Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich Page B

own peace of mind. I’m afraid I cannot accommodate you. Our test tubes, our highpowered glasses, our reagents and analyses, have been brought into play; their evidence has been given and found irrefutable. Our report has been made out accordingly, and can be substantiated by the scientific investigation which it is based on. We are not guessing when we say such-and-such and so-and-so. All these things that have occurred to you, they have occurred to us ourselves, and been weighed, never fear, and—discarded. Our findings are: that Teresa Delgado was attacked and clawed to death by a jaguar outside the door of her house in the alley known as Pasaje del Diablo, at i 1:15 o’clock Thursday night, May fourteenth. And there is nothing further to be added.”
    “Except by the jaguar,” said Manning grimly.
     
    III. Conchita Con treras
     
    The Senora Viuda de Contreras raised her pillowed head alertly. The footfall that had attracted her, in the tiled corridor outside her open room door, had had a hesitant quality about it, as though undecided whether to come down full weight or tiptoe.
    “Is that you, my daughter?” she called out.
    The Senora Viuda was stretched out on a chaise longue, in a state of infirmity that was becoming more and more frequent of late. She was a handsome stately woman, with unplucked brows as thick and black as charcoal smudges, giving her face the look of habitual serenity that straight, horizontal lines are always apt to produce. Her head of thick black hair, only white as yet in one plume streaking off from her temple, was as glossy as a cockerel’s tail feathers and, like them, crisply curling in little bunches. A handkerchief soaked in cologne and placed in a narrowed band across her forehead was the only concession to her affliction. She was not one of your whining hypochondriacs. Pain was a thing between oneself and one’s God.
    At her interrogation the footfall had made up its mind to come down full force. Or rather the succeeding one did, that one having already been made. A couple more followed, rather reluctantly, and then a young girl appeared in the doorway. It is hard not to be beautiful at eighteen, and for her it would have been a physical impossibility. Even the dimming devotional mourning that encased her from head to foot, complete even to smoky veil, couldn’t obscure that fact. She stood looking in submissively at the benevolent despot on the chaise, who was aware of one’s lightest footfall, almost of one’s innermost thoughts, it sometimes seemed.
    “Did you wake up from your nap, mamacita? Do you feel better now?”
    The Senora Viuda reached out to the night stand beside her, flicked open a small jet-sticked fan, began to use it. This had nothing to do with room temperature, but was the outward symptom of approaching interrogation. Lengthy, exhaustive interrogation. The deceptive brow line remained ruler straight. “Sit down a minute, Conchita mia. Here, by me.”
    The girl came forward, shifted a chair, sank primly down on the very edge of it.
    “There, that’s it.” The fan continued to move, taking its time. The girl shifted both insteps far in underneath the chair.
    “Tell me, hija .” There was a pause while the fanning went on. “You were on your way to All Saints Cemetery, to pay your respects at your father’s resting place?” The examination was under way.
    The girl looked up from the finger she had been wrangling with. “It is his saint’s day. It should not be allowed to pass unnoted. And as you were ill, I thought perhaps I’d—”
    The Senora Viuda nodded with benevolent approval. “A good daughter doesn’t forget her departed father. She keeps the flowers fresh on his grave, doesn’t forget to visit it. That’s as it should be.” The fan whirred blandly on. “When was the last time you were there?”
    “Last week, I think—I don’t know exactly. Why do you ask me, mamacita? ”
    “I was just wondering, that is all. Why this sudden