"Well, not exactly. But look. Is it likely-I ask you-that this brash young fellow with his movie ambitions, his record as a pimp's apprentice-a city man, an apartment liver-is it likely that he was remotely interested in gardening? Not by any stretch of the imagination! Then why did he go to the trouble of convincing Mrs. Bragg he was, buying that plant food for her damned Tree of Heaven and so forth? Why else?-because it gave him an excuse for fooling around it, and probably when he undertook the care of the thing she wouldn't bother with it any more. I'll bet on any odds you name that was his safety deposit box. I'll swear it, he had something concrete on them-and he wouldn't leave it tucked in the toe of a shoe or in a drawer, he wouldn't carry it on him-not that cautious, canny, ladylike boy-to be stolen so easy or maybe involve him in a roughhouse, not that one! He found a safe place to stash it away, where nobody would think of looking-buried with that Tree of Heaven-and he'd just brought the trowel from Mrs. Bragg's carport to dig it up with, to take with him, and that's why the trowel was there in his kitchen. And-"
The phone rang and Alison went to answer it. The kitten scrambled up on his shoulder and began to lick his ear thoughtfully. "For you," said Alison.
Mendoza took the receiver, listened, began to smile, and finally fired rapid orders. "Get hold of Hackett-oh, beautiful, beautiful, just how I'd figured it!-who's in the office? O.K., I want Boyce, one man'll be enough, and a blank warrant-jump to it! I'll be there in twenty minutes, I want it waiting! I felt all along that was the answer- Tell Hackett to step on it. I'll meet him at the Temple in forty-five minutes… O.K., thanks, get busy!" He slammed the phone down, handed the kitten to Alison, kissed her, and snatched up his hat. "I'm vindicated-not so senile after all! Pennsylvania has come through and I think we'll tie up this case tonight- se buena, hasta mas ver," and he was gone.
"Well," said Alison, and returned to dissatisfied inspection of the canvas.
What Pennsylvania-specifically, the Chief of Police of Philadelphia-said was that the prints of the corpse identified him in their records as one Robert Trask, particulars as follows-etcetera. Nothing of Trask's antecedents were known beyond the fact that he had come from some place in New England, to the detriment of Philadelphia, some twelve years back. He had been mixed up in various unsavory businesses, but had been charged and convicted only once, seven years ago-contributing to delinquency of minors, a year's sentence. After he got out, he had been on the scene for a couple of years, and twice private citizens had lodged complaints of attempted extortion on him, but he had managed to wriggle out of the legal net. He had then disappeared, and Philadelphia was interested to learn what had subsequently happened to him.
As for the description appended of a middle-aged couple calling themselves Kingman, it was of course impossible to say definitely without fingerprints to check, but it was likely that they were the same pair known to Philadelphia as Martin and Caroline Sellers. The Sellers had been charged with fraud on a private complaint in the same year that Robert Trask had been put inside, but had got off on some technicality with the aid of a smart lawyer; the case had attracted some local publicity., They had held private seances with all the trappings, Mrs. Sellers being the medium, and been detected in fraud by a local officer of the Society for Psychical Research. Investigation of their background at the time (by the Society, not the police) had turned up the fact that they had at one time been in show business with a mind-reading act, billed as The Telepathic Turners. Turner appeared to be the legal name. Two years previously they had been charged and convicted of fraud-on the same count as the Philadelphia arrest, fake seances-in Chicago, were fined, and had served a year apiece inside. If Los Angeles could oblige with prints of these Kingmans, Philadelphia could say definitely whether they were the Sellers-Turners; but as the latter had disappeared from the scene so far as the police knew about five years back, it was a matter of small doubt.
"We'll send prints," said Mendoza to Hackett happily, "but it does look like a foregone conclusion. So there's our motive-and I wonder, considering that they were tried the same year Twelvetrees-Trask was, I wonder if that's where he met them. Or saw and remembered them. In a courtroom corridor, somewhere like that. And it's also nice to know that he'd apparently settled on gentlemanly blackmail as an easier racket than what he'd been in-you see how the pattern worked out with Whalen."
"Yes, he couldn't leave it alone." They had just joined forces outside the Temple. "You're going to spring it on them straight?"
"Might just give them enough of a jolt to come out with something damaging, yes."
Boyce asked if there was likely to be a roughhouse about the arrest.
"Nada, they're con artists, grifters-never any trouble with that kind."
The entrance to the place was dark, only the discreet sign lighted, and the door locked; but there was a bell push. They waited, and presently a light went on and beyond the glass-paneled double doors Kingman could be seen approaching unhurriedly, neat and respectable in his navy suit and immaculate white shirt, the light shining on his rimless glasses. He looked like a verger about to welcome the congregation. He swung back the right-hand door, and there they were, close, crowding in; he took a couple of steps back, but his genial expression didn't alter.
"Why, Lieutenant Mendoza-good evening, sir-"
"Good evening, Mr. Turner," said Mendoza, grinning amiably at him. "Let's go upstairs and include Mrs. Turner in this little gettogether, shall we? And no fair communicating telepathically on the way! My friends and I think it's about time for you to start telling us the truth-about various things, but mainly about your dealings with the late Mr. Robert Trask, and just how you came to murder the poor fellow."
Kingman took another step back. His round ruddy face lost some of its color. He said dispiritedly, "Oh, hell. Hell and damnation?
THIRTEEN
"Oh, dear," said Cara Kingman. "Well, I suppose you'd better come in. I was afraid they would find out, Martin, you know I said at the time, let it go and be thankful it was only the twenty-three hundred. You see what's come of it, not that I'd dream of reproaching you, dear, you only did what you thought best." She looked at Mendoza resignedly.
Kingman put an arm around her. "Now don't you be frightened, Cara, but it's a bit more than that, they think we did it, you see. I-"
"Murdered him? Oh, Martin! Well-well, we'd just better tell them the truth-”
"I'd advise it," said Mendoza, sitting down. "And not the kind of truth you've seen in a crystal ball, Mrs. Turner. Of course there's quite a lot you don't have to tell us. I know that Trask was blackmailing you, and what he had-that last business in Philadelphia. Your present little flock wouldn't like hearing about that, and how well you knew it. A spotless reputation is the chief thing in your business, and it annoyed you considerably when Trask showed up. You had to play ball with him, but that five hundred a month was quite a bite out of your take-"
Kingman said gloomily, "You couldn't speak a truer word."
"It was wicked," said his wife. "After all the bad luck we'd had, it's not a very steady living after all-those awful night clubs and so on-horrible places most of them, but I shouldn't be uncharitable, perhaps all this liquor does serve some purpose of destiny. But when everything was going so well, and we'd quite settled down- We're neither of us getting any younger, you know, Lieutenant, and we must try to save toward our old age, and besides it's been so nice here, so peaceful, we'd quite felt we were settled for good until that wicked young man came. He was, truly. Going to all the trouble of sending back East for that copy of the Telegraph-the one where the trial was reported, you know, and our pictures in it too, quite good ones, I'm sorry to say-and he had it, what do I mean, Martin, photo-?"