"I know, I don't want to, I-I don't think I do, any more. It's all over, all of a sudden, and I don't know what to do-but I shouldn't be here, I'm sorry. I've g-got money, and in the bank too, I mean I'm all right. I expect I'd better go to a hotel. It just hit me all of a sudden, the reason. And I don't know-now-how I do feel about her. Doing that. Not him-but trying to-wanting to-"
"Yes. I think the only way to feel is sorry for her, don't you? Not resentful. It's just a thing you have to face up to."
"I-I guess I'm not very good at that."
"Then now's the time to start," said Alison firmly. Angel had calmed down a little; perhaps the kitten had helped, curled up beside her purring. "I always wanted a c-cat. She never- But I could be different, couldn't I? I could learn better. To cope, sort of, you know. You know what I always wanted to do? It's silly, I guess, she said… But I liked it better than anything else at school, even than poetry. I-1ike to cook… She kept on at it, until I suddenly saw, that was all. And they think it was me, that's what she wanted them to- Not Sergeant Hackett, he's nice, but the other one. That I was in love with Brooke. But does she think I'm c-crazy, not to know how I felt-and didn't feel? Oh, I don't understand-and-"
"You'd better tell Lieutenant Mendoza about this." And then Alison spent ten minutes persuading her.
"I couldn't! Don't you see-even if-even if I don't feel anything-like that-for her, she is-! I couldn't-like t-telling tales-"
"Don't be childish," said Alison. "This is serious, you know it is. And I doubt very much if it'll come as a surprise to Luis, when-" even you know about it, she finished in her mind, but Angel was rushing on.
"And besides he's the one thinks I-! He looked at me when he left-I knew what he was thinking-"
“That I doubt too," said Alison. "If he looked at you one way, it probably meant the opposite. I'm told that's the secret of his success-experience at the poker table. Now you go and wash your face-you've been crying and it'll make you feel better-and you'd better take an aspirin too, and lie down on the bed and rest quiet until he gets here. You can trust Luis not to jump to any wrong conclusions, and it's much better in his hands."
Angel went meekly to do as she was bidden, and five minutes later Alison, looking in, found her sound asleep, curled up on the bed like the kitten.
She left her thoughtfully, shutting the door, and was sorry Mendoza arrived so soon. He listened to her rather incoherent account and said, "Awkward. I'm not quite ready to break this yet, I want a bit more information, and I hope her-mmh-precipitate flight doesn't scare Mona. No odds if it does, though, she'd only do something else damn silly. No finesse at all."
"But what an awful thing, Luis-her own mother-"
"Physical sense only. She's never had a thought in her head besides herself. In this case, anything expedient to get out from under. Now I wonder if that was why she took that laundry bag away? Just in case."
"Will Angel have to testify against her? She's just about at the end of her tether now-"
" Es poco probable, I don't think so. Not if we get a nice tight legal confession, which I'd like. She'll have a rough time for a little while, the publicity, but these things die down-something else'll come along to make gossip."
"There's good stuff in her, I think-she'll take it, and maybe be the better for it. My Lord, how I long to get at her and fix her up-she could be a good-looking girl, you know. And what a time to think of that… "
"Any time's the time to think of a good-looking woman, chica. You do just that, and earn Art Hackett's gratitude. I'd heard the one about beauty being in the eye of the beholder, but I never believed it before. Another good man gone wrong… Yes, I'm afraid so, lo siento en al alma, to my deep regret. Many a man ruined for life by marriage, I only hope he'll have better luck."
Alison said, "Yes?" She watched him relax on the couch, stroking the kitten.
"Well, where is this girl? I've got other irons in the fire-”
"Count five and start pretending to be a human being," said Alison dryly. "I'll get her."
And he gave her his one-sided smile, caught her hand as she passed and kissed it. "Sorry, querida, it's routine to me, sometimes I forget it isn't to everybody. I'll be nice to her."
But she hadn't taken another step before the phone rang, and it was Hackett…
Angel looked a little better for the rest, with her face scrubbed, her hair combed. She sat erect on the edge of the couch like a child in school, with Alison beside her, and only gradually relaxed under their quiet voices, their reassuring phrases.
"It was," said Hackett, "a picture made before you were born, so you wouldn't know anything about it. But what startled me was that there's a scene of her shooting-target-shooting-and the way it was taken, I don't see how it could have been faked. She was doing it, not someone doubling for her-and she wasn't missing a shot. Quite a little exhibition."
"I don't know anything about the picture. But I can tell you a little about that, I guess-" She stopped, looked stricken again, and again Mendoza was patient.
"Miss Carstairs, I'm not lying when I say we'd get all this elsewhere if not from you. There's only a few little things I want to ask you right now. I knew about your mother this morning, when I looked at that coat and saw it was brand-new, and heard her trying to convince us all that it was yours, and that you'd had it for some time. You're not betraying her in any sense, believe me-you're only filling in a little for us that we could learn from others."
"I see that," she whispered. "I-I don't like it, but you'd only-find out anyway, and I don't suppose-this'll be as bad as-if there's a trial and so on." She stiffened her shoulders, took a deep breath. "Mr. Horwitz could probably tell you more about it. I know I was awfully surprised when he mentioned it once-it was the first I'd ever heard of it-it must have been that picture he meant. He said everybody had been surprised to-to find she was a second Annie Oakley. You see, she was brought up on a farm, or anyway a very small town, I'm not sure which, in South Dakota, and she used to go out hunting with her father. She got to be quite a good shot. Later on she-I think she felt it was unwomanly, you know-she never mentioned it or did it any more. My father-I've heard Mr. Horwitz say-was a sportsman, he liked to hunt, and I don't know but maybe she used to go with him then. But that'd be twenty-five years ago, and so far as I know since then she's never- But Brooke wasn't shot, was he?"
"Not Brooke," said Mendoza. He took the old Winchester revolver out of his pocket and laid it on the coffee table. "Have you ever seen this before, Miss Carstairs?"
She looked at it for a long moment. "I-why, yes, I think-I think that's the gun Brooke stole… She wasn't really angry about it, just a little put out. She never could have refused him anything, you know," and faint contempt was in her tone. "She was terribly silly about him. I knew-even I knew-he just fawned on her, flattered her, because she-gave him presents, and I think she used to pay too, when they went to some awfully expensive place. I-it was shameful. I wouldn't have liked him anyway but when he did that-"
"Yes. He stole this gun?"
"He called it borrowed. He was going to be in some play where they had to have a gun," she said dully. "I said my f-father liked to hunt, he had some guns, and two or three of them she never sold. This was one of them. It's not the kind you hunt with, of course-the others are rifles-but she kept this on account of burglars. She said. He saw it one day, it was in the den with the others in a case, and he took it. She said he should have asked, of course she'd have lent it to him. He never gave it back-I don't know if she asked, or maybe gave it to him to keep. I do know it was loaded when he took it, she always kept it loaded. In case she needed it in a hurry, she said, if someone broke in."