"Twenty-five years," said Hackett to Mendoza, meditatively.
"I don't know, it's a thing you don't lose entirely. If you've had a lot of practice. You'd get rusty, sure, but-in an emergency-you'd instinctively do what old experience told you."
"Probably. A great help, anyway-the old experience-in that particular target shot."
“ Claro estd. Miss Carstairs, I've got just two more questions to ask, and then we're going to see that you're settled in a hotel. Miss Weir'll go along and I expect lend you whatever you need, and we'll stop bothering you for a while. Can you tell me anything about Miss Janet Kent?"
Angel's eyes hardened a little. "Yes, I can," she said steadily. "She was a-a sort of nurse-supervisor for me for about ten years, from the time I was five. I don't think she meant to be-unkind, but she was awfully-oh, strict and old-fashioned, and crotchety. She was old then, and looking back now, I can see she used to-to fawn on her and pretend to admire her so much, because she was afraid of losing her job, not being able to get another. But-she-swallowed it all whole, you never can give her too much flattery, she never sees through it. And when I got too old for Miss Kent, she gave her a sort of pension, just because it makes her feel magnanimous to have someone dependent on her that way. I-I feel sorry for Miss Kent now-once in a while she'd get me to go with her there, you know, and it's just sickening-to me anyway-the way Miss Kent kowtows to her, you almost expect her to say ‘my lady' and curtsey-oh, you know what I mean-like a whipped dog-because she's old, nearly eighty, and she hasn't got anyone or any money, and if she ever stopped giving her this little bit to live on, Miss Kent'd have to go on the county. She just revels in it, of course, the funny thing is she thinks Miss Kent really means it-"
"Yes. Now I want you to take your time and think about this one," said Mendoza. "You know, of course, that your mother has made a very inept effort to cast suspicion on you. She didn't choose you deliberately, but when we found the body, you see-which hadn't been intended-and began finding out a few things close to home, she got nervous. She had a few things she hadn't got rid of, to link her with it, and now she was afraid to try to dispose of them, that we might see her doing that. So it had to be someone in the same house, in case of a search warrant. And that meant you. You know about the coat. There's something else. Something about two feet long or a bit more. Fairly heavy, but partly flexible. Is there anywhere in that house where she could put such a thing, where it would be definitely connected with you and still you wouldn't come across it right away‘?"
She didn't think twenty seconds; she said simply, instantly, "Why, of course. My old trunk. That is, it's-it was my father's, there were some old family pictures in it and odds and ends. She was going to throw it away once when I was about seven, and I begged to have it. I-I never knew anybody in either of their families, you see, my grandparents or aunts and uncles-and it made it seem I had more of a family somehow, those old pictures. I used to t-tell myself stories about them… I keep it way at the back of my closet, it's locked, and there are things in it I expect it's silly to keep, but the kind of things you don't throw away. My high school graduation dress, and the school yearbooks-and a c-couple of letters-things like that. I don't open it once in six months, now."
"Locked," said Mendoza. "Where do you keep the key?"
"In the top drawer of my dresser."
"And where were you from six o'clock on last evening? At home?"
"Why, no-for once I wasn't," she said without bitterness. "I felt I had to get out-away-I went to a movie by myself… No, of course I haven't looked in the trunk since."
"Thank you very much," said Mendoza smiling. "That's all for now."
And as they waited for Alison to pack an overnight bag for the girl, over Angel's protests, Mendoza suddenly asked, "You didn't pick up a traffic ticket on your perambulations today, by any chance?"
"A- No, why?"
"Neither did I. Oh, I don't know-round out the case," said Mendoza vaguely. "Traffic tickets, they've had quite a lot to do with this i case, one way and another. If Frank Walsh hadn't given me that ticket and subsequently found I'm a tolerably reasonable individual to talk to, he'd probably have done nothing about his doubts on Bartlett. Let Slaney convince him he was just being overconscientious. And if Madame Cara hadn't got a ticket that night at-as we now know-the corner of Avalon and DuPont at seven minutes past eleven, I might easily have decided to use that warrant and charge them with the murder. And in the first instance, if Walsh and Bartlett hadn't stopped to hand out a traffic ticket right there, she wouldn't have had such a good chance to spot the squad-car number she was looking for, and take those shots at the driver-the wrong man. Funny how things work out sometimes. If she hadn't done that extra kill, nobody might ever have known a thing about it. Twelvetrees-Trask quietly moldering away there with his suitcases. Woods would have gone on looking, and finally filed it under Pending, and that would have been that… It was the extra kill-and the traffic tickets-that tripped her up in the end."
And Hackett asked, "But why? What possible motive-"
" Eso tiene gracia,” said Mendoza, "that's the funny thing. I don't know. I've got a little idea, but I don't know. Maybe she'll tell us."
SEVENTEEN
And it was a curious ending to a curious case, how readily she told them, eventually.
When they brought her in the next morning and confronted her with the green plastic laundry bag and its contents, which had been locked away in Angel's old trunk, she went on talking for a while about her poor misguided child, so frantic with unrequited love.
She sat in the chair beside Mendoza's desk, which she had unobtrusively moved to put her back to the light from the window, and smiled at him, and at Hackett, at the silent policewoman and the stolid police stenographer, in perfect confidence. She was in black today, as glossily turned out as ever-and the little loose fold of skin at her throat shaking a little as she turned her head from one to the other, the little strain lines about the eyes (because she should wear glasses) showing deep, and the raised blue veins on her hands; the thick, skillful cosmetic mask could not hide the lines and hollows and shadows.
"Miss Ferne," said Mendoza finally, "it's really no use, your going on like this. Sooner or later you'll have to listen to me and believe it. We know Miss Carstairs had nothing to do with the murders. We know who did, and we have evidence on it. The salesclerk where you bought that coat on Monday remembers the incident very clearly-do you know why? Because, as Mr. Horwitz told us, you never were much of an actress and you can't do character parts. You overplayed it quite a bit, with that black hairpiece fastened to a turban, and the fake accent that puzzled everybody because it was partly French and partly German and partly just your own idea of how any foreigners talk English. You didn't fool anyone-the cab driver that night, or the man in the shop where you bought the serape, or the clerk on Monday-they all knew you were putting on a very crude act-"
"That's a lie!" she exclaimed. "I can! I'm a great actress, everyone always said so-it's only jealousy, I'd be showing these snippy young things today if-"
"We have the whole story from Miss Janet Kent, too. You make a mistake there in believing she really was devoted to you. All she was interested in was the money you gave her. Just as Brooke Twelvetrees was-wasn't he? That's why she fawns on you and flatters you-that's why she was afraid not to oblige you, when you came to her last Sunday and asked her-told her-to be ready to back up an alibi for you for the night of Friday the thirtieth. You hadn't thought you'd need one up to then, but after we'd found the body you thought you'd better have one. Miss Kent didn't like it, though I'm afraid she thought it was an illicit love affair-"