"He didn't tell me. Please don't be mad, Nick. I've told you everything he told me."

 

 

"And a fat lot it is," I growled. "When'd he tell you this?"

 

 

"Tonight. He was telling me when you came in my room, and, honest, that's all he told me."

 

 

I said: "It'd be swell if just once one of you people would make a clear and complete statement about something--it wouldn't matter what."

 

 

Nora came in with the coffee. "What's worrying you now, son?" she asked.

 

 

"Things," I said, "riddles, lies, and I'm too old and too tired for them to be any fun. Let's go back to San Francisco."

 

 

"Before New Year's?"

 

 

"Tomorrow, today."

 

 

"I'm willing." She gave me a cup. "We can fly back, if you want, and be there for New Year's Eve."

 

 

Dorothy said tremulously: "I didn't lie to you, Nick. I told you everything 1-- Please, please don't be mad with me. I'm so--" She stopped talking to sob.

 

 

I rubbed Asta's head and groaned.

 

 

Nora said: "We're all worn out and jumpy. Let's send the pup downstairs for the night and turn in and do our talking after we've had some rest. Come on, Dorothy, I'll bring your coffee into the bedroom and give you some night-clothes."

 

 

Dorothy got up, said, "Good-night," to me, "I'm sorry I'm so silly," and followed Nora out.

 

 

When Nora returned she sat down on the floor beside me. "Our Dorry does her share of weeping and whining," she said. "Admitting life's not too pleasant for her just now, still . . ." She yawned. "What was her fearsome secret?"

 

 

I told her what Dorothy had told me. "It sounds like a lot of hooey."

 

 

"Why?"

 

 

"Why not? Everything else we've got from them has been hooey."

 

 

Nora yawned again. "That may be good enough for a detective, but it's not convincing enough for me. Listen, why don't we make a list of all the suspects and all the motives and clues, and check them off against--"

 

 

"You do it. I'm going to bed. What's a clue, Mamma?"

 

 

"It's like when Gilbert tiptoed over to the phone tonight when I was alone in the living-room, and he thought I was asleep, and told the operator not to put through any in-coming calls until morning."

 

 

"Well, well."

 

 

"And," she said, "it's like Dorothy discovering that she had Aunt Alice's key all the time."

 

 

"Well, well."

 

 

"And it's like Studsy nudging Morelli under the table when he started to tell you about the drunken cousin of--what was it?--Dick O'Brien's that Julia 'Wolf knew."

 

 

I got up and put our cups on a table. "I don't see how any detective can hope to get along without being married to you, but, just the same, you're overdoing it. Studsy nudging Morelli is my idea of something to spend a lot of time not worrying about. I'd rather worry about whether they pushed Sparrow around to keep me from being hurt or to keep me from being told something. I'm sleepy."

 

 

"So am I. Tell me something, Nick. Tell me the truth: when you were wrestling with Mimi, didn't you have an erection?"

 

 

"Oh, a little."

 

 

She laughed and got up from the floor. "If you aren't a disgusting old lecher," she said. "Look, it's daylight."

 

 

 

 

 

26

 

 

 

 

Nora shook me awake at quarter past ten. "The telephone," she said. "It's Herbert Macauhay and he says it's important."

 

 

I went into the bedroom--I had slept in the living-room--to the telephone. Dorothy was sleeping soundly. I mumbled, "Hello," into the telephone.

 

 

Macaulay said: "It's too early for that lunch, but I've got to see you right away. Can I come up now?"

 

 

"Sure. Come up for breakfast."

 

 

"I've had it. Get yours and I'll be up in fifteen minutes."

 

 

"Right."

 

 

Dorothy opened her eyes less than half-way, said, "It must be late," sleepily, turned over, and returned to unconsciousness.

 

 

I put cold water on my face and hands, brushed my teeth and hair, and went back to the hiving-room. "He's coming up," I told Nora. "He's had breakfast, but you'd better order some coffee for him. I want chicken livers."

 

 

"Am I invited to your party or do I--"

 

 

"Sure. You've never met Macaulay, have you? He's a pretty good guy. I was attached to his outfit for a few days once, up around Vaux, and we looked each other up after the war. He threw a couple of jobs my way, including the Wynant one. How about a drop of something to cut the phlegm?"

 

 

"Why don't you stay sober today?"

 

 

"We didn't come to New York to stay sober. Want to see a hockey game tonight?"

 

 

"I'd like to." She poured me a drink and went to order breakfast.

 

 

I looked through the morning papers. They had the news of Jorgensen's being picked up by the Boston police and of Nunheim's murder, but further developments of what the tabloids called "The Hell's Kitchen Gang War," the arrest of "Prince Mike" Gerguson, and an interview with the "Jafsie" of the Lindbergh kidnapping negotiations got more space.

 

 

Macaulay and the bellboy who brought Asta up arrived together. Asta liked Macaulay because when he patted her he gave her something to set her weight against: she was never very fond of gentleness.

 

 

He had lines around his mouth this morning and some of the rosiness was gone from his cheeks. "Where'd the police get this new line?" he asked. "Do they think--" He broke off as Nora came in. She had dressed.

 

 

"Nora, this is Herbert Macaulay," I said. "My wife."

 

 

They shook hands and Nora said: "Nick would only let me order some coffee for you. Can't I--"

 

 

"No, thanks, I've just finished breakfast."

 

 

I said: "Now what's this about the police?"

 

 

He hesitated.

 

 

"Nora knows practically everything I know," I assured him, "so unless it's something you'd rather not--"

 

 

"No, no, nothing like that," he said. "It's--well--for Mrs. Charles's sake. I don't want to cause her anxiety."

 

 

"Then out with it. She only worries about things she doesn't know. WThat's the new police line?"

 

 

"Lieutenant Guild came to see me this morning," he said. "First he showed me a piece of watch-chain with a knife attached to it and asked me if I'd ever seen them before. I had: they were Wynant's. I told him I thought I had: I thought they looked like Wynant's. Then he asked me if I knew of any way in which they could have come into anybody else's possession and, after some beating about the bush, I discovered that by anybody else he meant you or Mimi. I told him certainly--Wynant could have given them to either of you, you could have stolen them or found them on the street or have been given them by somebody who stole them or found them on the street, or you could have got them from somebody Wynant gave them to. There were other ways, too, for you to have got them, I told him, but he knew I was kidding him, so he wouldn't let me tell him about them."

 

 

There were spots of color in Nora's cheeks and her eyes were dark. "The idiot!"

 

 

"Now, now," I said. "Maybe I should have warned you--he was heading in that direction last night. I think it's likely my old pal Mimi gave him a prod or two. What else did he turn the searchlight on?"

 

 

"He wanted to know about--what he asked was: 'Do you figure Charles and the Wolf dame was still playing around together? Or was that all washed up?'"

 

 

"That's the Mimi touch, all right," I said. "What'd you tell him?"

 

 

"I told him I didn't know whether you were 'still' playing around together because I didn't know that you had even played around together, and reminded him that you hadn't been living in New York for a long time anyway."

 

 

Nora asked me: "Did you?"

 

 

I said: "Don't try to make a liar out of Mac. What'd he say to that?"

 

 

"Nothing. He asked me if I thought Jorgensen knew about you and Mimi and, when I asked him what about you and Mimi, he accused me of acting the innocent--they were his words--so we didn't get very far. He was interested in the times I had seen you, also, where and when to the exact inch and second."

 

 

"That's nice," I said. "I've got lousy alibis."

 

 

A waiter came in with our breakfast. We talked about this and that until he had set the table and gone away.

 

 

Then Macaulay said: "You've nothing to be afraid of. I'm going to turn Wynant over to the police." His voice was unsteady and a little choked.

 

 

"Are you sure he did it?" I asked. "I'm not."

 

 

He said simply: "I know." He cleared his throat. "Even if there was a chance in a thousand of my being wrong--and there isn't--he's a madman, Charles. He shouldn't be loose."

 

 

"That's probably right enough," I began, "and if you know--"

 

 

"I know," he repeated. "I saw him the afternoon he killed her; it couldn't've been half an hour after he'd killed her, though I didn't know that, didn't even know she'd been killed. I--well--I know it now."

 

 

"You met him in Hermann's office?"

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"You were supposed to have been in the office of a man named Hermann, on Fifty-seventh Street, from around three o'clock till around four that afternoon. At least, that's what the police told me."

 

 

"That's right," he said. "I mean that's the story they got. What really happened: after I failed to find Wynant or any news of him at the Plaza and phoned my office and Julia with no better results, I gave him up and started walking down to Hermann's. He's a mining engineer, a client of mine; I had just finished drawing up some articles of incorporation for him, and there were some minor changes to be made in them. When I got to Fifty-seventh Street I suddenly got a feeling that I was being followed--you know the feeling. I couldn't think of any reason for anybody shadowing me, but, still, I'm a lawyer and there might be. Anyhow, I wanted to find out, so I turned east on Fifty-seventh and wahked over to Madison and still wasn't sure. There was a small sallow man I thought I'd seen around the Plaza, but-- The quickest way to find out seemed to be by taking a taxi, so I did that and told the driver to drive east. There was too much traffic there for me to see whether this small man or anybody else took a taxi after me, so I had my driver turn south at Third, east again on Fifty-sixth, and south again on Second Avenue, and by that time I was pretty sure a yellow taxi was following me. I couldn't see whether my small man was in it, of course; it wasn't close enough for that. And at the next corner, when a red light stopped us, I saw Wynant. He was in a taxicab going west on Fifty-fifth Street. Naturally, that didn't surprise me very much: we were only two blocks from Julia's and I took it for granted she hadn't wanted me to know he was there when I phoned and that he was now on his way over to meet me at the Plaza. He was never very punctual. So I told my driver to turn west, but at Lexington Avenue--we were half a block behind him--Wynant's taxicab turned south. That wasn't the way to the Plaza and wasn't even the way to my office, so I said to hell with him and turned my attention back to the taxi following me--and it wasn't there any more. I kept a look-out behind all the way over to Hermann's and saw no sign at all of anybody following me."

 

 

"What time was it when you saw Wynant?" I asked.

