"… And Mr. Lester J. Derwent," concluded Kingman, and looked up from the list in his hand. "I hope that's satisfactory, Lieutenant? I cannot help feeling you are wasting time here, on ourselves-but I repeat, of course we are willing and eager to help you however we can, we have no secrets, indeed your search warrant was quite unnecessary. I'm sure I speak for my wife too in saying that you would have been welcome to search anywhere without it."
"Oh, of course," she agreed immediately, using her eye-widening trick on him. "Anything that will help in this dreadful thing, though I do agree that it's a waste of time to suspect us. We thought the world of Brooke-"
Of course, of course. One of these twelve people (those who had progressed to some higher Temple rank and were admitted to that particular ritual) was a respected stockbroker-another was a wealthy art patron whose name appeared frequently on the social pages. And there were, in any case, definitely no flies on Kingman, when he sat there so confidently welcoming the cops to pry into his cupboards, the cupboards would be bare.
Mendoza looked at them with a dislike he concealed with difficulty. At paunchy, respectable, plum-voiced Kingman, bald head shining with honesty, as it were; at Madame Cara gracefully arranged on her by couch, draperies trailing, silver-nailed hands gesturing, looking rather like an earnest horse. Damned the pair of them.
And he was going senile. Now he was wishing they didn't have all that suggestive evidence to say it had been that Friday night. Not that it would make any difference; the Kingmans couldn't have done it on Saturday night either, on account of their damned Sabbath ritual.
They sat there beaming innocence and integrity at him, this pair of slick fraud artists, and he shut his teeth on some impolite remarks.
"Thanks very much," he said. "It's more or less a formality, you know we have to look everywhere."
"Oh, yes, I see that," said Kingman. "You can't be sure, of course, until you do. Yours must be an interesting job, Lieutenant. Of course you can regard these sad affairs-um-impersonally. I fear we who are involved in them cannot. I still find it quite incredible that the poor boy-ah, well, we must not take up your time with irrelevancies."
"By the way, another little matter, while I'm here. Do both of you have drivers' licenses?"
"Dear me, how mysterious," exclaimed Madame Cara. "What can that possibly have to do with-? As a matter of fact, no, Lieutenant, we don't. Poor Martin has some visual defect, they never would-"
"Er-technically I believe it is called ‘tunnel vision,' " said Kingman seriously, adjusting his glasses. "In our home state, it prevented me from obtaining a license, and I have never, consequently, learned to operate a car."
"I see." That could be checked; but it would without a doubt prove true. And there was the answer, the reason the woman had had to dispose of the Porsche alone. And what the hell good was it to him when they had an alibi for that night?
"I am afraid I'm not a very good driver," said Madame Cara with a sudden nervous giggle. "The traffic quite terrifies me. But one must have faith to accept-it's a little exercise I practise every time I get into the car-whatsoever the great All-Parent intends, I say to myself, I must not fear or rebel against. It's really a great pity that Martin can't drive, I'm sure he would be much more competent than I am-being an Earth person, you know-he is a Virgoan-of course it's not to be wondered at that an Air person like myself isn't good at dealing with these mechanical things. I expect you find that true yourself as a Piscean, Lieutenant-a Water sign, of course you are governed by Neptune-"
"My dear," said her husband gently, "we must not-um-proselytize at the lieutenant. I fear he is not much in sympathy with our views."
"Oh, do forgive me," she picked up the cue at once. "Nothing must be forced-understanding must come of itself, when the spirit is open to receive."
Mendoza eyed her with exasperation and asked (in the rather vague hope of frightening them a little with how much he knew) whether she had ever possessed a light-colored coat with dark trimming down the front and dark cuffs. He did not, of course, have any hope at all that his men had found such a thing in her wardrobe.
No, she could not remember ever having a coat like that and certainly had none now; it sounded quite attractive, very smart.
Mendoza thanked them, listened again to reassurances that they were eager to help however possible, and came away. Downstairs, Piggott and Landers were just finishing an expert going-over of the Temple; nothing of any interest had showed up. No weapons, no incriminating documents, nothing unusual among personal possessions or down here: that is, said Piggott disapprovingly, if you didn't count all the funny-looking robes and them heathen statues standing around. Looking downright wicked to him-Piggott was a pillar of the Free Methodist Church-would it be, he asked (dropping his tone discreetly) one of these cults, like, where they had orgies?
Mendoza said he doubted it, unfortunately, or they might be able to turn the damned pair over to Vice. He sent the men back to headquarters, and most unusual for him sought out a bar and had a drink before going back downtown himself.
There he met Hackett, and confessed his sins with bad grace. Hackett looked gloomier than ever, and passed on the gist of what Morris had said. He was going to take a couple of men and set out on a hunt for all these show people, in the hope that one of them would remember something more about the gun: Morris had said he had to come into town late this afternoon, he'd stop by and take a look at it.
Nothing had come in from Pennsylvania. "What the hell are they doing back there," said Mendoza irritably, "pawing through all their records by hand? Damn it, and what good will it be if they hand us our motive? You know, I do wonder why Twelvetrees was so set up that Wednesday night?"
"Does it matter?" asked Hackett.
"It might. It might tie in somewhere.” He wondered harder about it an hour later. Hackett took off on his hunt, and Mendoza annoyed Sergeant Lake by wandering around the sergeants' office and the anteroom, asking every three minutes whether Pennsylvania had communicated. The patient recheck with all those agencies hadn't turned up a smell of Marian Marner. Then, about four o'clock, a trio of nervous men came in together and said they had something to say about this guy who'd been buried under a house, and who should they say it to?
They were, it appeared, respectively, the owner, cashier, and waiter i of a small restaurant on La Brea Avenue, and what they had to say was that Brooke Twelvetrees had been in the place about five o'clock on that Friday afternoon. It wasn't the first time he'd been in; he wasn't a regular, but every now and then he came in early like that, and once when he'd been talking with Charlie here-that was the waiter-he'd happened to mention that it wasn't far from his doctor's office, so maybe it was the days he saw this doctor he stopped in at the restaurant.
And, deduced Mendoza, the times he wasn't going out with anyone later; by these men, the restaurant would be the kind of place without it much tone, a cheap place Twelvetrees would go to alone to pick up a casual meal.
Well, early like that, there weren't many other customers, and this guy did a little talking to the waiter and cashier. They'd gathered he was hoping to get in the movies, and he sure had the looks for it, didn't he? That Friday, he'd come in (some confused, anxious calculations of time here) about ten to five, and left about half past. Charlie, specifically asked about his order, came up with nothing more definite than that it might have been beef stew and so on. They could try to pin it down by the waiter's checks, but of course the name wouldn't be there, it would be a question of the time the check was filed, and not definite. Anyway, both the waiter and cashier got the impression the guy wasn't feeling so hot-like he'd, oh, just lost his job or got slapped down by his girl or something. He was usually kind of friendly and cheerful, but that time he hadn't much to say. And when the cashier had remarked it sure was good to see all this rain, they needed it bad and he'd bet the farmers were celebrating today, well, the guy had said-with various profane adjectives-that it was nice somebody was happy. And he'd paid his check and walked out. And it was always nice to have additional information, but Mendoza wished he had some idea of what this meant. It might be quite unimportant as far as the murder was concerned. But it looked as if something had happened to spoil some hopeful plan the man had had. On Wednesday night he was on top of the world, hinting mysteriously at surprises; on Friday he was in a bad temper, and packing up to clear out.