her accepting my apology the nicest way possible, smearing me with lipstick ai
tears. I loved it and I felt like a heel.
Presently I wiped her face with my handkerchi and said, “You put on a robe
or something and sit the bed and I’ll sit on the couch. We’ve got to dope tF out and
I can think better with that lovely chassis yours covered up.”
She trotted obediently and I sat down. “You s
Jack killed her, but you admit you don’t know how he could have done it. Then why do
y~ou think he did?”
“The music.”
~ 1
Hun?
“The music he played for the show was Valse Triste. That’s Estelle’s music,
for Estelle’s act. My act, the regular twelve o’clock act, calls for Bolero. He must
have known that Estelle was up there; he used the right music.”
“Then you figure he must have been lying when he claimed Estelle never
arranged with him to swap the shows. But it’s a slim reason to hang a man-he might
have gotten that record by accident.”
“Could, but not likely. The records were kept in order and were the same
ones for the same shows every night. Nobody touched them but him. He would fire a
man for touching anything around the control box. However,” she went on, “I knew it
had to be him before I noticed the music. Only it couldn’t be.”
“Only it couldn’t be. Go ahead.”
“He hated her.”
“Why?”
“She teased him.”
“‘She teased him.’ Suppose she did. Lots of people get teased. She teased
lots of people. She teased you. She teased me. So what?”
“It’s not the same thing,” she insisted. “Jack was afraid of the dark.”
It was a nasty story. The hunk was afraid of total darkness, really afraid,
the way some kids are. Hazel told me he would not go back of the building to get his
parked car at night without a flashlight. But that would not have given away his
weakness, nor the fact that he was ashamed of it-lots of people use flashlights
freely, just to be sure of their footing. But he had fallen for Estelle and
apparently made a lot of progress-had actually gotten into bed with her. It never
came to anything because she had snapped out the
lights. Estelle had told Hazel about it, gloating o~ the fact that she had found out
about what she term his cowardice “soon enough.”
“She needled him after that,” Hazel went
“Nothing that anyone could tumble to, if they did know. But he knew. He was afraid
of her, afraid to f her for fear she would tell. He hated her-at the sai time he
wanted her and was jealous of her. There ~ one time in the dressing room. I was
there-” He h come in while they were dressing, or undressing, a had picked a fight
with Estelle over one of the ci tomers. She told him to get out. When he did not do
she snapped out the light. “He went out of there hik jack rabbit, falling over his
feet.” She stopped. “H( about it, Eddie? Motive enough?”
“Motive enough,” I agreed. “You’ve got me thinki he did it. Only he
couldn’t.”
“‘Only he couldn’t.’ That’s the trouble.”
I told her to get into bed and try to get some sleer that I planned to sit
right where I was till the piec fitted. I was rewarded with another sight of the cc
tours as she chucked the robe, then I helped myself a good-night kiss. I don’t think
she slept; at least s did not snore.
I started pounding my brain. The fact that the sta was not dark when it
seemed dark changed the wh picture and eliminated, I thought, everyone not fan jar
with the mechanics of the Mirror. It left only Haz Jack, the other barman, the two
waiters-and Este herself. It was physically possible for an Unkno~ Stranger to have
slipped upstairs, slid the shiv in h ducked downstairs, but psychologically-no. I
mad mental note to find out what other models had worlc in the Mirror.
The other barman and the two waiters Spade h eliminated-all of them had been