"Lieutenant," Teresa clutched at his arm. "Please, you got to believe none of us knew what my uncle was up to-"
"Never, never, never!" Ramirez whirled to state his case to higher authority. "This villain, this bandit, to bring such disgrace on the family- I swear before God to you, never would I have him in my house if I knew what he is guilty of! And now you're thinking bad things for all of us, that we're all criminals-I swear to you-"
"Calm yourself, my son, I've told you the police will judge fairly, you must not sorry. Lieutenant, I do hope there'll be no misunderstanding, I'm quite certain these people had nothing to do-"
"Yes, yes, yes," said Mendoza. "Ramirez-quiet! You've been in this country long enough to know that we're not ogres! Listen now. Your brother has broken the law and he will go to prison, but his crime isn't in my jurisdiction, understand? He was arrested by my friend Lieutenant Callaghan, and I have spoken with the lieutenant, who agrees with me that you people very likely knew nothing of the crime, although naturally he must investigate that. You understand that there must be investigation when a crime is committed. But if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear from the police."
"You see, Papa, I kept telling you it was all right, they'll find out we didn't have nothing to do with it, and Uncle will say too, he's not that bad, try to pull us into it! Thanks, Lieutenant, that was real nice of you, say that to this other cop-now don't take on so, Papa-"
They got Ramirez calmed down a little. Mendoza, suddenly struck with a not very hopeful idea, but you never knew and no harm to try, took Teresa down to Prints to look at the doll.
"No, I never seen nothing like that before… Why? Is it something to do with-? But how could it be?"
"Now there you've asked me something," he sighed. "Yes, it is something to do with it-that I can tell you now, at least I'm ninety-eight percent sure. But what, that's another question."
"It's- I don't like it," said Teresa, shuddering. "All pulled apart like that."
"Yes… I suppose you haven't got anything for me yet," he said to Carter.
"We've got a lot of dandy prints, Lieutenant-whether they'll tell us anything-" and Carter shrugged. "Let's see, you gave us the names of five of our own men handled it, well, I've got a couple of the boys checking records now, to eliminate those. At a guess, we've got two or three different people besides-I think. Tell you more when I know which to eliminate. We'll see if the strangers match anything in the other records, and have a look at the psychos on file first, way you suggested. You can have her back any time, by the way-we've finished with her."
"Thanks very much." Mendoza folded the paper round the doll and carried it back upstairs with him. He spent another five minutes on additional reassurances to Ramirez and the priest, got rid of them, unwrapped the doll on his desk, and said, "Now we'll just see if we can match up that little clue you were so superior about."
"What? Oh, that," as Mendoza tenderly slid the dainty strip of pink lace from its envelope. "Today's great thought, I'd forgotten-my God," said Hackett suddenly, "look at the time, I'll be late for that damned inquest, and it's old Curly too, he'll give me hell-have fun, amigo," and he snatched up his hat and ran.
The two women looked at it in silence for a minute and came out with twin reactions.
"Well!" said Mrs. Demarest. "What kind of a mother would go and let a child treat an expensive doll that way! Breaking things up just out of mischief, it's a thing I always saw my children got a good spanking for-just leads to trouble later on."
"A sinful waste-wicked," agreed Mrs. Breen, looking horrified. "A downright destructive youngster, must be, whoever's had it. I never saw anythin' like-"
"I've begun to think that might be an understatement-about who's had it," said Mendoza. "But is it the doll Carol bought?"
"Yes, suh, it is," said Mrs. Breen promptly, "or one just like it, because if I got to swear, well, of course I couldn't do no such thing. I just had the one in stock, not figurin' I could sell more'n that, you know, an' I couldn't guess how many of 'em the factory might of made, an' they'd be all just alike, except some was dressed in blue and some in pink like this here. But it's just exactly like the one Carol bought-or 'twas when it was new."
"Would there be some kind of a serial number on it, I wonder?" suggested Mrs. Demarest. "The factory maybe could tell what store they'd sold it to. Little cheap things, there wouldn't be, but a thing that was going to sell for twenty doll-"
"Yes, it's possible. I haven't looked, the thing's in such a state I don't want to handle it more than necessary, and if there is a number the factory'll know where to look for it. That we'll find out. Now look at this."
He brought out the three-inch strip of lace. "I'll swear to you this came off some part of the clothes, but it's not possible to fit it on anywhere."
They bent over it, over the doll, looking. "It's just like the lace on the underwear," agreed Mrs. Breen. "Same exact color. I reckon the factory could tell you for sure, 'bout that-but there's not an awful lot o' the lace left on, an' if it got torn off different times, well, there wouldn't be no fitting this piece where it was."
"I can't get over the way it's been-" Mrs. Demarest raised troubled eyes to him. "Can you tell us about it, Lieutenant, how you came to find it?"
Mendoza leaned back and lit a cigarette. "I'll tell you what I know-you tell me what it means! Carol bought this thing the night she was killed. That morning, a Mrs. Marion Lindstrom tried to persuade you," stabbing the cigarette at Mrs. Breen, "to sell it to her, and, when you refused, was insistent that you find out whether you could get her one like it, and left her name and addresss-"
"Real uppity she was," nodded Mrs. Breen, "as if I could, if I wanted."
"So. Carol was killed and the doll stolen. No evidence either way, as to whether the killer or someone else took it. Now, Mrs. Lindstrom lived just two blocks up from here, across Hunter Avenue-and the next day, though it lacked a week to the end of the month and her rent was paid to then, she moved-unexpectedly and hurriedly. We can conjecture it was pure chance she ended up where she did, in a place called Graham Court, down the wrong side of Main. She'd have to take what was available right that day, if she was anxious to move at once and what was available, of course, within the limits of what she could pay. All right. Time goes on, and last Friday night another girl is lulled, within two blocks of this Graham Court. Killed the same way, and as was the case with Carol, there is absolutely nothing in her private life which gave anyone reason to kill her. She wasn't as bright a girl as Carol, she had very bad taste and not too much education, but she was an honest girl and well enough liked-and I don't suppose she wanted to die, you know."
"Ah, poor thing," said Mrs. Demarest.
"She was on her way home from a roller-skating rink, alone because her boy friend's father, who disapproved of her, had come and hauled the boy home with him. Fortunately they're out of it on evidence. This time the handbag was taken, found a couple of blocks away, but as far as we can tell nothing was stolen. Now, take a look at me," said Mendoza, sitting up. "I'm visited by a hunch-it's the same killer-and I've got no evidence whatever, that means anything, to back me up- Not until you told me about this doll. Then I've got Mrs. Lindstrom's name, and then I find out she's living in the same neighborhood this time too, and where that does get me? If I checked back on all the people living around there, I might find half a dozen others who'd moved there from this general neighborhood in the last six months. One of those things… But, where d'you think I found this little piece of lace? On the floor of that skating rink. There's some vague evidence about a boy or a young man who's been in the habit of sneaking into the rink by an unused door, and who-so the dead girl complained to several people-stared at her in a 'funny way.' I think he's the one, but that's mostly another hunch and I know nothing else about him, I've got no line on him at all. Except that maybe he dropped this little strip there one time-and that doesn't say it came from the don. I say to myself, I'm woolgathering, all this doesn't mean one damned thing. And then this morning somebody leaves that doll carefully propped against the door of the precinct station down there-three blocks away from Graham Court."