 

 

"It must've been fifteen or twenty minutes past three. It was twenty minutes to four when I got to Hermann's and I imagine that was twenty or twenty-five minutes later. Well, Hermann's secretary--Louise Jacobs, the girl I was with when I saw you last night--told me he had been locked up in a conference all afternoon, but would probably be through in a few minutes, and he was, and I got through with him in ten or fifteen minutes and went back to my office."

 

 

"I take it you weren't close enough to Wynant to see whether he looked excited, was wearing his watch-chain, smelled of gunpowder-- things like that."

 

 

"That's right. All I saw was his profile going past, but don't think I'm not sure it was Wynant."

 

 

"I won't. Go ahead," I said.

 

 

"He didn't phone again. I'd been back about an hour when the police phoned--Julia was dead. Now you must understand that I didn't think Wynant had killed her--not for a minute. You can understand that--you still don't think he did. So when I went over there and the police began to ask me questions about him and I could see they suspected him, I did what ninety-nine out of a hundred lawyers would've done for their clients--I said nothing about having seen him in that neighborhood at about the time that the murder must have been committed. I told them what I told you--about having the date with him and him not showing up--and let them understand that I had gone over to Hermann's straight from the Plaza."

 

 

"That's understandable enough," I agreed. "There was no sense in your saying anything until you had heard his side of the story."

 

 

"Exactly and, well, the catch is I never heard his side of the story. I'd expected him to show up, phone me, something, but he didn't--until Tuesday, when I got that letter from him from Philadelphia, and there was not a word in it about his failure to meet me Friday, nothing about--but you saw the letter. What'd you think of it?"

 

 

"You mean did it sound guilty?"

 

 

"Yes."

 

 

"Not particularly," I said. "It's about what could be expected from him if he didn't kill her--no great alarm over the police suspecting him except as it might interfere with his work, a desire to have it all cleaned up with no inconvenience to him--not too bright a letter to have come from anybody else, but in line with his particular form of goofiness. I can see him sending it off without the faintest notion that the best thing he could do would be to account for his own actions on the day of the murder. How sure are you he was coming from Julia's when you saw him?"

 

 

"I'm sure now. I thought it likely at first. Then I thought he may have been to his shop. It's on First Avenue, just a few blocks from where I saw him, and, though it's been closed since he went away, we renewed the lease last month and everything's there waiting for him to come back to it, and he could have been there that afternoon. The police couldn't find anything there to show whether he had or hadn't."

 

 

"I meant to ask you: there was some talk about his having grown whiskers. Was he--"

 

 

"No--the same long bony face with the same ragged near-white mustache."

 

 

"Another thing: there was a fellow named Nunheim killed yesterday, a small--"

 

 

"I'm coming to that," he said.

 

 

"I was thinking about the little fellow you thought might be shadowing you."

 

 

Macaulay stared at me. "You mean that might've been Nunheim?"

 

 

"I don't know. I was wondering."

 

 

"And I don't know," he said. "I never saw Nunheim, far as I--"

 

 

"He was a little fellow, not more than five feet three, and would weigh maybe a hundred and twenty. I'd say he was thirty-five or -six. Sallow, dark hair and eyes, withi the eyes set pretty close together, big mouth, long limp nose, bat-wing ears--shifty-looking."

 

 

"That could easily be him," he said, "though I didn't get too close a view of my man. I suppose the police would let me see him"--he shrugged--"not that it matters now. Where was I? Oh, yes, about not being able to get in touch with Wynant. That put me in an uncomfortable position, since the police clearly thought I was in touch with him and lying about it. So did you, didn't you?"

 

 

"Yes," I admitted.

 

 

"And you also, like the police, probably suspected that I had met him, either at the Plaza or later, on the day of the murder."

 

 

"It seemed possible."

 

 

"Yes. And of course you were partly right. I had at least seen him, and seen him at a place and time that would've spelled Guilty with a capital G to the police, so, having lied instinctively and by inference, I now lied directly and deliberately. Herrnann had been tied up in a conference all that afternoon and didn't know how long I had been waiting to see him. Louise Jacobs is a good friend of mine. Without going into details, I told her she could help me help a client by saying I had arrived there at a minute or two after three o'clock and she agreed readily enough. To protect her in case of trouble, I told her that if anything went wrong she could always say that she hadn't remembered what time I arrived, but that I, the next day, had casually mentioned my arrival at that time and she had no reason for doubting me--throwing the whole thing on me." Macaulay took a deep breath. "None of that's important now. What's important is that I heard from Wynant this morning."

 

 

"Another one of those screwy letters?" I asked.

 

 

"No, he phoned. I made a date with him for tonight--for you and me. I told him you wouldn't do anything for him unless you could see him, so he promised to meet us tonight. I'm going to take the police, of course. I can't go on justifying my shielding him like this. I can get him an acquittal on grounds of insanity and have him put away. That's all I can do, all I want to do."

 

 

"Have you told the police yet?"

 

 

"No. He didn't phone till just after they'd left. Anyway, I wanted to see you first. I wanted to tell you I hadn't forgotten what I owed you and--"

 

 

"Nonsense," I said.

 

 

"It's not." He turned to Nora. "I don't suppose he ever told you he saved my life once in a shell-hole in--"

 

 

"He's nuts," I told her. "He fired at a fellow and missed and I fired at him and didn't and that's all there was to it." I addressed him again: "Why don't you let the police wait awhile? Suppose you and I keep this date tonight and hear what he's got to say. We can sit on him and blow whistles when the meeting's about to break up if we're convinced he's the murderer."

 

 

Macaulay smiled wearily. "You're still doubtful, aren't you? Well, I'm willing to do it that way if you want, though it seems like a-- But perhaps you'll change your mind when I tell you about our telephone conversation."

 

 

Dorothy, wearing a nightgown and a robe of Nora's, both much too long for her, came in yawning. "Oh!" she exclaimed when she saw Macaulay, and then, when she had recognized him, "Oh, hello, Mr. Macaulay. I didn't know you were here. Is there any news of my father?"

 

 

He looked at me. I shook my head. He told her: "Not yet, but perhaps we'll have some today."

 

 

I said: "Dorothy's had some, indirectly. Tell Macaulay about Gilbert."

 

 

"You mean about--about my father?" she asked hesitantly, staring at the floor.

 

 

"Oh, dear me, no," I said.

 

 

Her face flushed and she glanced reproachfully at me; then, hastily, she told Macaulay: "Gil saw my father yesterday and he told Gil who killed Miss Wolf."

 

 

"What?"

 

 

She nodded four or five times, earnestly.

 

 

Macaulay looked at me with puzzled eyes.

 

 

"This doesn't have to've happened," I reminded him. "It's what Gil says happened."

 

 

"I see. Then you think he might be--?"

 

 

"You haven't done much talking to that family since hell broke loose, have you?" I asked.

 

 

"No."

 

 

"It's an experience. They're all sex-crazy, I think, and it backs up into their heads. They start off--"

 

 

Dorothy said angrily: "I think you're horrid. I've done my best to--"

 

 

"What are you kicking about?" I demanded. "I'm giving you the break this time: I'm willing to believe Gil did tell you that. Don't expect too much of me."

 

 

Macaulay asked: "And who killed her?"

 

 

"I don't know. Gil wouldn't tell me."

 

 

"Had your brother seen him often?"

 

 

"I don't know how often. He said he had been seeing him."

 

 

"And was anything said--well--about the man Nunheim?"

 

 

"No. Nick asked me that. He didn't tell me anything else at all."

 

 

I caught Nora's eye and made signals. She stood up saying: "Let's go in the other room, Dorothy, and give these lads a chance to do whatever it is they think they're doing."

 

 

Dorothy went reluctantly, but she went out with Nora.

 

 

Macaulay said: "She's grown up to be something to look at." He cleared his throat. "I hope your wife won't--"

 

 

"Forget it. Nora's all right. You started to tell me about your conversation with Wynant."

 

 

"He phoned right after the police left and said he'd seen the ad in the Times and wanted to know what I wanted. I told him you weren't anxious to get yourself mixed up in his troubles and had said you wouldn't touch it at all without talking it over with him first, and we made the date for tonight. Then he asked if I'd seen Mimi and I told him I'd seen her once or twice since her return from Europe and had also seen his daughter. And then he said this: 'If my wife should ask for money, give her any sum in reason.'"

 

 

"I'll be damned," I said.

 

 

Macaulay nodded. "That's the way I felt about it. I asked him why and he said what he'd read in the morning papers had convinced him that she was Rosewater's dupe, not his confederate, and he had reason to believe she was 'kindly disposed' towards him, Wynant. I began to see what he was up to, then, and I told him she had already turned the knife and chain over to the police. And try to guess what he said to that."

 

 

"I give up."

 

 

"He hemmed and hawed a bit--not much, mind you--and then as smooth as you like asked: 'You mean the chain and knife on the watch I left with Julia to be repaired?'"

 

 

I laughed. "What'd you say?"

 

 

"That stumped me. Before I could think up an answer he was saying: 'However, we can discuss that more fully when we meet tonight.' I asked him where and when we'd meet him and he said he'd have to phone me, he didn't know where he'd be. He's to phone me at my house at ten o'clock. He was in a hurry now, though he had seemed leisurely enough before, and hadn't time to answer any of the things I wanted to ask, so he hung up and I phoned you. What do you think of his innocence now?"

 

 

"Not as much as I did," I replied slowly. "How sure are you of hearing from him at ten tonight?"

 

 

Macaulay shrugged. "You know as much about that as I do."

 

 

"Then if I were you I wouldn't bother the police till we've grabbed our wihd man and can turn him over to them. This story of yours isn't going to make them exactly love you and, even if they don't throw you in the can right away, they'll make things pretty disagreeable for you if Wynant gives us a run-around tonight."

 

 

"I know, but I'd like to get the load off my shoulders."

 

 

"A few hours more oughtn't to matter much," I said. "Did either of you say anything about his not keeping the date at the Plaza?"

 

 

"No. I didn't get a chance to ask him. Well, if you say wait, I'll wait, but--"

 

 

"Let's wait till tonight, anyhow, till he phones you--if he does--and then we can make up our minds whether to take the police along."

 

 

"You don't think he'll phone?"

 

 

"I'm not too sure," I said. "He didn't keep his last date with you, and he seems to have gone pretty vague on you as soon as he learned that Mimi had turned in the watch-chain and knife. I wouldn't be too optimistic about it. We'll see, though. I'd better get out to your house at about nine o'clock, hadn't I?"

