"Yes. A paper bag she might have taken away-we'1l ask. But I don't think an ordinary laundry bag."
"What does it matter?"
Mendoza stood in the middle of the room, hands in pockets, and stared vaguely at the maroon flowers in the rug. "Well," he said, "well-it might just be-yes, I can see it happening-that somebody wanted to carry away something-and for some reason wanted something to carry it in. Like that. Because it was, say, a lot of little somethings awkward to carry unwrapped-or revealing somehow-or because the somebody didn't have any pockets to carry it in. Or a handbag big enough. And there was the bag ready to hand… A big black tomcat, you said, Woods? Tomcat that way as well as this?"
"Oh, well, I wouldn't say definitely. Myself, I think he'd have liked people to think so, and that's about the extent of it. You've seen his picture?" Woods hauled out the photograph again and handed it to Hackett. It had been blown up from a not-very-good snapshot and was a little fuzzy, but the subject had distinctive enough features that that didn't matter. On the back were noted his vital statistics. Brooke Twelvetrees, if that was his real name, had been just a little too handsome, with fair skin, blue eyes, wavy black hair, a strongly cleft chin, a consciously winning smile showing even white teeth: five-nine, a hundred and sixty, age estimated as thirty-two or thereabouts. "Quite the ladies' man, in that sense only, I'd say."
Mendoza looked over Hackett's shoulder and laughed. "Oh, yes, I see. The arm-patter and door-holder-not necessarily the bed-jumper. These collar ads, usually not much else to them but front. And the same goes, of course, for the female of the species. They get by so easily on their looks, no reason for them to develop in other directions. So let's hear something about the Temple set-up."
"I wouldn't like to say whether it's a planned racket," said Woods. "Maybe the Kingmans are seriously sold on this Mystic Truth business. I didn't pay much notice to the ins and outs of it, but this Madame Cara-er-missionizes at everybody, and I gather it takes in a little bit of everything, from astrology to something called Pyramidology. I went and saw Amhelm in Rackets, but he's got no record of complaints, they've kept within the law. It's been a going concern for about five years, and it started on capital given to the Kingmans-outright gift-by half a dozen wealthy people, all of whom are still members of the sect. That-" He paused as the preparations for bringing up the body reached a climax. The ambulance men tramped in with their basket: Dr. Bainbridge hoisted his tubby middle-aged self out of the trap with some difficulty. Dwyer and Landers below heaved the body up to reaching hands, head first; it was an awkward thing to handle in that space, but they got it into the basket at last and took it out in a hurry. The burial and the clothes had helped, but it had still been dead a week or so.
As they went out, the men inside heard a long pleasurable sound from the little crowd gathered. A couple of men were questioning the other tenants, those who were home, and a number of the neighbors had drifted over to watch. . Dr. Bainbridge sat down on the other end of the couch, wiped his brow, and lit a large black cigar. "Next time, Luis, let's make it in a more accessible place, shall we?"
"Not my idea. What have you got to give me right now?"
"Not a great deal. Don't know that I can tell you much more after an autopsy, except odds and ends like what he had for his last meal. Though the body's very well preserved. He was killed by a blow on the head, several blows were struck and it may have been just one that did for him or a combination of all of them. Blows were struck from the front and side, the left side-his, that is. Nearest I can say as to time of death is between five and seven days. Say between a week ago yesterday and last Sunday."
"Could he have died round about seven-thirty that Friday night?"
"Certainly. Or the next night. Or ten o'clock Sunday morning. You pays your money and you takes your choice."
Dwyer, who'd gone back down the hole, emerged again with a lidless carton and presented it to Mendoza. "Contents of the pockets. I labeled 'em for you."
"Ah," said Mendoza, but he didn't look at them immediately. "Tell me, Bainbridge, just to reinforce my own opinion-about getting him down there, would it have taken great strength? Could a woman have done it?"
"Oh, well, you have presumably heard of the law of gravity," said the surgeon. "Always easier to get a thing down than up. If he was put down there more or less at once after death, when he was still limp, it wouldn't have been much of a chore, no-question of dragging him to the trap and sliding him through. And anybody can dig away enough dirt, even with a trowel, to cover a body as thinly as he was covered. It'd take a little time, and it's an awkward place to work-especially without light-though the kitchen light would have penetrated down the trap some, of course. But it'd just be a matter of patience and care. Certainly, a healthy woman could have done it."
"Mmh, my own idea, Apologies to interrupt you, Woods, just go on talking while I look at this." Mendoza regarded the little collection interestedly.
"… That," Woods calmly picked up where he'd left off, "hadn't really a thing to do with Twelvetrees and the money, I just had a look because I was curious. But anyway, you can say that this Mystic Truth is a profitable business, because evidently it's attracted people with more money than sense, whether the Kingmans planned it that way or not. Judging from the fact that an average month's gross was twenty-three hundred bucks. Twelvetrees and this old Miss Webster-I say old, but she's sharp as they come-even if she did fall for the Mystic Truth-were the only-er-officers of the Temple aside from the Kingmans. Have some fancy titles for themselves I don't recall off hand."
Left trouser pocket, where the keys had been, forty-eight cents in change, a half-used packet of matches from some place called the Voodoo Club on La Cienega. Right trouser pocket, a slightly soiled handkerchief, a small automatic pencil, and a cigarette case, a handsome aifair of rolled gold plate, alternating bands of dull Florentine finish with bright modern: it had a lighter in the top, and on the inner left side was a line of engraving in script: Brooke, affectionately, Mona. It was half full of Pall Malls.
"… Miss Webster, who I gather is fairly well off, doesn't take any salary for whatever she does-she volunteered that herself-but Twelvetrees was getting five hundred per for whatever he did, which seems to have been banking the take every week. Miss Webster wasn't at all surprised that he should run away with money that didn't belong to him. She never trusted him, a young man out for what he could get if you asked her, and not particular how he got it."
Breast pocket: clean handkerchief. Inside coat pocket: used handkerchief, wallet. Mendoza looked at both thoughtfully. And nothing in the other pockets except another handkerchief in the shirt.
"The-er-church property is owned outright-former store building way out on Wilshire. They've fixed it up some, and no makeshift do-it-yourself job either. The Kingmans live on the premises, there's a second storey done up as an apartment-I didn't see that. The whole business is incorporated, as I say, and the Kingmans take a very comfortable living out of the net. They bank at the Security on Western. As of right now there's $14,840 in the term savings account, and a little over $7000 in the checking account. All four officers had access to the accounts, as representatives of the Temple."