Return of the Thin Man Page 20

  VanSlack: “Really? What kind of looking man was he?”

  Nick describes Vogel.

  VanSlack looks questioningly at the other men in the room. They all shake their heads.

  VanSlack says: “That’s peculiar, because I don’t know of anybody around here who looks like that.”

  Nick says: “I thought it was peculiar—I’d never seen a country cop with a new six-thousand-dollar coupe before, so I wrote the license number down.”

  VanSlack says: “That’s splendid. Will you get it?”

  Nick goes to his bedroom. Nick Jr. is asleep on one of the beds. Lois, sitting in a chair by the window, has recovered some of her composure. Nora is encouraging her to drink a cup of coffee.

  They both turn to Nick as he comes in and Nora asks: “Have they found anything?”

  Nick says: “They haven’t found Church or his black man yet, if that’s what you mean, but he can’t have much of a start.”

  Lois says: “Do you suppose he did it?”

  Nick looks at her in slight surprise, asking: “Don’t you?”

  She says: “Oh yes—he must have. Don’t pay any attention to me.”

  Nick has crossed to a closet and is hunting through his coat for the paper on which he wrote the license number.

  He asks: “Did you have your session with the police?”

  Nora says: “Yes. They were very sweet. I think detectives’ manners have improved since your day.”

  He finds his piece of paper.

  Lois asks: “Could I—do you think they’d let me see Papa now?”

  Nick shakes his head at Nora, who begins to explain to Lois why it is best not to see her father now, as Nick escapes.

  In the hall, at the head of the stairs, Nick meets Freddie.

  Freddie: “Is she all right?”

  Nick says: “Lois? I think so.”

  Freddie: “Do you think she’d like to see me?”

  Nick: “You could try.”

  Freddie: “Will these policemen be here long?”

  Nick says: “Most likely. They tell me they don’t often get a chance to play at being scientific detectives, so they’ll probably make the most of it. Why? Do they bother you?”

  Freddie: “No, but I wish they’d clear out.”

  Horn and the trooper who was questioning him come up the stairs together.

  Nick, holding out the slip of paper with the license number on it to the trooper: “Will you give this to Mr. VanSlack for me and tell him I’m taking time out to dress?”

  The Trooper, taking the paper: “Sure thing.”

  Horn, going over to Lois: “How are you now, darling?”

  Lois: “I’m all right.”

  Freddie hovers over them, smiling an aimless smile that is meant to be cheering.

  Nick moves between bedroom and bathroom, dressing.

  Lois: “I think I would feel better if somebody told me whether Papa—did he die without—”

  Horn: “There was no pain, dear; he died instantly.”

  Lois: “Where—where was he shot?”

  Horn: “Your father fired that, at the murderer. Don’t let’s talk about it now.”

  Lois: “But I want to talk about it. I want to face it. I don’t want to baby myself. Do you think the police are enough, or should we get somebody to help them?”

  Horn, bitterly: “From my experience with them, I’d say they were being thorough enough anyway.”

  Lois: “Do you mean they questioned you?”

  Horn: “They did everything but jail me, and that can still happen.”

  Lois: “Don’t be unreasonable, dear. You know they have to suspect everybody.”

  Horn grumbles: “I don’t know it. I think Church would be enough.”

  Lois: “Did they question you, Freddie?”

  Freddie: “Yes. They haven’t much respect for anybody’s privacy, but I really didn’t mind.” He sits down on the baby.

  Nick, Nora, Lois, and Horn all yell warnings at Freddie, but too late. Nora runs over to pick up the baby. Nick Jr. does not cry, but scowls unpleasantly at Freddie, and says: “Drunk.”

  Freddie: “I’m sorry! I’m—did I—”

  The door bursts open and half a dozen detectives and troopers with guns in their hands come running in bawling: “What is it? What’s the matter? What’s going on here?”

  Reporters try to crowd into the room behind the police.

  Nora, indignantly: “How would you like somebody to sit on your baby?”

  One of the troopers: “If you’re talking about my baby, it would do her plenty of good.”

  The reporters, seeing Nick, begin to call: “There he is. Hello, Nick. These mugs didn’t want to let us see you,” etc.

  The police herd the reporters out of the room as VanSlack comes in.

  One of the detectives: “It’s nothing, Van. They’re just horsing around.”

  VanSlack, vaguely: “Is that so?” Then to Nick: “That license number belongs to a man named Vogel, a gambler-racketeer, and his description seems to fit the man you saw. The New York police think they can get hold of him for us. Do you—that is, I’m going in to see him and that Smith woman you told me about. Would you care to go along?”

  Nick: “If you think I’d be any help.”

