"Photostated," sighed Kingman. They sat side by side on the couch, holding hands, looking at the police solemnly; a little of Kingman's precise manner dropped away, but not much-he'd played his part for so many years, he'd grown into it. "Oh, it was awkward, I can't deny it. In a way, the most annoying thing about it was that, well, it wasn't as if we'd been convicted of any wrongdoing-”
"However, you had been before-in Chicago," said Mendoza, and mentioned the year.
"That terrible jail," said Madame Cara, and closed her eyes.
"Now wait just a minute here," said Kingman fussily, adjusting his glasses. "Wait a minute. (Don't fret, my dear.) I do not think of myself as a-a confidence man, Lieutenant, nor do I hold any sort of grudge against the police for doing their duty. That unfortunate affair in Chicago was due to a misunderstanding on my part regarding Illinois law. We have always made an earnest effort to see that we conform to the law-it's only common sense, after all. When you come down to it, Lieutenant, we are only selling a service the public wants and is eager to buy. And I confess I do not see the difference between presenting an-ah-act to amuse an audience, and doing essentially the same thing without the footlights."
"I always hated all the traveling about," said his wife. She looked about the room sadly. "This is such a nice place, and I did think we were settled down at last. But-but it doesn't really matter, Martin dear, we'll get along as well somewhere else, I daresay, the main thing is to explain to them that of course we didn't kill him. Why, I'm sure such an idea never entered our heads, even when he was being horridest. Really, Lieutenant Mendoza, we're not that kind of people."
"Boyce, close your mouth," said Mendoza sotto voce, "and try to look more dignified. Now to go on a step further-we'1l hear your side of it in a moment-the annoying Mr. Trask had recently increased his demands, hadn't he? He was asking too much, and it decided you not to be bullied any longer. You had had a few words with him that Friday afternoon, and far from not being sure what mood he was in, you knew he was feeling ugly. A little side racket he'd been planning had fallen through-" He paused, ostensibly to light a cigarette, watching Kingman: did he know what the side racket had been?-but the other man only nodded glumly. "You had a show to put on here at eight, you couldn't chase after him then, but as soon as you could get away, you drove out to his apartment. You got there about a quarter past ten-"
"I remember noticing," said the woman, "it was exactly a quarter past by my watch as we drove into that-that court. Oh, please don't hesitate to use that ashtray, Lieutenant, that's what it's for. Really, for the time of night and the traffic-so nerve-wracking-we made excellent time. You see, Martin, how very clever they are to find all this out."
"My dear, you needn't say I told you so.”
"But I never would. I do believe in destiny, so it's no use. Do you know, Lieutenant, we'll have been married thirty-one years on the twentieth of this month, and never any serious disagreement between us. I put it down chiefly to the fact that we do always remember to be polite to each other, although it is true that Martin is a very even-tempered man."
Mendoza grasped grimly at the tail of his last remark. "There was a quarrel, and you hit Trask-with the butt of a pistol which-"
"Now wait just a minute, please, sir," said Kingman. He leaned forward with a kind of desperate earnestness. "I don't know exactly how we're going to prove it to you, because naturally there were no witnesses present. And I must say I do understand how you came to pick on us, though how you found out we were there that night I don't know. But I do assure you that you have-um-leaped to a wrong conclusion when you accuse me of killing that-that most unpleasant young man. I hope to God I can convince you, sir, that we hadn't any hand in the murder. Never had such a shock in my life as when you turned up and told us-" He whisked out a handkerchief and polished his bald head.
“Now suppose I just tell you the whole business straight, so to speak, and if I miss out anything you want to know, you ask, because I don't know all the ins and outs of the-um-circumstances of the murder. You've got it right up to that night, sir. Trask… Perhaps I had better explain that that time in Philadelphia he was being held for trial, on a very nasty low charge too, at the same time I was, and that's how he knew me, and knew to send back for that newspaper report. And it wasn't only the money that made the situation awkward and annoying-it was having him around. Any day we'd both have preferred to pay over the money as straight extortion, and never seen him between, but you see, he wanted an open job, as an excuse for not working. I didn't like it, I never liked it, but what could I do? And besides keeping an eye on him, you know, I had what you might call a handle, too. You'll never know how both of us hoped he would make the grade and get into the profession-though he'd nothing to offer but looks, as an old trouper myself I knew that, but still, Hollywood.. . If he only had, perhaps he'd have gone to looking on us as very small stuff, you see, and left us alone-"
"And also you could then turn the tables and threaten him with his past," said Mendoza. “If he acquired a public reputation to be put in danger."
"Good God, no," said Kingman, genuinely shocked. "God forbid that we should stoop so low as that. I tell you, we'd have gone on our knees to give thanks if he'd just left us alone! Well, you're not interested in all this background, I'd better-ah-cut the cackle as our English friends say, and come to that Friday. You said a minute ago that he'd had some plan go wrong, well, I couldn't tell you what that was, but I did deduce that for myself, from his manner. Now it's quite true, what I told you, that we exchanged only a few words as I met him leaving. But-um-what actually passed was not exactly casual. He-"
"Demanded that you raise the ante."
"Well, no," said Kingman. "Actually, no. He was simply in a vicious temper. He put on a good front, you know-that charming boyish manner-but only with people who mattered, people he thought could do him some good. He never troubled with us. But that day he-er-lashed out at me, at the Temple-sneeringly, you know-more viciously than he'd ever done before. However, it wasn't until just before the-the ceremony that night that I became seriously disturbed. I must explain that I-oh dear, and possibly I should have mentioned it to you when you searched this afternoon, I do apologize-I have a small wall safe built into the robing room downstairs, where the-um-receipts are kept. Now, Trask did not have the combination of this safe, and I can only assume that he must have visited the apartment when we were out, perhaps several times, and hunted until he found the notation in my address book. I should have carried it on me-I have such a bad memory for figures-it was careless-"
"Now you mustn't blame yourself, dear, it might have happened to anyone.”
"I do not very often have occasion to go to the safe, that is to take out cash, over a weekend. Naturally, after the service on Saturday night I put the collection into the safe, but I seldom look at what's there or count it. But as it happened, I did have occasion to do so on that Friday night-Cara was going shopping the next morning, and I went to get out some money for her, just before the service. There is no collection for that Friday night service, you see. And I knew there should have been twenty-three hundred dollars in one of the velvet collection bags. You know,"-he took off his glasses, began to polish them slowly with his handkerchief-"on thinking it over since, I can see that he took a gamble on that. In the ordinary way, on Saturday evening I should have simply dropped the collection into that bag and locked it away again-a bag isn't like an envelope, I wouldn't see that it was nearly empty beforehand. He had left some one-dollar bills and a lot of silver, enough to look to the casual glance as if the bag hadn't been touched. You see? If all had gone as he planned, the deficit wouldn't have been discovered, probably, until some time on Monday-when I'd be going to the bank to deposit the month's receipts. But I discovered it then, at seven-thirty that Friday night."