“No one knows, except you, Owl.”
“You didn’t let anyone know you were seeing Mandra?”
“Alma knew.”
“You told her about it?”
“Not about the hold Mandra had on me. I just told her he liked some of my paintings and had arranged to sit for a portrait.”
“Go on.”
“Mandra fascinated the painter in me. Honestly, Terry, I couldn’t get over his face — particularly the eyes. I liked to watch him when he was in a darkened room, his face blending into the background, his eyes reflecting the light. I think he knew it. He was a dramatic devil, alive to all those little things. I wanted to paint him.
“I suppose you know about my art education. It’s a family scandal. Some of the Continental instructors were kind enough to say I had more talent than Alma, but I couldn’t stand the routine of training. I never could stand discipline. I painted things that interested me; things that didn’t interest me I didn’t want to paint. As a result, I’ve done half a dozen canvases. They’ve been bizarre things; I think they’ve been compelling — but they’ve been full of technical faults; no one knew it better than I. It’s one of the few things Alma and I really quarreled about. She wanted me to develop technique by a carefully planned course of training. I couldn’t do it. But I wanted to paint Mandra. Something about his face made my fingers itch to get at a paint brush, just as music makes your feet jiggle.”
“And you painted him?”
“Yes.”
“And then left with the canvas?”
“Yes, when I realized the whole automobile accident business had been a plant, I took the canvas and left.”
“Where’s the picture now?” Terry asked.
“Alma has it. I brought it to her and asked her to touch up the background for me.”
“You didn’t go back to Mandra’s after you left at two o’clock?”
“Certainly not.”
“Mandra was alive when you left?”
“Very much alive.”
Terry indicated the newspaper.
“Who,” he asked, “was the last person to see Mandra alive?”
“No one knows,” she said, moistening her lips.
Terry regarded her thoughtfully. “Where were you when the Chinese girl called?”
She finished the last of her drink.
“Apparently,” she said, speaking very rapidly, “I must have been on my way to Alma’s place. I left with the painting at two o’clock and I must have arrived at Alma’s about two-twenty or two-thirty.”
“And the person who discovered the body at three o’clock found the corridor door unlocked and open?”
“Yes.”
“Whom do you suspect?” Terry asked suddenly. And his eyes seemed to hold hers by some physical force.
“I... er... no one, of course.”
Terry leaned back in his chair. “You have several men friends,” he told her. “For instance, there’s Stubby Nash. Stubby, I believe, resents even the purely platonic friendship which I claim with you. How did he feel about Mandra?”
“He didn’t know anything about Mandra.”
“Are you certain?”
Her stare was defiant. “Yes,” she said. “And don’t kid yourself about your friendship being so platonic. You’ve been studying some goofy stuff about concentration in China. It’s changed you a bit on the surface, but only on the surface. Underneath, you’re just the same old adventurer! Don’t pull that platonic stuff on me!”
He laughed and said, “Tell me some more, Cynthia.”
Her eyes regarded him in slow appraisal. There were smoldering fires in their depths.
“Go on,” she invited, “try to laugh it off. You can’t make it stick. You’re a born adventurer, Terry Clane, and you couldn’t settle down if your life depended on it, and you’re fifty years too young to have a platonic friendship with me.”
Terry didn’t answer her. Taking his cigarette case from his pocket, he extended it to her.
“Don’t you think I should have another drink?” she asked, as she took a cigarette.
He held a match for her, and said, “No, not when you start being primitive, and besides, you’ve got to keep your mind clear.”
“I’m not primitive, only observing. Anyhow, I can think better with two drinks than I can with one.”
He studied her with thoughtful, speculative eyes. “You might feel better for an hour, but, after that hour, you’d wish it had been only one drink.”
“Good Lord, Owl, will it be more than an hour?”
“That depends. My own interview lasted for about fifteen minutes.”
“And you think mine’s going to last longer?”
“It may.”
“Why, I’ve nothing to tell!”
Terry puffed on his cigarette. “Which may,” he remarked, “make the interview take that much longer.”
She laughed nervously, jumped from her chair, walked to a mirror, gave her lips deft attention with lipstick and fingertip.
“Well,” she said, “it’s like a cold shower: I may as well take the plunge. I’m leaving you the paper. You can read about it. Wish me luck, will you?”
He walked with her to the elevator. “Luck,” he said.
She took inventory of him with grave eyes as she was waiting for the cage. “Some day,” she told him, “you’re going to forget this business of being a friend of the family and make a pass at me, and when you do...”
The elevator cage slid to a stop and the door opened. She stepped inside, turned and caught the expression in his eyes.
“Sort of floored you with that one, didn’t I, Owl? Never mind, remember that your Chinese language has no word for ‘yes’. That should be your margin of safety. But don’t...”
The elevator door interposed a sliding barrier between them, shutting the last of her words from his ears.
Terry watched her from the window. The light delivery van was still parked at the curb. A man jumped from it as Cynthia climbed in behind the wheel of her sports car. He walked swiftly to the side of Cynthia’s car and pulled back the lapel of his coat.
She said something to him. The man shook his head. Cynthia tilted up her chin, made some swift comment, and the man laughed outright.
This much Terry could see. And he also saw that, despite the man’s laughter, he seated himself beside Cynthia in the car, and indicated the direction in which she was to drive.
For the space of some ten seconds after the car had purred away from the curb, Terry stood at the window, staring down into the street with unseeing eyes.
5
Inspector Jim Malloy of the Homicide Squad was full of genial good nature.
“Nice place you have here,” he said. “Brought the furniture over from China, didn’t you?”
“Most of it,” Terry admitted.
“Nice apartment. Nice view. Like these odd apartments. Were you ever in Mandra’s place?”
“Yes.”
“A funny sort of place, wasn’t it? Mandra owned the building. All the other apartments in it were cheap dumps. Mandra’s place was fixed up like a million dollars. They say that’s the way rich Chinese live, shabby outside stuff, luxurious inside fittings. Too bad about the murder. Sorry they bothered you to go to the district attorney’s office, but you know how those things go. Mandra was killed with a sleeve gun and his correspondence showed you’d been writing about a sleeve gun. So the D.A. thought you might give him some information.”
“No bother at all,” Terry replied. “I was glad to do anything I could. How about a Scotch and soda?”
“Never use ’em on duty.”
“And this, I take it,” Terry asked, smiling, “is a duty call?”