The Thin Man Page 16

  “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 lit 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 gigoloing, 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—”

  “That 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 even going to stay here long.”

  “I still don’t like that part 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 time 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 like that. This Peppier 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 right.” He pushed the telephone aside. “Another bum steer on that West Twenty-ninth 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 looked 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 ba
ck 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 red-haired 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 look 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 Dolan’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 chair two or three inches toward 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: “Where’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 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 keep 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 hi
s 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.”