"You trying to say he was on the nance side?"
"Oh, Lord, no, don't think so. A bit la-de-da, but I put that down to his having deliberately taught himself, you know-not to be snobbish about it-upper-class manners. I think he may have come from somewhere lower down, which is nothing against him, and acquired the polished veneer, and people like that usually overdo it a little. He never acted casual, if you get me. About the girls, I figured myself he had a steady, and for some reason never brought her round or mentioned her. Just conjecture, but maybe when it came to females he preferred the kind he knew in the lower ranks, and didn't care to exhibit one of 'em to us."
"Possible," said Hackett. "Any of these girls in your bunch named Marian Marner?"
"Never heard of her. Not even a Marian in the lot."
"Wel1," said Hackett. "Of course, he was going around with Miss Mona Ferne-"
Morris let out a bellow of laughter and started to tell him just what that amounted to. They'd all got a hell of a kick out of that-not, of course, in front of Twelvetrees. Like all that kind, he didn't have much sense of humor about himself. The first time he'd met her he'd been all over her, putting out the full wattage of boyish charm. Maybe it'd been a dirty trick, but the rest of them hadn't said a word to him-seeing what was going on-about her being a dead one so far as the profession went, kaput, washed up long ago, and no use as a patroness. Which was obviously the idea in his mind. And of course she was all too pleased to have him dancing attendance… "that woman, that damned awful woman." They put up with her because she was a regular at their shows, one admission ticket to count on, and you couldn't offend people who might talk, good or bad, about you in public; one thing you could bet on, they never had got and never would get any cash support from Mona, however much she talked about her sympathy for these brave struggling young people. Had Hackett met her? Wasn't it the damndest thing how she still saw herself as the glamour queen? All the same, not that she needed convincing about it, one reason she'd been a soft mark for Twelvetrees; it wouldn't be every day she picked up a handsome young man so anxious to oblige. And mind you, she wasn't-Morris would say-a fool, when it came to money and so on, either; a shrewd streak there, but by all accounts she never had seen through Twelvetrees, because she was so anxious to believe it was, so to speak, her beaux yeux alone that held him.
"Another little reason none of us cared for him-I mean, hell, I'm no moralizing prude, but there are limits. He found out for himself soon enough she couldn't wave the fairy wand and waft him in front of a big producer who'd fall on his neck with the glad cry, ‘My boy, you're just what I've been looking for!' But by then he'd also found out she was loaded, and so damn pleased to have him hanging around there was graft to be had-you know, the little present for a good boy."
"We'd figured that one," said Hackett. "Off the record, you think it went any further than taking her around night clubs and so on?"
"Who knows?" said Morris. "All I can say is, I doubt it very strongly. For all I've been saying about him, he was fastidious as a cat-me, I'm not, exactly, but I wouldn't have wanted to go any further, in his position, if you take me. Would you? No matter how much you liked the gold cigarette case and the fancy clothes?"
Hackett laughed and said you never knew what you could do until you got really strapped, but it didn't seem Twelvetrees had been down so low. Morris agreed. "Why didn't we get rid of him? Not so easy. And maybe it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black, because he had more money to spend than most of us, and he was always glad to fork over-props, theater rent, costumes and so on-so long as he was one of the boys and girls all chummy together, and got a chance to tread the boards once in a while."
"Speaking of props, about a year ago you people did a show that called for a gun. Where did it come from and where did it go afterward?"
Morris cocked his head. "A gun? He wasn't shot, was he? I know you can't answer any questions, but I'm being a good boy and not asking any because I know that, I'm not disinterested. We're all seething with curiosity-our glamour boy murdered! Was he shot? The papers didn't say."
"No, he wasn't. There's no reason you shouldn't know. We found a gun there and just wonder if it was his. This gun you used in the play-"
" Bitter Harvest," said Morris. "I remember. Twelvetrees supplied the gun, all right, but I don't know whether it was his or he'd borrowed it somewhere. He never said. I don't know much about guns, it was a pistol of some sort-" He measured with his hands. "Longish barrel-looked fairly old, but I don't know. When we went over the list of props for that show he said he'd contract to get the gun, and he showed up with it at the first rehearsal-that's about all I know. Don't think any of the others could tell you any more, but you could ask… Loaded? My God, no, at least I don't think so, he wasn't that big a fool. Well, actually it doesn't get fired during the play and Twelvetrees had it all the time on stage. We ran that show for seven nights, our usual, and then packed it up, and that's the last I saw of the gun-he took it away again."
"Would you recognize it?"
Morris thought so. Hackett said they'd have him take a look; but when he'd thanked him and started back downtown, it didn't seem Morris had added much useful. Except the cocky mood Twelvetrees, had been in on Wednesday night. Not likely to be much in that-or was there? Be nice to know why. Be nice to know a lot more than they I did.
Suppose it was the same gun; that didn't say it was Twelvetrees' own, or where he'd borrowed it… Question the whole lot of these people who'd known him, about seeing him with a gun, hearing him mention one. And probably came up with nothing.
A little routine to take care of. Not that it mattered much, but send somebody to check with that Kent woman Mona Ferne had visited on Friday night: (yes, and it might matter, for consequently Mona wouldn't have known if the girl was out). See if anything had come in from Pennsylvania. Also, now they knew that Twelvetrees had been at that pharmacy on Fairfax after four o'clock, it might not be a bad idea to have a look round the places adjacent, see if he'd stopped anywhere else in the vicinity.
He thought again, unwillingly, about that ridiculously unwelcome hunch of his about the girl… He wondered how Mendoza was getting on.
TWELVE
Mendoza was in a very bad mood with himself. It seemed that from the beginning in this thing he had, like some thickheaded ex-patrolman working his first case in plain clothes, been overlooking little niggling details that were, on analysis, of the first importance. The only thing he could figure, and it was a depressing thought, was that he must be getting old.
Mendoza, who had made a little reputation for himself as one of the bright boys at headquarters! Maybe he needed glasses; maybe he needed to take one of those memory courses.
He'd stood outside this damned Temple, on Saturday night, and read the sign, and among other things it had said in black and white, Ceremony of the Inner Chamber (whatever in God's name that was), 8 P.M. Fridays. So? So he'd gone along building up this beautiful story about how the Kingmans had committed the murder beginning at about seven-thirty and ending after midnight on a Friday night. When, by their never-enough-to-be-cursed schedule, they were expected to be at the Temple. And it appeared that was just exactly where they had been on Friday the thirtieth. Because Mr. Martin Kingman wasn't the hypnotist to get twelve members of his flock to swear to a lie on his behalf.