She smiled and smoothed her hair. "Of course. And that's a lie too, she is devoted to me-simply devoted. Servants always like me. You probably forced her to tell."
"It's always a mistake to count on other people in a business like this. They just haven't the incentive, you know, to go on telling lies. And when she heard that it was a murder case, she told us all about it. You made quite a few mistakes that night, and not the least of them was in overlooking all those odds and ends on the bureau. His hat, and the medicine bottles, and his watch and pocket-knife, both monogrammed, and the half bottle of Scotch and so on. It was convenient that you'd also overlooked that laundry bag on the chair. Into that it all went. But you couldn't face going down that trap again, so you took it with you.
"You thought you'd covered your tracks so cleverly, with the act you put on for the cab driver, for the salesclerk-" Mendoza laughed and shrugged. "You have a most unfortunate love of wild Gothic melodrama, Miss Ferne-no appreciation of dramatic subtleties at all! As I daresay directors have told you-many years ago." He let some contempt show in his eyes.
"A lie," she said in automatic reaction, "it's all lies."
"But things went on going wrong, we found the body, and that brought you into it-when we'd identified him-if only on the outskirts of the case. And when you talked to your dear friend Cara Kingman on Monday, she told you that the police had connected with the murder a woman wearing a light-colored coat with dark bands of trimming on the cuffs and front panels. That really frightened you, because you still had the coat-"
“Angel had it. You found it."
"I mean the real coat," said Mendoza patiently, "the one you were wearing that night."
"You don't know," she said almost slyly. "I never owned a coat like that in my life. You don't know."
"But I do," and he smiled gently at her. "I had to do a little serious thinking on it, but it came to me. It was your fur coat you were wearing that night, wasn't it? That specially made brown mink with the white satin lining. It was the one halfway clever idea you had-to turn it inside out and wear it that way when you needed a quick disguise. People could see what you'd done in good light, of course, but in the dark like that, it was quite effective. Only the fur on the inside borders still showed, to look like trimming in the dark. And the rain ruined the lining, didn't it? You were afraid to send it to the cleaners, they'd be bound to ask questions and remember. When we searched your house last night, one of my men examined it, and we've gone back just since you've been here, to impound it as evidence."
"You can't do that-"
"I'm afraid it's quite legal. As I say, you were frightened when we got that close to home, and you went on making mistakes by most unnecessarily trying to cast suspicion on your daughter. And most ineptly! The rawest new rookie in uniform could have followed the trail you left. You had a long hunt for a coat made just like that, you spent most of the day at it, in your crude disguise, and we've found several clerks who remember you and your specific request. You finally found what you wanted at a small shop called Betty Jo's, on Beverly Boulevard, at about four-thirty. You paid thirty-seven-fifty for it. You hid that damning laundry bag in your daughter's trunk that evening, put the coat in her wardrobe. Had you kept the bag in case you needed a scapegoat? I think so. You didn't have a chance to plant them in Miss Carstairs' room until she decided to go out to a movie. You knew where she kept the key to her trunk-but you'd decided to be bold about the coat, which was a very stupid mistake too… Once you'd gone to all this trouble, you were really hoping we'd come with a search warrant: I saw how pleased you were, yesterday morning, when we walked in and saw that coat lying there. But your daughter's an intelligent grown-up woman, Miss Ferne, however much you hate to acknowledge it, and you couldn't have forced her to admit owning that coat and forgetting it, or to believe she'd been in love with Brooke Twelvetrees." Suddenly he got up and stood over her. "You were the one in love with Twelvetrees-weren't you?"
She looked up at him for a long minute, wide-eyed, a little smile still on her painted mouth. Then she said, "You're much cleverer than I thought the police were. You do know, don't you?"
"We know. We know all about it, Miss Ferne. But maybe you'd like to give us your version."
She fitted a new cigarette into the jeweled holder and he leaned to light it for her. "I wonder-it might be good publicity." She laughed. "You know what they say about publicity?-it doesn't matter what you get in the papers for, just get there! I daresay,"-and her tone was complacent-"I'd have a number of contract offers, afterward
… I don't believe Stanley's been trying to do anything, just spite, and besides he's getting old, losing his grip. I'll get a new agent
… Because of course I'll get off, nobody would say I was guilty-when they know why. Not if there are any women on the jury," and she giggled, and then looked thoughtful. "Or perhaps men would be better. Yes. I must remember to tell my lawyer. I'll have someone really good, to put on a good production… It might be interesting."
"I'm looking forward to it. You were going to give us your version."
She smoothed her hair, looking up at him sideways, coyly. "He insulted me, that was why, really. And a lie. Yes, I did love him-dear Brooke-and I'd been kind to him, awfully kind. I felt sorry for him, you know, the poor boy hadn't any money but the pittance Martin could afford to pay him. And he was proud, really he was, I thought he didn't like to take presents from me, but he always gave in so charmingly! And he spent too much money on me, at quite nice, expensive places-"
"Like the Voodoo Club."
"Oh, yes, we went there a lot. It was only fair I should try to make some return. But he was shy too-I thought-" she gave a little gasp. “I was sure he loved me too, only he was too shy and proud to say-because I had more money, and then there was just the tiniest difference in our ages-"
"Just twenty-eight years' difference," said Mendoza crudely.
For one moment her face was convulsed with rage. "You-! It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter-it was a lie, a lie, a lie! He was going away, he was packing-when I came-he let me in, we were in the living room but I could see into the-I'd made up my mind to smooth matters out for him-you know-and tell the dear boy I returned his love-I'd be proud and happy to marry him-I knew he'd been hesitating to-you know-try his fortune with me. And he-and he-it was a lie, of course, he was drunk or he'd gone mad or something! I told him and he swore at me, he called me-"
"An old hag," said Mendoza softly. (And this was it, the offbeat little idea in his mind.) "He said you're an old desiccated bag of bones, a wrinkled mummy, he'd as soon go to bed with his grandmother-a silly old painted bitch pretending to be sixteen-" And he stepped back quickly from her clawing fingers, and Hackett and the policewoman took her by the shoulders and forced her down to the chair again. She sat rigid for a minute, and the mask of rage smoothed out to her usual vapidity. "You see, I nearly killed you then. Any woman- And he was mad, it's a wicked, wicked lie, all anyone has to do is look at me," and up went the manicured hand, gracefully, to the perfect coiffure. "Real beauty doesn't fade, of course. And I do have enough self-respect to keep myself up, retain the youthful outlook-that's the great secret. You remember that, dear," she said condescendingly to the policewoman. "But even though I knew it was a lie-as anyone can see-I, well, I suppose I lost my temper. Just for a minute. I slapped him, I know, and he must have been frightened-of me, imagine!-because he stepped back and picked up that gun. I'd given it to him, you know-silly boy, it made him feel like an adventurer or something, I think-it was an old one of Bill's. He couldn't ever have shot anyone with it, he didn't have the courage for that. I reached for it and got it away from him-really you could say it was self-defense!-and I must have hit him with it, because he fell down and when I felt him, well, he was dead. It was his own fault, he shouldn't have lied to me like that! You can see how it was."