"

"You talked to those old pals of Nestor's who used to play poker with him. Any of them mention anything about that?"

"About what?"

"What kind of poker player he was."

"Oh." Dwyer considered, looking at the deck in his hand. "One fellow-another chiropractor-said he was a wild gambler. Take any long chance, he said. So he lost oftener than he won."

"Yes. That kind of poker player," said Mendoza. "But that wasn't why he lost oftener than he won. That was because he didn't play enough poker. The man who's playing any game regularly, day to day, always has an edge over the occasional player… Do you have to try to tear the deck in half every time you shuffle? Look."

He took the cards from Dwyer and shuffled them. "Gentle and easy, see?"

"I'm not a pro gambler," said Dwyer.

"No." Having the cards, Mendoza kept them; absently he shuffled, squared the deck neatly, cut it, and turned up the ace of diamonds. " Tuerto," he said. "A lucky card."

He shuffled the deck again, squared it and cut, to show the ace of diamonds again.

"Don't ever ask me to play cards with you," said Dwyer. "It's just a trick." Mendoza shuffled again, using a different method, and began to deal him a poker hand, calling the cards as he tossed them face down. "King of spades. Deuce of clubs. Ace of hearts. Four of hearts-"

"Wrong. Three of clubs."

"Hell, I'm out of practice at crooked deals… " The cards moved restlessly between his hands. "Did I tell you about meeting Benny Metzer on that cruise liner? I took twenty bucks off him-he could have killed me." Mendoza laughed sharply.

"One of your pro gambler acquaintances? Do tell." Dwyer was watching the telephone again.

"That's right, you came up here from Forgery, didn't you?"

"And a damn dull job that was," said Dwyer absently.

"Sometimes it can be." Mendoza dealt himself a straight poker hand and quite by chance drew a full house. "So it can happen," he muttered.

Think about this thing, damn it. Nestor. If that nice story he'd built up about Cliff Elger was so, then-when Nestor was still in his office-his appointment, whatever it was, must have taken up some time. Not the usual job, because Corliss hadn't known about it. The spot of genteel blackmail? And, naturally, the blackmailee arguing, and the sparring back and forth about the price? Only, really, why bring in Elger, in that case? Blackmail was quite a reasonable motive for murder.

Only what did the blackmail have to be? Threat of revealing an abortion. These days, with the relaxed morals… And besides, Nestor couldn't have carried out such a threat without revealing himself and his part in it, which anybody with common sense would.. .

All right. All right. Some featherbrained woman, not seeing that, shooting him in panic? A man had got rid of the. 22. So, the woman confessing to some protective male-father, husband, boy friend-who had thereupon set up the bogus burglary and got rid of the gun.

And that would say for pretty sure that the assault on Art had been the outside thing.

Wouldn't it? Well, for ninety-eight per cent sure. Art hadn't known about those illicit patients-couldn't have known who they were, of course. Hard to see how he might have inadvertently stumbled across

…

Mendoza shuffled and cut, and turned up the knave of clubs. He stared at it for a moment, slapped the deck together, centered it on his desk, and stood up. "Do you know what the knave of clubs means in cartomancy?"

"I don't even know what cartomancy means," said Dwyer.

"Fortunetelling with cards. The knave of clubs," said Mendoza, "stands for a bearer of unexpected news. I'm going out to find him. I probably won't be long."

"Let's just hope it's good news," said Dwyer after him. This was a will-o'-the-wisp, of course. Just an idea. But sometimes you grabbed at any small hope there might be, looking for a lead.

He went straight out Wilshire, and there wasn't much traffic this early. It wasn't ten o'clock yet. Just on ten. The street signs changed to elegant black on white, and he was in Beverly Hills. He turned left on Beverly Drive and went down four blocks to a line of expensive-looking shop fronts. Miraculously he found a parking slot, and found he had a nickel in change. He yanked the handle on the parking meter; nothing happened; he shook it hard, and it condescended to bury the red Violation sign in its insides. He walked back to the most expensive-looking shop front of all. It presented a genteel pale fawn facade with tinted glass double doors. There was no legend on the doors at all; the only designation it offered to reveal its commercial purposes was a single discreet name in lower-case giIt letters above the door: herrrington.

Mendoza went in. There was pale fawn carpeting, nothing so vulgar as a counter; this room, an anteroom to the high mysteries beyond, was only about fifteen feet square. An exquisite young man in pale fawn dacron drifted up, identified him, and murmured, "I'll fetch Mr. Harrington, sir. Do sit down."