 

 

"Come for dinner."

 

 

"I can't, but I'll make it as early as I can, in case he's ahead of time. We'll want to move fast. Where do you live?"

 

 

Macaulay gave me his address, in Scarsdale, and stood up. "Will you say good-by to Mrs. Charles for me and thank-- Oh, by the way, I hope you didn't misunderstand me about Harrison Quinn last night. I meant only just what I said, that I'd had bad luck taking his advice on the market. I didn't mean to insinuate that there was anything--you know--or that he might not've made money for his other customers."

 

 

 

"I understand," I said, and called Nora.

 

 

She and Macaulay shook hands and made polite speeches to each other and he pushed Asta around a little and said, "Make it as early as you can," to me and went away.

 

 

"There goes the hockey game," I said, "unless you find somebody else to go with."

 

 

"Did I miss anything?" Nora asked.

 

 

"Not much." I told her what Macaulay had told me. "And don't ask me what I think of it. I don't know. I know Wynant's crazy, but he's not acting like a crazy man and he's not acting like a murderer. He's acting like a man playing some kind of game. God only knows what the game is."

 

 

"I think," she said, "that he's shielding somebody else."

 

 

"Why don't you think he did it?"

 

 

She looked surprised. "Because you don't."

 

 

I said that was a swell reason. "Who is the somebody else?"

 

 

"I don't know yet. Now don't make fun of me: I've thought about it a lot. It wouldn't be Macaulay, because he's using him to help shield whoever it is and--"

 

 

"And it wouldn't be me," I suggested, "because he wants to use me."

 

 

"That's right," she said, "and you're going to feel very silly if you make fun of me and then I guess who it is before you do. And it wouldn't be either Mimi or Jorgensen, because he tried to throw suspicion on them. And it wouldn't be Nunheim, because he was most likely killed by the same person and, furthermore, wouldn't have to be shielded now. And it wouldn't be Morelli, because Wynant was jealous of him and they'd had a row." She frowned at me. "I wish you'd found out more about that big fat man they called Sparrow and that big red-haired woman."

 

 

"But how about Dorothy and Gilbert?"

 

 

"I wanted to ask you about them. Do you think he's got any very strong paternal feeling for them?"

 

 

"No."

 

 

"You're probably just trying to discourage me," she said. "Well, knowing them, it's hard to think either of them might've been guilty, but I tried to throw out my personal feelings and stick to logic. Before I went to sleep last night I made a list of all the--"

 

 

"There's nothing like a little logic-sticking to ward off insomnia. It's like--"

 

 

"Don't be so damned patronizing. Your performance so far has been a little less than dazzling."

 

 

"I didn't mean no harm," I said and kissed her. "That a new dress?"

 

 

"Ah! Changing the subject, you coward."

 

 

 

 

 

27

 

 

 

 

I went to see Guild early in the afternoon and went to work on him as soon as we had shaken hands. "I didn't bring my lawyer along. I thought it looked better if I came by myself."

 

 

He wrinkled his forehead and shook his head as if I had hurt him. "Now it was nothing like that," he said patiently.

 

 

"It was too much like that."

 

 

He sighed. "I wouldn't've thought you'd make the mistake that a lot of people make thinking just because we-- You know we got to look at every angle, Mr. Charles."

 

 

"That sounds familiar. Well, what do you want to know?"

 

 

"All I want to know is who killed her--and him."

 

 

"Try asking Gilbert," I suggested.

 

 

Guild pursed his lips. "Why him exactly?"

 

 

"He told his sister he knew who did it, told her he got it from Wynant."

 

 

"You mean he's been seeing the old man?"

 

 

"So she says he said. I haven't had a chance to ask him about it."

 

 

He squinted his watery eyes at me. "Just what is that lay-out over there, Mr. Charles?"

 

 

"The Jorgensen family? You probably know as much about it as I do."

 

 

"I don't," he said, "and that's a fact. I just can't size them up at all. This Mrs. Jorgensen, now, what is she?"

 

 

"A blonde."

 

 

He nodded gloomily. "Uh-huh, and that's all I know. But look,. you've known them a long time and from what she says you and her--"

 

 

"And me and her daughter," I said, "and me and Julia Wolf and me and Mrs. Astor. I'm hell with the women."

 

 

He held up a hand. "I'm not saying I believe everything she says, and there's nothing to get sore about. You're taking the wrong attitude, if you don't mind me saying it. You're acting like you thought we were out to get you, and that's all wrong, absolutely all wrong."

 

 

"Maybe, but you've been talking double to me ever since last--" He looked at me with steady pale eyes and said calmly: "I'm a copper and I got my work to do."

 

 

"That's reasonable enough. You told me to come in today. What do you want?"

 

 

"I didn't tell you to come in, I asked you."

 

 

"All right. What do you want?"

 

 

"I don't want this," he said. "I don't want anything like this. We've 'been talking man to man up to this time and I'd kind of like to go on thataway."

 

 

"You made the change."

 

 

"I don't think that's a fact. Look here, Mr. Charles, would you take your oath, or even just tell me straight out, that you've been emptying your pockets to me right along?"

 

 

There was no use saying yes--he would not have believed me. I said: "Practically."

 

 

"Practically, yes," he grumbled. "Everybody's been telling me practically the whole truth. 'What I want's some impractical son of a gun that'll shoot the works."

 

 

I could sympathize with him: I knew how he felt. I said: "Maybe nobody you've found knows the whole truth."

 

 

He made an unpleasant face. "That's very likely, ain't it? Listen, Mr. Charles, I've talked to everybody I could find. If you can find any more for me, I'll talk to them too. You mean Wynant? Don't you suppose we got every facility the department's got working night and day trying to turn him up?"

 

 

"There's his son," I suggested.

 

 

"There's his son," he agreed. He called in Andy and a swarthy bowlegged man named Kline. "Get me that Wynant kid--the punk--I want to talk to him." They went out. He said: "See, I want people to talk to."

 

 

I said: "Your nerves are in pretty bad shape this afternoon, aren't they? Are you bringing Jorgensen down from Boston?"

 

 

He shrugged his big shoulders. "His story listens all right to we. I don't know. Want to tell me what you think of it?"

 

 

"Sure."

 

 

"I'm kind of jumpy this afternoon, for a fact," he said. "I didn't get a single solitary wink of sleep last night. It's a hell of a life. I don't know why I stick at it. A fellow can get a piece of land and some wire fencing and a few head of silver fox and-- Well, anyways, when you people scared Jorgensen off back in '25, he says he hit out for Germany, leaving his wife in the lurch--though he don't say much about that--and changing his name to give you more trouble finding him, and on the same account he's afraid to work at his regular job--he calls himself some kind of a technician or something--so pickings are kind of slim. He says he worked at one thing and another, whatever he could get, but near as I can figure out he was mostly gigohoing, if you know what I mean, and not finding too many heavy-money dames. Well, along about '27 or '28 he's in Milan--that's a 'city in Italy--and he sees in the Paris Herald where this Mimi, recently divorced wife of Clyde Miller Wynant, has arrived in Paris. He don't know her personally and she don't know him, but he knows she's a dizzy blonde that likes men and fun and hasn't got much sense. He figures a bunch of Wynant's dough must've come to her with the divorce and, the way he looks at it, any of it he could take away from her wouldn't be any more than what Wynant had gypped him out of--he'd only be getting some of what belonged to him. So he scrapes up the fare to Paris and goes up there. All right so far?"

 

 

"Sounds all right."

 

 

"That's what I thought. Well, he don't have any trouble getting to know her in Paris--either picking her up or getting somebody to introduce him or whatever happened--and the rest of it's just as easy. She goes. for him in a big way--bing, according to him--right off the bat, and the first thing you know she's one jump ahead of him, she's thinking about marrying him. Naturally he don't try to talk her out of that. She'd gotten a lump sum--two hundred thousand berries, by God!--out of Wynant instead of alimony, so her marrying again wasn't stopping any payments, and it'll put him right in the middle of the cash-drawer. So they do it. According to him, it was a trick marriage up in some mountains he says are between Spain and France and was done by a Spanish priest on what was really French soil, which don't make it legal, but I figure he's just trying to discourage a bigamy rap. Personally, I don't care one way or the other. The point is he got his hands on the dough and kept them on it till there wasn't any more dough. And all this time, understand, he says she didn't know he was anybody but Christian Jorgensen, a fellow she met in Paris, and still didn't know it up to the time we grabbed him in Boston. Still sound all right?"

 

 

"Still sounds all right," I said, "except, as you say, about the marriage, and even that could be all right."

 

 

"Uh-huh, and what difference does it make anyways? So comes the winter and the bank-roll's getting skinny and he's getting ready to take a run-out on her with the last of it, and then she says maybe they could come back to America and tap Wynant for some more. He thinks that's fair enough if it can be done, and she thinks it can be done, so they get on a boat and--"

 

 

"The story cracks a little there," I said.

 

 

"What makes you think so? He's not figuring on going to Boston, where he knows his first wife is, and he's figuring on keeping out of the way of the few people that know him, including especially Wynant, and somebody's told him there's a statute of limitation making everything just lovely after seven years. He don't figure he's running much risk. They ain't going to stay here long."

 

 

"I still don't like that pant of his story," I insisted, "but go ahead."

 

 

"Well, the second day he's here--while they're still trying to find Wynant--he gets a bad break. He runs into a friend of his first wife's-- this Olga Fenton--on the street and she recognizes him. He tries to talk her out of tipping off the first wife and does manage to stall her along a couple days with a moving-picture story he makes up--what an imagination that guy's got!--but he don't fool her long, and she goes to her parson and tells him about it and asks him what she ought to do and he says she ought to tell the first wife, and so she does, and the next tinie she sees Jorgensen she tells him what she'd done, and he lights out for Boston to try to keep his wife from kicking up trouble and we pick him up there."

 

 

"How about his visit to the hock-shop?" I asked.

 

 

"That was part of it. He says there was a train for Boston leaving in a few minutes and he didn't have any dough with him and didn't have time to go home for some--besides not being anxious to face the second wife till he had the first one quieted down--and the banks were closed, so he soaked his watch. It checks up."

