She laughed nervously and said, “Both. Don’t interrupt me, Owl, let me do it my own way.”
“All right, go on.”
“At ten minutes to three a tenant in the building went out to get a cup of coffee. He distinctly remembers that this door from Mandra’s private rooms to the corridor was closed when he passed it. He came back at five minutes past three. At that time, the door was not only unlocked but partially open. The tenant had never seen this door open. Naturally curious, he looked through, into the room, and saw someone slumped forward over a table. He decided the man was either dead or drunk, and telephoned the police. A radio car arrived shortly afterwards. The body was that of Mandra. He was dead. Sam White, the Negro bodyguard, was still waiting outside the other door to Mandra’s rooms.”
“White had a key to that door?” Terry asked.
“Yes, he had one key and Mandra had one.”
“Who opened the door when the Chinese girl left?”
“The Chinese girl did. It had a spring lock which could be opened from the inside. She opened it and White heard her say, ‘Good night, Mr. Mandra.’ Then she pulled the door shut behind her and White showed her out.”
“That was at two forty-five?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” Terry said, “if the tenant’s statement is correct, Mandra must have been alive and opened that corridor door after she left.”
“Yes,” Cynthia said dubiously, “if the witness is correct in saying it was locked when he went out. But the door might have been unlocked, you know, and a current of air could have swung it open afterwards. And, of course, it wouldn’t have been impossible for this Chinese girl to have called good night to a dead man.”
“We still haven’t accounted for the young woman who entered the apartment at eleven-thirty.”
“At two o’clock,” Cynthia continued, “an artist who lived in the building met a young woman coming down the stairs to the street. This woman was carrying an oil painting in such a way that it concealed everything except her feet and ankles. Apparently the paint on the canvas was still wet, because she was carrying it holding it by the edges, with the painted part held out straight in front of her. It was a large canvas. The woman found it awkward to handle, so this artist who was coming up the stairs flattened himself against the side of the staircase to leave her plenty of room.
“Because he was an artist, he noticed the canvas, particularly. He saw that it was an excellent portrait of Jacob Mandra. As he describes it, the back of the head merged into a dark background, while the face caught the highlights. The eyes dominated the portrait.”
“And this was at two o’clock?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” Terry said slowly, “if this was the young woman who had entered Mandra’s apartment at eleven-thirty, Mandra must have violated his custom and let her out through that corridor door — or else the bodyguard must have been asleep. It’s not impossible, you know, for a Negro bodyguard to doze off for forty winks.”
She put down the paper to stare at him steadily.
“That’s all the evidence the police have,” she said slowly. “White swears he was sitting where no one could have left the room without his knowing it.”
“So far,” he reminded her, “we’ve been talking about the newspaper account of the crime.”
She raised her eyes to his. “And I knew that was coming,” she said.
“Having anticipated the question,” he told her, “you have perhaps anticipated the answer?”
She nodded and said, “If you mean trying to think up some lie that’ll hold water, I have.”
“And what’s the best one you’ve been able to think up, Cynthia?”
“Not a one, Owl. I’m afraid I’ll have to stick to the truth.”
“Which is...?”
She sucked in her breath, as though about to start a long speech, then slowly exhaled, shook her head, grinned and said, “No good, Owl, you’d better ask questions.”
“You knew Mandra?”
“Yes.”
“And Alma knew him?”
“No.”
He raised his eyebrows in silent interrogation, and she shook her head defiantly and said, “She really didn’t know him.”
“The portrait?” he asked. “Wasn’t she the one who painted that?”
“No, I was.”
“You were?”
She nodded. “I’d been working on it for some time. Last night I went to his place about eleven-thirty. The portrait was finished, save for a few finishing touches. Sam White let me in. I left an hour before Mandra was killed. I’m the woman the artist saw carrying the portrait down the stairs.”
“Do the police know you were there?”
“Certainly,” she said. “They’ve been looking for me all day, and I’ve been hiding because I was scared. They had to know about me, you see. Sam White knows me and knows what I was doing. And then there’s the matter of the handkerchief.”
“Yours?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you leave it?”
“I guess so.”
“Go on,” he invited. “Suppose you begin at the beginning and tell me the whole story. Tell me what hold Mandra had on you.”
“He fascinated me.”
“What hold did he have on you?”
“What makes you think he had a hold?”
“I feel certain he must have.”
“It happened a month ago. I was driving while I was tight — not drunk, but I’d been drinking. I hit a man. It wasn’t my fault. I can drive just as well after half a dozen cocktails as I can when I’m cold sober, but try and tell that to a judge or a jury.
“Get me straight, Owl, I didn’t pull a hit-and-run act — not where it would count — but there was a car not over a hundred yards behind me, and another one coming towards me. This man was wearing dark clothes. Honestly, Owl, I don’t know where he came from. That man just sprang up out of nowhere and stood in front of me, dazzled by my headlights.
“I wasn’t going very fast, but I was moving along at the usual rate of speed. You know, it’s one of those places where there’s a legal speed of about fifteen miles an hour, and no one ever pays any attention to it. I suppose I was hitting twenty-five or thirty. The car behind me was traveling at about the same clip, and the one that was coming towards me was coming pretty fast. It was foggy and the streets were wet. I could have put on my brakes, but I don’t think I could have stopped in time. Honestly, Owl, he was right in front of me. How he got there I don’t know. The car that was coming towards me didn’t leave me very much room to maneuver, but I swung the wheel to the left as far as I dared, and then flipped it back to the right so I could skid the hind end around him. I thought I was going to miss him, but, all of a sudden, I felt that peculiar quivering jar which comes when you’ve struck something animate, even if it’s just a chicken or a rabbit.”
She became silent for a moment, and her eyes showed how unpleasant was the picture her memory conjured up.
“You ran for it?” Terry asked, in a voice which was utterly devoid of expression.
“Of course not,” she snapped, “not then. Don’t be silly, Owl. But remember, I hadn’t used the brakes. I’d tried to dodge. I slammed into the curb and that threw me into a skid. Now, get the picture, Owl. There were three cars on the road — mine, the one that was coming towards me, and the one coming behind me. I went forty or fifty yards before I got my car back on the road, under control and stopped. Then I got out and looked back. The car that had been coming behind me had stopped, and someone was picking the man up. The other car, the one that had been coming towards me, evidently hadn’t seen what had happened, and had kept on going. Remember, I’d had two or three cocktails, not enough to make me tight, but enough to give me a breath. And I felt like the Devil, Owl. I was frightened — not the deep solemn scare I have now, but the awful wanting-to-run kind of scare you get when someone jumps out at you unexpectedly in the dark... Oh, you wouldn’t know what I mean. But, anyway, I was frightened.”