rest of this." He turned back to the third suitcase.
The top layer here consisted of soiled shirts,
handkerchiefs, underwear, and socks, crowded in haphazardly; several
ties in need of cleaning, also crumpled together and shoved into a
side pocket; clean handkerchiefs, rumpled out of their folds and
stuffed into every crevice; two pairs of soiled pajamas and a clean
pair crushed in together; a pair of leather slippers. In the bottom
was a dressing-gown of scarlet silk moire; it had been neatly folded.
"Yes," said Mendoza, feeling delicately in
the pockets of the robe and coming up with another soiled
handkerchief and nothing else.
"Yes. It all says a little something, doesn't
it? What elementary deduction occurs to you, Art?"
"That Woods hasn't been slandering Mr.
Twelvetrees," said Hackett absently. "Or at least, if he
wasn't planning any embezzlement, he was planning to leave. With all
his lares and penates .
Because—"
Mendoza said parenthetically to Woods, "Speaking
of foibles, you notice he forgets his favorite role now and then—the
big dumb cop. You catch him off guard, he can actually pronounce
three-syllable words."
" Estése quieto ,
I'm deducing," said Hackett. "He didn't do all that packing
in fifteen minutes, and the way he's been so careful to sort and fold
everything all neat and tidy, it was him did it. He expected to be
using all this stuff for some time to come, it represents quite an
investment. It looks as if he'd been packing, he'd got almost
everything in, except the stack of clean handkerchiefs and all his
dirty laundry, and at that point something happened to put him in the
hell of a hurry all of a sudden. He just shoved everything else in,
cramming it down any old way—"
"Or somebody did it for him,” said Mendoza.
"You may get to be a lieutenant someday after all. Yes. You
know, I think somebody finished his packing for him. Because from the
state of the other cases, he was a finicky customer. Like me. We
can't help it, it's an automatic thing, like—like cats washing
themselves. I don't, maybe, go quite so far as this one did with his
flame-of-love cologne and his nail buffer and his— vaya
por Dios , are these bath salts?—but I'm
enough like that myself to guess at the kind of thing he'd do or not
do. And however much of a hurry this one was in, I think he'd have
put all that soiled laundry into a bag for packing. I think he'd have
had that bag handy, laid out ready for when he wanted it, and so he
wouldn't have had to waste time getting it and skipped it for that
reason .... 1 wonder what happened to it, that bag. It wasn't in the
bedroom on Wednesday morning .... "
"Let's look," said Hackett, "for clues
that might exist, friend, not ones we dream up ourselves, hah?"
Marx said from the other side of the room, "The
gun's clean, Lieutenant. Not a thing on it anywhere."
"Yes, of course,” said Mendoza. "I don't
know why we bother to take you boys out on a job at all any more.
Even those six-year-old shoplifters Juvenile's getting these days
know about fingerprints." He got up and wandered into the
bedroom. "A large stout paper bag," he murmured to himself,
"or a bag made for the purpose—a cotton laundry bag, with a
slit in it, or drawstrings. You see them at dime stores, with stamped
patterns for embroidering." He lay down prone and looked under
the bed. “My grandmother has one, a hideous thing, with a design of
hollyhocks on it. Red and orange. And Laundry spelled out
underneath." He went into the closet.
"I get the general idea," said Hackett
patiently. "But there are things called hampers too."
"Not here." Mendoza came out of the closet
looking dissatisfied. "The bathroom isn't big enough."
"You were just saying a while ago that bachelors
living alone don't pay much attention to these things. Now you want
to make out—and it's a piddling little thing anyway, what does it
matter‘?"
"It may not matter a damn, I'd just like to
know. You miss the point. It's a personal
The top layer here consisted of soiled shirts,
handkerchiefs, underwear, and socks, crowded in haphazardly; several
ties in need of cleaning, also crumpled together and shoved into a
side pocket; clean handkerchiefs, rumpled out of their folds and
stuffed into every crevice; two pairs of soiled pajamas and a clean
pair crushed in together; a pair of leather slippers. In the bottom
was a dressing-gown of scarlet silk moire; it had been neatly folded.
"Yes," said Mendoza, feeling delicately in
the pockets of the robe and coming up with another soiled
handkerchief and nothing else.
"Yes. It all says a little something, doesn't
it? What elementary deduction occurs to you, Art?"
"That Woods hasn't been slandering Mr.
Twelvetrees," said Hackett absently. "Or at least, if he
wasn't planning any embezzlement, he was planning to leave. With all
his lares and penates .
Because—"
Mendoza said parenthetically to Woods, "Speaking
of foibles, you notice he forgets his favorite role now and then—the
big dumb cop. You catch him off guard, he can actually pronounce
three-syllable words."
" Estése quieto ,
I'm deducing," said Hackett. "He didn't do all that packing
in fifteen minutes, and the way he's been so careful to sort and fold
everything all neat and tidy, it was him did it. He expected to be
using all this stuff for some time to come, it represents quite an
investment. It looks as if he'd been packing, he'd got almost
everything in, except the stack of clean handkerchiefs and all his
dirty laundry, and at that point something happened to put him in the
hell of a hurry all of a sudden. He just shoved everything else in,
cramming it down any old way—"
"Or somebody did it for him,” said Mendoza.
"You may get to be a lieutenant someday after all. Yes. You
know, I think somebody finished his packing for him. Because from the
state of the other cases, he was a finicky customer. Like me. We
can't help it, it's an automatic thing, like—like cats washing
themselves. I don't, maybe, go quite so far as this one did with his
flame-of-love cologne and his nail buffer and his— vaya
por Dios , are these bath salts?—but I'm
enough like that myself to guess at the kind of thing he'd do or not
do. And however much of a hurry this one was in, I think he'd have
put all that soiled laundry into a bag for packing. I think he'd have
had that bag handy, laid out ready for when he wanted it, and so he
wouldn't have had to waste time getting it and skipped it for that
reason .... 1 wonder what happened to it, that bag. It wasn't in the
bedroom on Wednesday morning .... "
"Let's look," said Hackett, "for clues
that might exist, friend, not ones we dream up ourselves, hah?"
Marx said from the other side of the room, "The
gun's clean, Lieutenant. Not a thing on it anywhere."
"Yes, of course,” said Mendoza. "I don't
know why we bother to take you boys out on a job at all any more.
Even those six-year-old shoplifters Juvenile's getting these days
know about fingerprints." He got up and wandered into the
bedroom. "A large stout paper bag," he murmured to himself,
"or a bag made for the purpose—a cotton laundry bag, with a
slit in it, or drawstrings. You see them at dime stores, with stamped
patterns for embroidering." He lay down prone and looked under
the bed. “My grandmother has one, a hideous thing, with a design of
hollyhocks on it. Red and orange. And Laundry spelled out
underneath." He went into the closet.
"I get the general idea," said Hackett
patiently. "But there are things called hampers too."
"Not here." Mendoza came out of the closet
looking dissatisfied. "The bathroom isn't big enough."
"You were just saying a while ago that bachelors
living alone don't pay much attention to these things. Now you want
to make out—and it's a piddling little thing anyway, what does it
matter‘?"
"It may not matter a damn, I'd just like to
know. You miss the point. It's a personal
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