 

 

"Did you see the watch?"

 

 

"I can. Why?"

 

 

"I was wondering. You don't think it was once on the other end of that piece of chain Mimi turned over to you?"

 

 

He sat up straight. "By God!" Then he squinted at me suspiciously and asked: "Do you know anything about it or are you--"

 

 

"No. I was just wondering. What does he say about the murders 'now? Who does he think did them?"

 

 

"Wynant. He admits for a while he thought Mimi might've, but he says she convinced him different. He claims she wouldn't tell him what 'she had on Wynant. He might be just trying to cover himself up on that. I don't guess there's any doubt about them meaning to use it to shake him down for that money they wanted."

 

 

"Then you don't think she planted the knife and chain?"

 

 

Guild pulled down the ends of his mouth. "She could've planted them to shake him down with. What's wrong with that?"

 

 

"It's a little complicated for a fellow like me," I said. "Find out, if Face Peppler's still in the Ohio pen?"

 

 

"Uh-huh. He gets out next week. That accounts for the diamond ring. He had a pal of his on the outside send it to her for him. Seems they were planning to get married and go straight together after he got out, or some such. Anyways, the warden says he saw letters passing between them reading hike that. This Peppler won't tell the warden that he knows anything that'll help us, and the warden don't call to mind anything that was in their letters that's any good to us. Of course, even this much helps some, with the motive. Say Wynant's jealous and she's wearing this other guy's ring and getting ready to go away with him. That'll--" he broke off to answer his telephone. "Yes," he said into it. "Yes. . . What? . . . Sure. . . . Sure, but leave somebody there. . . . That's night." He pushed the telephone aside. "Another bum steer on that West Twentyninth Street killing yesterday."

 

 

"Oh," I said. "I thought I heard Wynant's name. You know how some telephone voices carry."

 

 

He blushed, cleared his throat. "Maybe something sounded like it--why not, I guess. Uh-huh, that could sound like it--why not. I almost forgot: we hooked up that fellow Sparrow for you."

 

 

"What'd you find out?"

 

 

"It looks like there's nothing there for us. His name's Jim Brophy. It figures out that he was making a play for that girl of Nunheim's and she was sore at you and he was just drunk enough to think he could put himself in solid with her by taking a poke at you."

 

 

"A nice idea," I said. "I hope you didn't make any trouble for Studsy."

 

 

"A friend of yours? He's an ex-con, you know, with a record as long as your arm."

 

 

"Sure. I sent him over once." I started to gather up my hat and overcoat. "You're busy. I'll run along and--"

 

 

"No, no," he said. "Stick around if you got the time. I got a couple things coming in that'll maybe interest you, and you can give me a hand with that Wynant kid, too, maybe."

 

 

I sat down again.

 

 

"Maybe you'd like a drink," he suggested, opening a drawer of his desk, but I had never had much luck with policemen's liquor, so I said: "No, thanks."

 

 

His telephone rang again and he said into it: "Yes. . . . Yes. . That's all right. Come on in." This time no words leaked out to me.

 

 

He rocked back in his chair and put his feet on his desk. "Listen, I'm on the level about that silver fox farming and I want to ask you what you think of California for a place."

 

 

 

I was trying to decide whether to tell him about the lion and ostrich farms in the lower part of the state when the door opened and a fat redhaired man brought Gilbert Wynant in. One of Gilbert's eyes was completely shut by swollen flesh around it and his left knee showed through a tear in his pants-leg.

 

 

 

 

 

28

 

 

 

 

I said to Guild: "When you say bring 'em in, they bring 'em in, don't they?"

 

 

"Wait," he told me. "This is more'n you think." He addressed the fat red-haired man: "Go ahead, Flint, let's have it."

 

 

Flint wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. "He's a wildcat for fair, the young fellow. He don't hook tough, but, man, he didn't want to 'come along, I can tell you that. And can he run!"

 

 

Guild growled: "You're a hero and I'll see the Commissioner about your medal right away, but never mind that now. Talk turkey."

 

 

"I wasn't saying I did anything great," Flint protested. "I was just--"

 

 

"I don't give a damn what you did," Guild said. "I want to know what he did."

 

 

"Yes, sir, I was getting to that. I relieved Morgan at eight o'clock this morning and everything went along smooth and quiet as per usual, with not a creature was stirring, as the fellow says, till along about ten minutes after two, and then what do I hear but a key in the lock." He sucked in his lips and gave us a chance to express our amazement.

 

 

"The Wolf dame's apartment," Guild explained to me. "I had a hunch."

 

 

"And what a hunch!" Flint exclaimed, practically top-heavy with admiration. "Man, what a hunch!" Guild glared at him and he went on hastily: "Yes, sir, a key, and then the door opens and this young fellow comes in." He grinned proudly, affectionately, at Gilbert. "Scared stiff, he looked, and when I went for him he was out and away like a streak and it wasn't till the first floor that I caught him, and then, by golly, he put up a tussle and I had to bat him in the eye to tone him down. He don't look tough, but--"

 

 

"What'd he do in the apartment?" Guild asked.

 

 

"He didn't have a chance to do nothing. I--"

 

 

"You mean you jumped him without waiting to see what he was up to?" Guild's neck bulged over the edge of his collar, and his face was as red as Flint's hair.

 

 

"I thought it was best not to take no chances."

 

 

Guild stared at me with angry incredulous eyes. I did my best to keep my face blank. He said in a choking voice: "That'll do, Flint. Wait outside."

 

 

The red-haired man seemed puzzled. He said, "Yes, sir," slowly. "Here's his key." He put the key on Guild's desk and went to the door. There he twisted his head over a shoulder to say: "He claims he's Clyde Wynant's son." He laughed merrily.

 

 

Guild, still having trouble with his voice, said: "Oh, he does, does he?"

 

 

"Yeah. I seen him somewhere before. I got an idea he used to belong to Big Shorty Dohan's mob. Seems to me I used to see him around--"

 

 

"Get out!" Guild snarled, and Flint got out. Guild groaned from deep down in his big body. "That mugg gets me. Big Shorty Dolan's mob. Christ." He shook his head hopelessly and addressed Gilbert: "Well, son?"

 

 

Gilbert said: "I know I shouldn't've done it."

 

 

"That's a fair start," Guild said genially. His face was becoming normal again. "We all make mistakes. Pull yourself up a chair and let's see what we can do about getting you out of the soup. Want anything for that eye?"

 

 

"No, thank you, it's quite all right." Gilbert moved a chain two or three inches towards Guild and sat down.

 

 

"Did that bum smack you just to be doing something?"

 

 

"No, no, it was my fault. I--I did resist."

 

 

"Oh, well," Guild said, "nobody likes to be arrested, I guess. Now what's the trouble?"

 

 

Gilbert looked at me with his one good eye.

 

 

"You're in as bad a hole as Lieutenant Guild wants to put you," I told him. "You'll make it easy for yourself by making it easy for him."

 

 

Guild nodded earnestly. "And that's a fact." He settled himself comfortably in his chair and asked, in a friendly tone: "WThere'd you get the key?"

 

 

"My father sent it to me in his letter." He took a white envelope from his pocket and gave it to Guild.

 

 

I went around behind Guild and looked at the envelope over his shoulder. The address was typewritten, Mr. Gilbert Wynant, The Courtland, and there was no postage stamp stuck on it.

 

 

"When'd you get it?" I asked.

 

 

"It was at the desk when I got in last night, around ten o'clock. I didn't ask the clerk how long it had been there, but I don't suppose it was there when I went out with you, or they'd have given it to me."

 

 

Inside the envelope were two sheets of paper covered with the familiar unskillful typewriting. Guild and I read together:

 

 

 

 

Dear Gilbert:

 

 

   If all these years have gone by without my having

 

 

communicated with you, it is only because your mother

 

 

wished it so and if now I break this silence with a

 

 

request for your assistance it is because only great

 

 

need could make me go against your mother's wishes. Also

 

 

you are a man now and I feel that you yourself are the

 

 

one to decide whether or not we should go on being strangers

 

 

or whether we should act in accordance with our ties of

 

 

blood. That I am in an embarrassing situation now in

 

 

connection with Julia Wolf's so-called murder I think you

 

 

know and I trust that you still have remaining enough

 

 

affection for me to at least hope that I am in all ways

 

 

guiltless of any complicity therein, which is indeed the

 

 

case. I turn to you now for help in demonstrating my innocence

 

 

once and for all to the police and to the world with every

 

 

confidence that even could I not count on your affection for

 

 

me I nevertheless could count on your natural desire to do

 

 

anything within your power to keeji unblemished the name that

 

 

is yours and your sister's as well as your Father's. I turn to

 

 

you also because while I have a lawyer who is able and who

 

 

believes in my innocence and who is leaving no stone unturned

 

 

to prove it and have hopes of engaging Mr. Nick Charles to

 

 

assist him I cannot ask either of them to undertake what is

 

 

after all a patently illegal act nor do I know anybody else

 

 

except you that I dare confide in. What I wish you to do is

 

 

this, tomorrow go to Julia Wolf's apartment at 411 East 54th St.

 

 

to which the enclosed key will admit you and between the pages

 

 

of a book called The Grand Manner you will find a certain paper

 

 

or statement which you are to read and destroy immediately.

 

 

You are to be sure you destroy it completely leaving not so much

 

 

as an ash and when you have read it you will know why this must

 

 

be done and will understand why I have entrusted this task to

 

 

you. In the event that something should develop to make a

 

 

change in our plans advisable I will call you on the telephone

 

 

late tonight. If you do not hear from me I will telephone you

 

 

tomorrow evening to learn if you have carried out my instructions

 

 

and to make arrangements for a meeting. I have every confidence

 

 

that you will realize the tremendous responsibility I am placing

 

 

on your shoulders and that my confidence is not misplaced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Affectionately,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Father

 

 

 

 

Wynant's sprawling signature was written in ink beneath "Your Father."

 

 

Guild waited for me to say something. I waited for him. After a little of that he asked Gilbert: "And did he phone?"

 

 

"No, sir."

 

 

"How do you know?" I asked. "Didn't you tell the operator not to put any calls through?"

 

 

"I--yes, I did. I was afraid you'd find out who it was if he called up while you were there, but he'd've left some kind of message with the operator, I think, and he didn't."

