Dell Shannon - Mark of Murder

That scrapbook. He'd been thinking, Nestor not above a little blackmail. Had it been something like that? Have a good look at that list of patients, when the court order came through… By what Bert and the others said, the other women in Nestor's address book had been casual pickups, not exactly the kind to inspire the grand passion-to the point of murderous jealousy. But of course you never did know. People…

Art. If that wasn't linked to Nestor, was the outside thing, where the hell to start looking? Dead end. Hell. Andrea Nestor?

No. No. A man. They knew that much, because it had been a man who got rid of that gun. Maybe two people?

Andrea Nestor scarcely a woman to do murder for, either…

He drifted off uneasily at last, but woke for good at six. El Senor was chattering at the birds outside the window. Mendoza shaved and dressed, went out to the living room and called the hospital. Established routine now, he thought. Part of these long, long days

… The nurse's impersonal voice said, "Oh yes, sir-just a moment, Dr. MacFarlane wants to speak to you personally, if you'll wait a moment."

"All right," said Mendoza. He waited, wondering academically how far his pulse rate had shot up.

"Lieutenant? Yes. He's been increasingly restless," said the doctor. "I think the chances are good that he'll regain consciousness sometime today. I'd like either you or someone else who knows him well to-er-stand by for a call, as it were. You understand."

"Yes, Doctor."

"You'll be called as soon as we know… Well, we're still not making any guesses, of course. Wait and see. You'll have someone standing by?"

"Yes." Much as he would like to be the man, he couldn't; he had things to do today. "Thanks very much, Doctor."

"We'll just keep hoping," said MacFarlane sadly. Even Mrs. MacTaggart wasn't up, this morning. He got out the Ferrari and stopped for breakfast at the Manning's on Vermont, but he couldn't get much of it down; he had three cups of coffee and began to feel slightly more alive.

He got to the office before the night shift was off; told them the latest news. When Dwyer came in he said, "You're taking a little holiday, Bert. Stick around in case the hospital ca1ls." He explained.

"O.K.," said Dwyer, looking grim.

Mendoza looked at the clock irritably; he couldn't decently arrive at the Elgers' apartment before nine o'clock. He sat at his desk thinking about that appointment of Nestor's on Tuesday night.

An appointment with Ruth Elger? And Elger- So X discovered belatedly that he'd lost a button and, just in case he'd lost it in Nestor's office, gave away the jacket if he couldn't replace the button. How were you going to prove it?

A button. Suddenly, now, Mendoza was wondering whether that might have been what Art had spotted. If there was a tie-up. Whether X hadn't noticed the missing button until Art noticed, and questioned him about it. Whether…

Such a very ordinary little button. He got it out and looked at it. And another thought crossed his mind about it too, as a faint possibility of a lead-probably very faint. In these days of mass production. However…

All the morning papers had screaming headlines about the capture of the Slasher.

Nine o'clock found him using the knocker on the Elgers' apartment door.

Ruth Elger let him in; she wasn't dressed yet, but looked better this time-no hangover, and make-up.

"Well, for heaven's sake, what do you want?" she asked rather crossly.

"Answers to a few questions, Mrs. Elger, if you don't mind." The room wasn't much neater than when he'd seen it first, and it hadn't been dusted in some time. She told him ungraciously to sit down, perched herself on the arm of a chair.

"Well?"

"Do you remember what you and your husband were doing on Tuesday night a week ago? A week ago yesterday?"

"Heavens, I don't know. I suppose we were here, if we weren't- Oh no, the Werthers' party was on Wednesday, wasn't it?"

"It's not so very long ago," said Mendoza.

"Why on earth you want to know- Oh. That-that was the night Frank was shot, wasn't it? For heaven's sake. You can't be thinking we had-"

"Just try to remember, please."

"Oh well! It was-yes, we went out to dinner-to the Tail o' the Cock, I think. Tuesday. Oh, I do remember, yes, as a matter of fact we were arguing all through dinner about that silly charge-account thing, and all the way home for that matter, and it wasn't long after we got home that Cliff got really mad and sort of slammed out-"

"Arguing over a bill you'd run up?" said Mendoza. "And he left the apartment. When?"

"Heavens, I wasn't watching the clock, about half past nine, I suppose… No, I don't know where he went. What does it matter? I expect to a bar somewhere, he was a little high when he came home."

"At what time?"

She shrugged petulantly. "About midnight, I guess. I was in bed."

"Mrs. Elger, has your husband ever owned a gun?"

"A- Well, of course not," she said. "What on earth-You simply can't be thinking- Frank? Good heavens, it was just--just an episode. Not important."

"What's important or not," said Mendoza, "depends on who's looking at it. Thanks very much… "

He sat in the car thinking about that. Cliff Elger in a temper, and he might be quick to hit out at a man, but probably not the type to knock a woman around; so, rushing out, in his temper. To a bar? Or had he, on the way, started brooding over Ruth and Nestor again? And. ..

Wait a minute. How could he have known Nestor would be in his office at that hour? Had he known Nestor's home address? Well, it was in the phone book. He'd have tried there first, wouldn't he? But he hadn't.

Mendoza was still liking the idea of Cliff Elger for Nestor, because-admit it-he'd like to think the Nestor thing was behind the assault on Art, and Elger was the only man they'd run across so far who could certainly have handled Art without too much trouble.

All right, he thought. Suddenly he saw another, more plausible picture. Elger rushing out to a bar. Downing three or four highballs. Maybe it affected him the way it affected Mendoza; but whether or no, say he was brooding. And worked up a rage at Nestor. Maybe she'd been lying about the gun, or maybe he kept one at his office and she didn't know that, maybe Nestor had had the gun unknown to Madge Corliss. That sounded more plausible; a man Nestor's size might well reach for a gun, if he had one, when a gorilla like Elger came in mad. Yes, say that whatever Nestor's appointment had been, it was over, and Nestor was maybe just about to leave when Elger burst in- Why Nestor's office? How had he known- Say he was drunk, but- Hell.

He drove back to the office. The hospital hadn't called. They had, however, got an ident on that unknown victim of the Slasher, through the Greyhound Bus office and the San Diego police. His name was George Snaid, and he'd been picked up for vagrancy in San Diego and given the usual twenty-four hours to leave town. Nothing more was known about him. Another of the victims who wouldn't be missed.

The court order to open Madge Corliss' safe-deposit box hadn't come through yet. "Damn judges," said Mendoza. He wanted to see that list.

He sent Lake out for coffee. He sat at his desk chain smoking nervously. Dwyer, with nothing special to do, was playing solitaire desultorily, laying out the cards on top of a filing case, wandering over to stare at the phones on the desk every Eve minutes. He wasn't much of a cardplayer, and his inept, awkward shuffling of the deck got on Mendoza's nerves.

"I did think of something," he said presently. "A little thing. You know how that dame in the room next to Florence Dahl said the Slasher kept shouting something like ‘Every ham's gaining on me'? It came to me what it was. Every man's hand against me. Out of the Bible, isn't it?"