Mendoza didn't sit down. He wandered over to one of the full-length triple mirrors and decided absently that the Italian silk was too dark a gray. He adjusted his tie. "You again," said Harrington abruptly behind him. "Good God, I just made you two new suits and those evening clothes. You're a vain bastard, Mendoza."

Mendoza turned around. "You malign me. No, I don't want anything new. I want some information."

Harrington was a solid, round little man of some heft, with a bald round head and pudgy little hands. He also had a pair of very sharp black eyes. He cocked the bald head at Mendoza. "Oh?"

"Which you probably can't give me," said Mendoza. He handed over the button, the little ordinary button. "Can you tell me anything about that? It occurred to me it's in your line. You're quite a specialist on anything to do with male attire, aren't you?"

Harrington looked at the button, turning it over in his fingers.

"I know it's a very ordinary sort of thing," said Mendoza apologetically.

"My God, and you a detective!" said Harrington. "Of course, maybe only a specialist would spot it. I can tell you this and that about it, of course. To start with, it's obviously a button from the sleeve of a jacket. Too small to be an ordinary jacket button. It's-"

"The sleeve of a- But-"

"No, I know. Those conservative bastards,” said Harrington with a chuckle. "Grandpa had buttons on his sleeves, so naturally you go on putting buttons on sleeves. No scope-no progress. I haven't put any buttons on sleeves since, lessee, about 1939, but they still do. Most of 'em. I get some of their stuff in for repair occasionally."

Mendoza was staring at him. "Harrington," he said, "did you ever wonder how that fellow in the Bible felt when his ass started to talk to him? Not that I mean to imply- Whose stuff?"

Harrington tapped the button thoughtfully. "There you are," he said, "something else. Bone. Old-fashioned. Practically everybody uses plastic these days. Well, I could give a random guess. Either Rowlandson, or Herrick and King, or possibly Shattuck. Savile Row, of course."

"Of course," repeated Mendoza gently… And quite suddenly, in one single lucid moment, everything fell into place and he saw it unreel before him like a moving picture. Of course.

"Say something to you?" asked Harrington interestedly. But Mendoza was raptly placing the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle where they belonged. "A delightful Easter weekend," he said absorbedly. "Oh yes

… have announced the engagement… Five thousand bucks, but he'd be willing to pay high for- Oh yes, I see. Smart up to a point. And then-and then-" His eyes turned cold, and he whispered to himself, "The bastard-just a cop-to cover it up. And naturally, cops being morons or they wouldn't be cops, and he-"

"Did I say something?" asked Harrington, sounding more interested.

Mendoza focused on him with a little difficulty. "Harrington," he said earnestly, "you are indeed the knave of clubs. A bearer of news. I forgive you that tweed monstrosity you palmed off on me two years back. I forgive you- Well, never mind. My heartfelt thanks. Give me that thing." He almost ran out.

"Knave of clubs?” said Harrington after him, blankly. Mendoza gunned the Ferrari up Beverly as fast as the law allowed. By God, he'd have a siren installed in this thing before he was a week older… He got onto Wilshire and headed back downtown, and all the way the jigsaw pieces went on fitting themselves together, so nice and neat

…

Oh yes. Andrea Nestor. The belt, of course. And the button. Kenmore Avenue-but a dark stretch along there… And- It was ten-fifty when he came fast into the office and looked round. Palliser was just coming out of the sergeants' office with a teletype sheet in his hand.

"We've got in a little more on Tenney. The S.P. told us he listed his birthplace as Younker, Georgia, and we-"

"?No importa! " said Mendoza. "I only dropped in to pick up somebody-to keep an eye on me while we drop on the X who shot Nestor and sent Art over that cliff. Might as well be you, John.?Pues vamonos ya! Let's be on our way!".

Palliser stared at him and dropped the teletype. "You know-”

"I know all about it," said Mendoza grimly. "Let's go and take him. And if I will be resigning from this force, I'd like to leave a fairly clean record, so if I start to lose my temper, boy, you restrain me… That Goddamned self-important stupid bastard! That-"

"Evidence?" said Palliser.

"Oh, there'll be evidence," said Mendoza. "By God, there will! Has the hospital called?"

"Not yet."

"Come on-1et's go and take him," said Mendoza.