 

 

"Then you haven't been seeing him?"

 

 

"No."

 

 

"And he didn't tell you who killed Julia Wolf?"

 

 

"No."

 

 

"You were lying to Dorothy?"

 

 

He lowered his head and nodded at the floor. "I was--it was--I suppose it was jealousy really." He looked up at me now and his face was pink. "You see, Dorry used to look up to me and think I knew more than anybody else about almost everything and--you know--she'd come to me if there was anything she wanted to know and she always did what I told her, and then, when she got to seeing you, it was different. She looked up to you and respected you more-- She naturally would, I mean, she'd've been silly if she hadn't, because there's no comparison, of course, but I--I suppose I was jealous and resented--well, not exactly resented it, because I looked up to you too--but I wanted to do something to impress her again--show off, I guess you'd call it--and when I got that letter I pretended I'd been seeing my father and he'd told me who committed those murders, so she'd think I knew things even you didn't." He stopped, out of breath, and wiped his face with a handkerchief.

 

 

I outwaited Guild again until presently he said: "Well, I guess there ain't been a great deal of harm done, sonny, if you're sure you ain't doing harm by holding back some other things we ought to know."

 

 

The boy shook his head. "No, sir, I'm not holding back anything."

 

 

"You don't know anything about that knife and chain your mother give us?"

 

 

"No, sir, and I didn't know a thing about it till after she had given it to you."

 

 

"How is she?" I asked.

 

 

"Oh, she's all right, I think, though she said she was going to stay in bed today."

 

 

Guild narrowed his eyes. "What's the matter with her?"

 

 

"Hysteria," I told him. "She and the daughter had a row last night and she blew up."

 

 

"A row about what?"

 

 

"God knows--one of those feminine brain-storms."

 

 

Guild said, "Hm-m-m," and scratched his chin.

 

 

"Was Flint right in saying you didn't get a chance to hunt for your paper?" I asked the boy.

 

 

"Yes. I hadn't even had time to shut the door when he ran at me."

 

 

"They're grand detectives I got working for me," Guild growled. "Didn't he yell, 'Boo!' when he jumped out at you? Never mind. Well, son, I can do one of two things, and the which depends on you. I can hold you for a while or I can let you go in exchange for a promise that you'll let me know as soon as your father gets in touch with you and let me know what he tells you and where he wants you to meet him, if any."

 

 

I spoke before Gilbert could speak: "You can't ask that of him, Guild. It's his own father."

 

 

"I can't, huh?" He scowled at me. "Ain't it for his father's good if he's innocent?"

 

 

I said nothing.

 

 

Guild's face cleared slowly. "All right, then, son, suppose I put you on a kind of parole. If your father or anybody else asks you to do anything, will you promise to tell them you can't because you give me your word of honor you wouldn't?"

 

 

The boy looked at me.

 

 

I said: "That sounds reasonable."

 

 

Gilbert said: "Yes, sir, I'll give you my word."

 

 

Guild made a large gesture with one hand. "Oke. Run along."

 

 

The boy stood up saying: "Thank you very much, sir." He turned to me. "Are you going to be--"

 

 

"Wait for me outside," I told him, "if you're not in a hurry."

 

 

"I will. Good-by, Lieutenant Guild, and thank you." He went out.

 

 

Guild grabbed his telephone and ordered The Grand Manner and its contents found and brought to him. That done, he clasped his hands behind his head and rocked back in his chair. "So what?"

 

 

"It's anybody's guess," I said.

 

 

"Look here, you don't still think Wynant didn't do it?"

 

 

"What difference does it make what I think? You've got plenty on him now with what Mimi gave you."

 

 

"It makes a lot of difference," he assured me. "I'd like a lot to know what you think and why."

 

 

"My wife thinks he's trying to cover up somebody else."

 

 

"Is that so? Hm-m-m. I was never one to belittle women's intuition and, if you don't mind me saying so, Mrs. Charles is a mighty smart woman. Who does she think it is?"

 

 

"She hadn't decided, the last I heard."

 

 

He sighed. "Well, maybe that paper he sent the kid for will tell us something."

 

 

But the paper told us nothing that afternoon: Guild's men could not find it, could not find a copy of The Grand Manner in the dead woman's rooms.

 

 

 

 

 

29

 

 

 

 

Guild had red-haired Flint in again and put the thumbscrews on him. The ned-haired man sweat away ten pounds, but he stuck to it that Gilbert had had no opportunity to disturb anything in the apartment and throughout Flint's guardianship nobody hadn't touched nothing. He did not remember having seen a book called The Grand Manner, but he was not a man you would expect to memorize book titles. He tried to be helpful and made idiotic suggestions until Guild chased him out.

 

 

"The kid's probably waiting for me outside," I said, "if you think talking to him again will do any good."

 

 

"Do you?"

 

 

"No."

 

 

"Well, then. But, by God, somebody took that book and I'm going to--"

 

 

"Why?" I asked.

 

 

"Why what?"

 

 

"Why'd it have to be there for somebody to take?"

 

 

Guild scratched his chin. "Just what do you mean by that?"

 

 

"He didn't meet Macaulay at the Plaza the day of the murder, he didn't commit suicide in Allentown, he says he only got a thousand from Julia Wolf when we thought he was getting five thousand, he says they were just friends when we think they were lovers, he disappoints us too much for me to have much confidence in what he says."

 

 

"It's a fact," Guild said, "that I'd understand it better if he'd either come in or run away. Him hanging around like this, just messing things up, don't fit in anywhcres that I can see."

 

 

"Are you watching his shop?"

 

 

"We're kind of keeping an eye on it. Why?"

 

 

"I don't know," I said truthfully, "except that he's pointed his finger at a lot of things that got us nowhere. Maybe we ought to pay some attention to the things he hasn't pointed at, and the shop's one of them."

 

 

Guild said: "Hm-m-m."

 

 

I said, "I'll leave you with that bright thought," and put on my hat and coat. "Suppose I wanted to get hold of you late at night, how would I reach you?"

 

 

He gave me his telephone number, we shook hands, and I left.

 

 

Gilbert Wynant was waiting for me in the corridor. Neither of us said anything until we were in a taxicab. Then he asked: "He thinks I was telling the truth, doesn't he?"

 

 

"Sure. Weren't you?"

 

 

"Oh, yes, but people don't always believe you. You won't say any-- thing to Mamma about this, will you?"

 

 

"Not if you don't want me to."

 

 

"Thank you," he said. "In your opinion, is there more opportunity for a young man out West than here in the East?"

 

 

I thought of him working on Guild's fox farm while I replied: "Not now. Thinking of going west?"

 

 

"I don't know. I want to do something." He fidgeted with his necktie. "You'll think it's a funny question: is there much incest?"

 

 

"There's some," I told him; "that's why they've got a name for it."

 

 

His face flushed.

 

 

I said: "I'm not making fun of you. It's one of the things nobody knows. There's no way of finding out."

 

 

We had a couple of blocks of silence after that. Then he said: "There's another funny question I'd like to ask you: what do you think of me?" He was more self-conscious about it than Alice Quinn had been.

 

 

"You're all right," I told him, "and you're all wrong."

 

 

He looked away, out the window. "I'm so awfully young."

 

 

We had some more silence. Then he coughed and a little blood trickled from one corner of his mouth.

 

 

"That guy did hurt you," I said.

 

 

He nodded shamefacedly and put his handkerchief to his mouth. "I'm not very strong."

 

 

At the Courtland he would not let me help him out of the taxicab and he insisted he could manage alone, but I went upstairs with him, suspecting that otherwise he would say nothing to anybody about his condition.

 

 

I rang the apartment bell before he could get his key out, and Mimi opened the door. She goggled at his black eye.

 

 

I said: "He's hurt. Get him to bed and get him a doctor."

 

 

"What happened?"

 

 

"Wynant sent him into something."

 

 

"Into what?"

 

 

"Never mind that until we get him fixed up."

 

 

"But Clyde was here," she said. "That's why I phoned you."

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"He was." She nodded vigorously. "And he asked where Gil was. He was here for an hour or more. He hasn't been gone ten minutes."

 

 

"All right, let's get him to bed."

 

 

Gilbert stubbornly insisted that he needed no help, so I left him in the bedroom with his mother and went out to the telephone.

 

 

"Any calls?" I asked Nora when I had her on the line.

 

 

"Yes, sir. Messrs. Macaulay and Guild want you to phone them, and Mesdames Jorgensen and Quinn want you to phone them. No childrep so far."

 

 

"When did Guild call?"

 

 

"About five minutes ago. Mind eating alone? Larry asked me to go see the new Osgood Perkins show with him."

 

 

"Go ahead. See you later."

 

 

I called up Herbert Macaulay.

 

 

"The date's off," he told me. "I heard from our friend and he's up to God knows what. Listen, Charles, I'm going to the police. I've had enough of it."

 

 

"I guess there's nothing else to do now," I said. "I was thinking about telephoning some policemen myself. I'm at Mimi's. He was here a few minutes ago. I just missed him."

 

 

"What was he doing there?"

 

 

"I'm going to try to find out now."

 

 

"Were you serious about phoning the police?"

 

 

"Sure."

 

 

"Then suppose you do that and I'll come on over."

 

 

"Right. Be seeing you."

 

 

I called up Guild.

 

 

"A little news came in right after you heft," he said. "Are you where I can give it to you?"

 

 

"I'm at Mrs. Jorgensen's. I had to bring the kid home. That red-head lad of yours has got him bleeding somewhere inside."

 

 

"I'll kill that mugg," he snarled. "Then I better not talk."

 

 

"I've got some news, too. Wynant was here for about an hour this afternoon, according to Mrs. Jorgensen, and left only a few minutes before I got here."

 

 

There was a moment of silence, then he said: "HoId everything. I'll be right up."

 

 

Mimi came into the living-room while I was looking up the Quinns' telephone number. "Do you think he's seriously hurt?" she asked.

 

 

"I don't know, but you ought to get your doctor right away." I pushed the telephone towards her. When she was through with it, I said: "I told the police Wynant had been here."

 

 

She nodded, "That's what I phoned you for, to ask if I ought to tell them."

 

 

"I phoned Macaulay, too. He's coming over."

 

 

"He can't do anything," she said indignantly. "Clyde gave them to me of his own free will--they're mine."

 

 

"What's yours?"

 

 

"Those bonds, the money."

 

 

"What bonds? what money?"

 

 

She went to the table and pulled the drawer out. "See?"

 

 

Inside were three packages of bonds held together by thick rubber bands. Across the top of them lay a pink check on the Park Avenue Trust Company to the order of Mimi Jorgensen for ten thousand dollars, signed Clyde Miller Wynant, and dated January 3, 1933.

 

 

"Dated five days ahead," I said. "What kind of nonsense is that?"

 

 

"He said he hadn't that much in his account and might not be able to make a deposit for a couple of days."

 

 

"There's going to be hell about this," I warned her. "I hope you're ready for it."

 

 

"I don't see why," she protested. "I don't see why my husband--my former husband--can't provide for me and his children if he wants to."

 

 

"Cut it out. What'd you sell him?"

 

 

"Sell him?"

 

 

"Uh-huh. What'd you promise to do in the next few days or he fixes it so the check's no good?"

 

 

She made an impatient face. "Really, Nick, I think you're a half-wit sometimes with your silly suspicions."

 

 

"I'm studying to be one. Three more lessons and I get my diploma. But remember I warned you yesterday that you'll probably wind up in--"

 

 

"Stop it," she cried. She put a hand over my mouth. "Do you have to keep saying that? You know it terrifies me and--" Her voice became soft and wheedling. "You must know what I'm going through these days, Nick. Can't you be a little kinder?"

 

 

"Don't worry about me," I said. "Worry about the police." I went back to the telephone and called up Alice Quinn. "This is Nick. Nora said you--"

 

 

"Yes. Have you seen Harrison?"

 

 

"Not since I left him with you."

 

 

"Well, if you do, you won't say anything about what I said last night, will you? I didn't mean it, really I didn't mean a word of it."

 

 

"I didn't think you did," I assured her, "and I wouldn't say anything about it anyway. How's he feeling today?"

 

 

"He's gone," she said.

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"He's gone. He's left me."

 

 

"He's done that before. He'll be back."

 

 

"I know, but I'm afraid this time. He didn't go to his office. I hope he's just drunk somewhere and--but this time I'm afraid. Nick, do you think he's really in hove with that girl?"

 

 

"He seems to think he is."

 

 

"Did he tell you he was?"

 

 

"That wouldn't mean anything."

 

 

"Do you think it would do any good to have a talk with her?"

 

 

"No."

 

 

"Why don't you? Do you think she's in love with him?"

 

 

"No."

 

 

"What's the matter with you?" she asked irritably.

 

 

"No, I'm not home."

 

 

"What? Oh, you mean you're some place where you can't talk?"

 

 

"That's it."

 

 

"Are you--are you at her house?"

 

 

"Yes."

 

 

"Is she there?"

 

 

"No."

 

 

"Do you think she's with him?"

 

 

"I don't know. I don't think so."

 

 

"Will you call me when you can talk, or, better still, will you come up to see me?"

 

 

"Sure," I promised, and we hung up.

 

 

Mimi was looking at me with amusement in her blue eyes. "Somebody's taking my brat's affairs seriously?" When I did not answer her, she laughed and asked: "Is Dorry still being the maiden in distress?"

 

 

"I suppose so."

 

 

"She will be, too, as long as she can get anybody to believe in it. And you, of all people, to be fooled, you who are afraid to believe that--well--that I, for instance, am ever telling the truth."

 

 

"That's a thought," I said. The doorbell rang before I could go on.

 

 

Mimi let the doctor in--he was a roly-poly elderly man with a stoop and a waddle--and took him in to Gilbert.

 

 

I opened the table-drawer again and looked at the bonds, Postal Telegraph & Cable 5s, Sao Paulo City 6½s, American Type Founders 6s, Certain-teed Products 5½s, Upper Austria 6½s, United Drugs 5s, Philippine Railway 4S, Tokio Ehectric Lighting 6s, about sixty thousand dollars at face value, I judged, and--guessing--between a quarter and a third of that at the market.

 

 

When the doorbell rang I shut the drawer and let Macaulay in.

 

 

He looked tired. He sat down without taking off his overcoat and said: "Well, tell me the worst. What was he up to here?"

 

 

"I don't know yet, except that he gave Mimi some bonds and a check."

 

 

"I know that." He fumbled in his pocket and gave me a letter:

 

 

 

 

Dear Herbert:

 

 

 

 

I am today giving Mrs. Mimi Jorgensen the securities

 

 

listed below and a ten thousand dollar check on the

 

 

Park Ave. Trust dated Jan. 3. Please arrange to have

 

 

sufficient money there on that date to cover it. I would

 

 

suggest that you sell some more of the public utility

 

 

bonds, but use your own judgment. I find that I cannot

 

 

spend any more time in New York at present and probably

 

 

will not be able to get back here for several months,

 

 

but will communicate with you from time to time. I am

 

 

sorry I will not be able to wait over to see you and

 

 

Charles tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yours truly,

 

 

 

 

 

Clyde Miller Wynant

 

 

 

 

Under the sprawling signature was a list of the bonds.

 

 

"How'd it come to you?" I asked.

 

 

"By messenger. What do you suppose he was paying her for?"

 

 

I shook my head. "I tried to find out. She said he was 'providing for her and his children.'"

 

 

"That's likely, as likely as that she'd tell the truth."

 

 

"About these bonds?" I asked. "I thought you had all his property in your hands."

 

 

"I thought so too, but I didn't have these, didn't know he had them." He put his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. "If all the things I don't know were laid end to end   

 

 

 

 

 

30

 

 

 

 

Mimi came in with the doctor, said, "Oh, how do you do," a little stiffly to Macaulay, and shook hands with him. "This is Doctor Grant, Mr. Macaulay, Mr. Charles."

 

 

"How's the patient?" I asked.

 

 

Doctor Grant cleared his throat and said he didn't think there was anything seriously the matter with Gilbert, effects of a beating, slight hemorrhage of course, should rest, though. He cleared his throat again and said he was happy to have met us, and Mimi showed him out.

 

 

"What happened to the boy?" Macaulay asked me.

 

 

"Wynant sent him on a wild-goose chase over to Julia's apartment and he ran into a tough copper."

 

 

Mimi returned from the door. "Has Mr. Charles told you about the bonds and the check?" she asked.

 

 

"I had a note from Mr. Wynant saying he was giving them to you," Macaulay said.

 

 

"Then there will be no--"

 

 

"Difficulty? Not that I know of."

 

 

She relaxed a little and her eyes lost some of their coldness. "I didn't see why there should be, but he"--pointing at me--"likes to frighten me."

 

 

Macaulay smiled politely. "May I ask whether Mr. Wynant said anything about his plans?"

 

 

"He said something about going away, but I don't suppose I was listening very attentively. I don't remember whether he told me when he was going on where."

 

 

I grunted to show skepticism; Macaulay pretended he believed her "Did he say anything that you could repeat to me about Julia Wolf, or about his difficulties, or about anything connected with the murder and all?" he asked.

 

 

She shook her head emphatically. "Not a word I could either repeat or couldn't, not a word at all. I asked him about it, but you know how unsatisfactory he can be when he wants. I couldn't get as much as a grunt out of him about it."

 

 

I asked the question Macaulay seemed too polite to ask: "What did he talk about?"

 

 

"Nothing, really, except ourselves and the children, particularly Gil. He was very anxious to see him and waited nearly an hour, hoping he'd come home. He asked about Dorry, but didn't seem very interested."

 

 

"Did he say anything about having written Gilbert?"

 

 

"Not a word. I can repeat our whole conversation, if you want me to. I didn't know he was coming, he didn't even phone from downstairs. The doorbell just rang and when I went to the door there he was, looking a lot older than when I'd seen him last and even thinner, and I said, 'Why Clyde!' or something like that, and he said: 'Are you alone?' I told him I was and he came in. Then he--"

 

 

The doorbell rang and she went to answer it.

 

 

"What do you think of it?" Macaulay asked in a low voice.

 

 

"When I start believing Mimi," I said, "I hope I have sense enough not to admit it."

 

 

She returned from the door with Guild and Andy. Guild nodded to me and shook hands with Macaulay, then turned to Mimi and said: "Well, ma'am, I'll have to ask you to tell--"

 

 

Macaulay interrupted him: "Suppose you let me tell what I have to tell first, Lieutenant. It belongs ahead of Mrs. Jorgensen's story and--"

 

 

Guild waved a big hand at the lawyer. "Go ahead." He sat down on an end of the sofa.

 

 

Macaulay told him what he had told me that morning. When he mentioned having told it to me that morning Guild glanced bitterly at me, once, and thereafter ignored me completely. Guild did not interrupt Macaulay, who told his story clearly and concisely. Twice Mimi started to say something, but each time broke off to listen. When Macaulay had finished, he handed Guild the note about the bonds and check. "That came by messenger this afternoon."

 

 

Guild read the note very carefully and addressed Mimi: "Now then, Mrs. Jorgensen."

 

 

She told him what she had told us about Wynant's visit, elaborating the details as he patiently questioned her, but sticking to her story that he had refused to say a word about anything connected with Julia Wolf or her murder, that in giving her the bonds and check he had simply said that he wished to provide for her and the children, and that though he had said he was going away she did not know where or when. She seemed not at all disturbed by everybody's obvious disbelief. She wound up smiling, saying: "He's a sweet man in a lot of ways, but quite mad."

 

 

"You mean he's really insane, do you?" Guild asked; "not just nutty?"

 

 

"Yes."

 

 

"What makes you think that?"

 

 

"Oh, you'd have to live with him to really know how mad he is," she replied airily.

 

 

Guild seemed dissatisfied. "What kind of clothes was he wearing?"

 

 

"A brown suit and brown overcoat and hat and I think brown shoes and a white shirt and a grayish necktie with either red or reddish brown figures in it."

 

 

Guild jerked his head at Andy. "Tell 'em."

 

 

Andy went out.

 

 

Guild scratched his jaw and frowned thoughtfully. The rest of us watched him. When he stopped scratching, he looked at Mimi and Macaulay, but not at me, and asked: "Any of you know anybody that's got the initials of D. W. Q.?"

 

 

Macauhay shook his head from side to side slowly. Mimi said: "No. Why?"

 

 

Guild looked at me now. "Well?"

 

 

"I don't know them."

 

 

"Why?" Mimi repeated.

 

 

Guild said: "Try to remember back. He'd most likely've had dealings with Wynant."

 

 

"How far back?" Macaulay asked.

 

 

"That's hard to say right now. Maybe a few months, maybe a few years. He'd be a pretty large man, big bones, big belly, and maybe lame."

 

 

Macaulay shook his head again. "I don't remember anybody like that."

 

 

"Neither do I," Mimi said, "but I'm bursting with curiosity. I wish you'd tell us what it's all about."

 

 

"Sure, I'll tell you." Guild took a cigar from his vest pocket, looked at it, and returned it to the pocket. "A dead man like that's buried under the floor of Wynant's shop."

 

 

I said: "Ah ."

 

 

Mimi put both hands to her mouth and said nothing. Her eyes were round and glassy.

 

 

Macaulay, frowning, asked: "Are you sure?"

 

 

Guild sighed. "Now you know that ain't something anybody would guess at," he said wearily.

 

 

Macaulay's face flushed and he smiled sheepishly. "That was a silly question. How did you happen to find him--it?"

 

 

"Well, Mn. Charles here kept hinting that we ought to pay more attention to that shop, so, figuring that Mr. Charles here is a man that's liable to know a lot more things than he tells anybody right out, I sent sonic men around this morning to see what they could find. We'd give it the once over before and hadn't turned up nothing, but this time I told 'em to take the dump apart, because Mr. Charles here had said we ought to pay more attention to it. And Mr. Charles here was right." He looked at me with cool unfriendliness. "By and by they found a corner of the cement floor looking a little newer maybe than the rest and they cracked it and there was the mortal remains of Mr. D. W. Q. What do you think of that?"

 

 

Macauhay said: "I think it was a damned good guess of Charles's." He turned to me. "How did you--"

 

 

Guild interrupted him. "1 don't think you ought to say that. 'When you call it just a guess, you ain't giving Mr. Charles here the proper credit for being as smart as he is."

 

 

Macaulay was puzzled by Guild's tone. He looked questioningly at me.

 

 

"I'm being stood in the corner for not telling Lieutenant Guild about our conversation this morning," I explained.

 

 

"There's that," Guild agreed calmly, "among other things."

 

 

Mimi laughed, and smiled apologetically at Guild when he stared at her.

 

 

"How was Mr. D. W. Q. killed?" I asked.

 

 

Guild hesitated, as if making up his mind whether to reply, then moved his big shoulders slightly and said: "I don't know yet, or how long ago. I haven't seen the remains yet, what there is of them, and the Medical Examiner wasn't through the last I heard."

 

 

"What there is of them?" Macaulay repeated.

 

 

"Uh-huh. He'd been sawed up in pieces and buried in lime or something so there wasn't much flesh left on him, according to the report I got, but his clothes had been stuck in with him rolled up in a bundle, and enough was left of the inside ones to tell us something. There was part of a cane, too, with a rubber tip. That's why we thought he might be lame, and we--" He broke off as Andy came in. "Well?"

 

 

Andy shook his head gloomily. "Nobody sees him come, nobody sees him go. What was that joke about a guy being so thin he had to stand in the same place twice to throw a shadow?"

 

 

I laughed--not at the joke--and said: "Wynant's not that thin, but he's thin enough, say as thin as the paper in that check and in those letters people have been getting."

 

 

"What's that?" Guild demanded, his face reddening, his eyes angry and suspicious.

 

 

"He's dead. He's been dead a long time except on paper. I'll give you even money they're his bones in the grave with the fat lame man's clothes."

 

 

Macaulay leaned towards me. "Are you sure of that, Charles?"

 

 

Guild snarled at me: "What are you trying to pull?"

 

 

"There's the bet if you want it. Who'd go to all that trouble with a corpse and then leave the easiest thing of all to get rid of--the clothes-- untouched unless they--"

 

 

"But they weren't untouched. They--"

 

 

"Of course not. That wouldn't look right. They'd have to be partly destroyed, only enough left to tell you what they were supposed to tell. I bet the initials were plenty conspicuous."

 

 

"I don't know," Guild said with less heat. "They were on a belt buckle."

 

 

I laughed.

 

 

Mimi said angrily: "That's ridiculous, Nick. How could that be Clyde? You know he was here this afternoon. You know he--"

 

 

"Sh-h-h. It's very silly of you to play along with him," I told her. "Wynant's dead, your children are probably his heirs, that's more money than you've got over there in the drawer. What do you want to take part of the loot for when you can get it all?"

 

 

"I don't know what you mean," she said. She was very pale.

 

 

Macauhay said: "Charles thinks Wynant wasn't here this afternoon and that you were given those securities and the check by somebody else, or perhaps stole them yourself. Is that it?" he asked me.

 

 

"Practically."

 

 

"But that's ridiculous," she insisted.

 

 

"Be sensible, Mimi," I said. "Suppose Wynant was killed three months ago and his corpse disguised as somebody else. He's supposed to have gone away leaving powers of attorney with Macaulay. All right, then, the estate's completely in Macaulay's hands for ever and ever, or at least until he finishes plundering it, because you can't even--"

 

 

Macaulay stood up saying: "I don't know what you're getting at, Charles, but I'm--"

 

 

"Take it easy," Guild told him. "Let him have his say out."

 

 

"He killed Wynant and he killed Julia and he killed Nunheim," I assured Mimi. "What do you want to do? Be next on the list? YOu pught to know damned well that once you've come to his aid by saying you've seen Wynant alive--because that's his weak spot, being the only person up to now who claims to have seen Wynant since October--he's not going to take any chances on having you change your mind--not when it's only a matter of knocking you off with the same gun and putting the blame on Wynant. And what are you doing it for? For those few crunimy bonds in the drawer, a fraction of what you get your hands on through your children if we prove Wynant's dead."

 

 

Mimi turned to Macaulay and said: "You son of a bitch."

 

 

Guild gaped at her, more surprised by that than by anything else that had been said.

 

 

Macaulay started to move. I did not wait to see what he meant to do, but slammed his chin with my left fist. The punch was all right, it landed solidly and dropped him, but I felt a burning sensation on my left side and knew I had torn the bullet-wound open.

 

 

"What do you want me to do?" I growled at Guild. "Put him in Cellophane for you?"

 

 

 

 

 

31

 

 

 

 

It was nearly three in the morning when I let myself into our apartment at the Normandie. Nora, Dorothy, and Larry Crowley were in the living-room, Nora and Larry playing backgammon, Dorothy reading a newspaper.

 

 

"Did Macaulay really kihi them?" Nora asked immediately.

 

 

"Yes. Did the morning papers have anything about Wynant?"

 

 

Dorothy said: "No, just about Macaulay being arrested. Why?"

 

 

"Macaulay killed him too."

 

 

Nora said, "Really?" Larry said, "I'll be damned." Dorothy began to cry. Nora looked at Dorothy in surprise.

 

 

Dorothy sobbed: "I want to go home to Mamma."

 

 

Larry said not very eagerly: "I'll be glad to take you home if . .

 

 

Dorothy said she wanted to go. Nora fussed over her, but did not try to talk her out of going. Larry, trying not to look too unwilling, found his hat and coat. He and Dorothy left.

 

 

Nora shut the door behind them and leaned against it. "Explain that to me, Mr. Charalambides," she said.

 

 

I shook my head.

 

 

She sat on the sofa beside me. "Now out with it. If you skip a single word, I'll--"

 

 

"I'd have to have a drink before I could do any talking."

 

 

She cursed me and brought me a drink. "Has he confessed?"

 

 

"Why should he? You can't plead guilty of murder in the first degree. There were too many murders--and at least two of them were too obviously done in cold blood--for the District Attorney to let him plead guilty of second-degree murder. There's nothing for him to do but fight it out."

 

 

"But he did commit them?"

 

 

"Sure."

 

 

She pushed my glass down from my mouth. "Stop stalling and tell me about it."

 

 

"Well, it figures out that he and Julia had been gypping Wynant for some time. He'd dropped a lot of money in the market and he'd found out about her past--as Morelli hinted--and the pair of them teamed up on the old man. We're sicking accountants on Macaulay's books and Wynant's and shouldn't have much trouble tracing some of the loot from one to the other."

 

 

"Then you don't know positively that he was robbing Wynant?"

 

 

"Sure we know. It doesn't click any other way. The chances are Wynant was going away on a trip the 3rd of October, because he did draw five thousand dollars out of the bank in cash, but he didn't close up his shop and give up his apartment. That was done by Macaulay a few days later. Wynant was killed at Macaulay's in Scarsdale on the night of the 3rd. We know that because on the morning of the 4th, when Macaulay's cook, who slept at home, came to work, Macaulay met her at the door with some kind of trumped-up complaint and two weeks' wages and fired her on the spot, not letting her in the house to find any corpses or bloodstains."

 

 

"How did you find that out? Don't skip details."

 

 

"Ordinary routine. Naturally after we grabbed him we went to his office and house to see what we could find out--you know, where-were-youon-the-night-of-June-6, 1894-stuff--and the present cook said she'd only been working for him since the 8th of October, and that led to that. We also found a table with a very faint trace of what we hope is human blood not quite scrubbed out. The scientific boys are making shavings of it now to see if they can soak out any results for us." (It turned out to be beef blood.)

 

 

"Then you're not sure he--"

 

 

"Stop saying that. Of course we're sure. That's the only way it clicks. Wynant had found out that Julia and Macaulay were gypping him and also thought, rightly or wrongly, that Julia and Macaulay were cheating on him--and we know he was jealous--so he went up there to confront him with whatever proof he had, and Macaulay, with prison looking him in the face, killed the old man. Now don't say we're not sure. It doesn't make any sense otherwise. Well, there he is with a corpse, one of the harder things to get rid of. Can I stop to take a swallow of whisky?"

 

 

"Just one," Nora said. "But this is just a theory, isn't it?"

 

 

"Call it any name you like. It's good enough for me."

 

 

"But I thought everybody was supposed to be considered innocent until they were proved guilty and if there was any reasonable doubt, they--"

 

 

"That's for juries, not detectives. You find the guy you think did the murder and you slam him in the can and let everybody know you think he's guilty and put his picture all over newspapers, and the District Attorney builds up the best theory he can on what information you've got and meanwhile you pick up additional details here and there, and people who recognize his picture in the paper--as well as people who'd think he was innocent if you hadn't arrested him--come in and tell you things about him and presently you've got him sitting on the electric chair." (Two days later a woman in Brooklyn identified Macaulay as a George Foley who for the past three months had been renting an apartment from her.)

 

 

"But that seems so loose."

 

 

"When murders are committed by mathematics," I said, "you can solve them by mathematics. Most of them aren't and this one wasn't. I don't want to go against your idea of what's right and wrong, but when I say he probably dissected the body so he could carry it into town in bags I'm only saying what seems most probable. That would be on the 6th of October or later, because it wasn't until then that he laid off the two mechanics Wynant had working in the shop--Prentice and McNaughton-- and shut it up. So he buried Wynant under the floor, buried him with a fat man's clothes and a lame man's stick and a belt marked D. W. Q., all arranged so they wouldn't get too much of the lime--or whatever he used to eat off the dead man's features and flesh--on them, and he re-cemented the floor over the grave. Between police routine and publicity we've got more than a fair chance of finding out where he bought or otherwise got the clothes and stick and the cement." (We traced the cement to him later--he had bought it from a coal and wood dealer uptown--but had no luck with the other things.)

 

 

"I hope so," she said, not too hopefully.

 

 

"So now that's taken care of. By renewing the lease on the shop and keeping it vacant--supposedly waiting for Wynant to return--he can make sure--reasonably sure--that nobody will discover the grave, and if it is accidentally discovered, then fat Mr. D. W. Q.--by that time Wynant's bones would be pretty bare and you can't tell whether a man was thin or fat by his skeleton--was murdered by Wynant, which explains why Wynant has made himself scarce. That taken care of, Macaulay forges the power of attorney and, with Julia's help, settles down to the business of gradually transferring the late Clyde's money to themselves. Now I'm going theoretical again. Julia doesn't like murder, and she's frightened, and he's not too sure she won't weaken on him. That's why he makes her break with Morelli--giving Wynant's jealousy as an excuse. He's afraid she might confide to Morelli in a weak moment and, as the time draws near for her still closer friend, Face Peppler, to get out of prison, he gets more and more worried. He's been safe there as long as Face stayed in, because she's not likely to put anything dangerous in a letter that has to pass through the warden's hands, but now . . . Well, he starts to plan, and then all hell breaks loose. Mimi and her children arrive and start hunting for Wynant and I come to town and am in touch with them and he thinks I'm helping them. He decides to play safe on Julia by putting her out of the way. Like it so far?"

 

 

"Yes, but . . ."

 

 

"It gets worse as it goes along," I assured her. "On his way here for lunch that day he stops and phones his office, pretending he's Wynant, and making that appointment at the Plaza, the idea being to establish Wynant's presence in town. When he leaves here he goes to the Plaza and asks people if they've seen Wynant, to make that plausible, and for the same reason phones his office to ask if any further word has come from Wynant, and phones Julia. She tells him she's expecting Mimi and she tells him Mimi thought she was lying when she said she didn't know where Wynant was, and Julia probably sounds pretty frightened. So he decides he's got to beat Mimi to the interview and he does. He beats it over there and kills her. He's a terrible shot. I saw him shoot during the war. It's likely he missed her with the first shot, the one that hit the telephone, and didn't succeed in killing her right away with the other four, but he probably thought she was dead, and, anyhow, he had to get out before Mimi arrived, so he dropped the piece of Wynant's chain that he had brought along as a clincher--and his having saved that for three months makes it look as if he'd intended killing her from the beginning--and scoots over to the engineer Hermann's office, where he takes advantage of the breaks and fixes himself up with an alibi. The two things he doesn't expect--couldn't very well have foreseen--are that Nunheim, hanging around trying to get at the girl, had seen him leave her apartment--may even have heard the shots--and that Mimi, with blackmail in her heart, was going to conceal the chain for use in shaking down her exhusband. That's why he had to go down to Philadelphia and send me that wire and the letter to himself and one to Aunt Alice later--if Mimi thinks Wynant's throwing suspicion on her she'll get mad enough to give the police the evidence she's got against him. Her desire to hurt Jorgensen nearly gummed that up, though. Macaulay, by the way, knew Jorgensen was Kelterman. Right after he killed Wynant he had detectives look Mimi and her family up in Europe--their interest in the estate made them potentially dangerous--and the detectives found out who Jorgensen was. We found the reports in Macaulay's files. He pretended he was getting the information for Wynant, of course. Then he started worrying about me, about my not thinking Wynant guilty and--"

 

 

"And why didn't you?"

 

 

"Why should he write letters antagonizing Mimi, the one who was helping him by holding back incriminating evidence? That's why I thought the chain had been planted when she did turn it in, only I was a little bit too willing to believe she had done the planting. Morelli worried Macaulay, too, because he didn't want suspicion thrown on anybody who might, in clearing themselves, throw it in the wrong direction. Mimi was all right, because she'd throw it back on Wynant, but everybody else was out. Suspicion thrown on Wynant was the one thing that was guaranteed to keep anybody from suspecting that Wynant was dead, and if Macaulay hadn't killed Wynant, then there was no reason for his having killed either of the others. The most obvious thing in the whole lay-out and the key to the whole lay-out was that Wynant had to be dead."

 

 

"You mean you thought that from the beginning?" Nora demanded, fixing me with a stern eye.

 

 

 

"No, darling, though I ought to be ashamed of myself for not seeing it, but once I heard there was a corpse under the floor, I wouldn't have cared if doctors swore it was a woman's, I'd have insisted it was Wynant's. It had to be. It was the one right thing."

 

 

"I guess you're awfully tired. That must be what makes you talk like this."

 

 

"Then he had Nunheim to worry about too. After pointing the finger at Morelli, just to show the police he was being useful, he went to see Macaulay. I'm guessing again, sweetheart. I had a phone-call from a man who called himself Albert Norman, and the conversation ended with a noise on his end of the wire. My guess is that Nunheim went to see Macaulay and demanded some dough to keep quiet and, when Macaulay tried to bluff him, Nunheim said he'd show him and called me up to make a date with me to see if I'd buy his information--and Macaulay grabbed the phone and gave Nunheim something, if only a promise, but when Guild and I had our little talk with Nunheim, and he ran out on us, then he phoned Macaulay and demanded real action, probably a lump sum, with a promise to beat it out of town, away from us meddling sleuths. We do know he called up that afternoon--Macaulay's telephone-operator remembers a Mr. Albert Norman calling up, and she remembers that Macaulay went out right after talking to him, so don't get snooty about this--uh--reconstruction of mine. Macaulay wasn't silly enough to think Nunheim was to be trusted even if he paid him, so he lured him down to this spot he had probably picked out ahead of time and let him have it--and that took care of that."

 

 

"Probably," Nora said.

 

 

"It's a word you've got to use a lot in this business. The letter to Gilbert was only for the purpose of showing that Wynant had a key to the girl's apartment, and sending Gilbert there was only a way of making sure that he'd fall into the hands of the police, who'd squeeze him and not let him keep the information about the letter and the key to himself. Then Mimi finally comes through with the watch-chain, but meanwhile another worry comes up. She's persuaded Guild to suspect me a little. I've an idea that when Macaulay came to me this morning with that hooey he intended to get me up to Scarsdale and knock me off, making me number three on the list of Wynant's victims. Maybe he just changed his mind, maybe he thought I was suspicious, too willing to go up there without policemen. Anyhow, Gilbert's lie about having seen Wynant gave him another idea. If he could get somebody to say they had seen Wynant and stick to it. . . Now this part we know definitely."

 

 

"Thank God."

 

 

"He went to see Mimi this afternoon--riding up two floors above hers and walking down so the elevator boys wouldn't remember having carried him to her floor--and made her a proposition. He told her there was no question about Wynant's guilt, but that it was doubtful if the police would ever catch him. Meanwhile he, Macaulay, had the whole estate in his hands. He couldn't take a chance on appropriating any of it, but he'd fix it so she could--if she would split with him. He'd give her these bonds he had in his pocket and this check, but she'd have to say that Wynant had given them to her and she'd have to send this note, which he also had, over to Macaulay as if from Wynant. He assured her that Wynant, a fugitive, could not show up to deny his gift, and, except for herself and her children, there was no one else who had any interest in the estate, any reason for questioning the deal. Mimi's not very sensible where she sees a chance to make a profit, so it was all 0. K. with her, and he had what he wanted--somebody who'd seen Wynant alive. He warned her that everybody would think Wynant was paying her for some service, but if she simply denied it there would be nothing anybody could prove."

 

 

"Then what he told you this morning about Wynant instructing him to give her any amount she asked for was simply in preparation?"

 

 

"Maybe, maybe it was an earlier fumbling towards that idea. Now are you satisfied with what we've got on him?"

 

 

"Yes, in a way. There seems to be enough of it, but it's not very neat."

 

 

"It's neat enough to send him to the chair," I said, "and that's all that counts. It takes care of all the angles and I can't think of any other theory that would. Naturally it wouldn't hurt to find the pistol, and the typewriter he used for the Wynant letters, and they must be somewhere around where he can get at them when he needs them." (We found them in the Brooklyn apartment he had rented as George Foley.)

 

 

"Have it your own way," she said, "but I always thought detectives waited until they had every little detail fixed in--"

 

 

"And then wonder why the suspect's had time to get to the farthest country that has no extradition treaty."

 

 

She laughed. "All right, all right. Still want to leave for San Francisco tomorrow?"

 

 

"Not unless you're in a hurry. Let's stick around awhile. This excitement has put us behind in our drinking."

 

 

"It's all right by me. What do you think will happen to Mimi and Dorothy and Gilbert now?"

 

 

"Nothing new. They'll go on being Mimi and Dorothy and Gilbert just as you and I will go on being us and the Quinns will go on being the Quinns. Murder doesn't round out anybody's life except the murdered's and sometimes the murderer's."

 

 

"That may be," Nora said, "but it's all pretty unsatisfactory."