  Nora: “Then I’m going, too. I’m not going to keep Nicky down here with nothing but a lot of country pol—” She breaks off in consternation, staring at the country policemen around her, gulps, says, “country pol—” again while hunting desperately for an out, finds it, and finishes triumphantly “—country poultry to eat. You know he’s on a diet.”

  Nick goes over and kisses her, saying: “Sweetheart, you are wonderful. I wouldn’t have believed anybody could get out of that one.”

  Nora, with mock modesty: “It was nothing really.”

  One policeman to another: “How do you like them to do until a couple of real screwballs come along?”

  VanSlack to Nora: “I can appreciate your feelings, Mrs. Charles. Naturally you think—with everything that’s happened—I understand. But—well—we’d like to get away without attracting the attention of the newspaper men and we’ll be in pretty much of a hurry. It might not be so comfortable for—and you’ll be perfectly safe here with—or if you want you can follow us in as soon as you’re ready and a couple of my men will ride in with you.”

  Nick, imitating VanSlack: “Yes, dear, you can—I think it would give you time—there’s always another—and there you are.”

  A trooper comes in panting: “There’s a dog running around outside with a knife in his mouth.”

  Nick and Nora exclaim: “Asta!” together.

  Outside it is still night. With the help of lights that range in size from searchlights mounted on automobiles to flashlights carried in hands, policemen are trying to corner Asta, who, holding in his mouth a knife similar to the one seen in Dum-Dum’s possession, dashes across an open space and disappears into darkness behind a row of shrubs.

  At an upstairs window, Freddie and Mrs. Bellam can be seen looking down at the men chasing the dog.

  As Nick and VanSlack come up, one of the troopers says: “We’re going to have to shoot that mutt; we’ll never catch him this way.”

  VanSlack: “First we’ll see if Mr. Charles—it’s Mr. Charles’s dog—perhaps he can help us.”

  Nick: “Where did he find the knife?”

  Trooper, pointing: “We don’t know. He came around thataway with it.”

  Nick: “Where is he now?”

  Trooper, pointing in the opposite direction: “We don’t know. He went around thataway with it.”

  Nick whistles and calls to Asta, with no result.

  Trooper: “A guy that can’t make his d
og mind ought to trade it in for goldfish or something.”

  Nick, pretending he hasn’t heard the trooper, calls again, then says: “He’s not going to come running up to a lot of strange men with lights. What do you think he is, a moth? Call your men back and give me a flashlight.”

  VanSlack sends a trooper to call back the men who are trying to corner Asta, and Nick, armed with a flashlight, whistling and calling as he goes, moves off into the darkness. Presently he finds Asta in the same folded beach umbrella in which the dog hid after the killing of Lois’s collie.

  As Nick takes the knife from Asta and straightens up, he hears somebody approaching stealthily. He switches off his light, moves a little to one side, and crouches there with his hand on his gun.

  Lois’s voice comes through the darkness, whispering: “It’s Lois, Mr. Charles. I want to—”

  Nick, as she comes up to him: “What are you doing running around out here?”

  Lois: “I had to see you away from the police.” She stands so that Nick, to face her, must turn his back toward a dark clump of bushes not far away. Then she starts as she sees the knife in Nick’s hand, and asks: “Is that the—is that the one?”

  Nick: “Probably.”

  Lois: “Oh, Mr. Charles, I’ve got a horrible question to ask you. Will you tell me the truth?”

  Nick: “If I can.”

  Lois: “You’ve got to. There’s nobody else I can turn to. I don’t know what to—” Looking over Nick’s shoulder, she sees a man with a gun in his hand emerge from the clump of bushes behind Nick. Lois gasps, “Look out!” and pushes Nick to one side as the man fires. (It must be obvious that she does save Nick from being shot.)

  Nick, upset by the girl’s push, yanks his gun out as he falls, and fires as the man near the bushes shoots a second time. The man staggers back into the bushes and from time to time fires again, with Nick, circling the bushes, returning his fire.

  Police come running up, pouring bullets into the bushes. The grounds are flooded with lights again. Presently the firing stops, and Nick and the police force their way into the clump of bushes.

  Dudley Horn is lying there dead, the ragged condition of his clothes suggesting that he has been nearly shot to pieces. The police stare at him in surprise.

  Trooper: “Him! Can you beat that?” Then he suddenly looks sharply at Nick and demands: “Say, what were you shooting at him for?”

  Nick: “Because he was shooting at me. What were you shooting at him for?”

  Trooper, scratching his head: “Well, everybody else was.”

  VanSlack arrives, stares at Horn, says: “This is a surprise in a way. Do you mind telling me what—how it happened?

  Nick: “I was taking the knife”—he hands the knife to VanSlack— “away from the dog when Lois MacFay came up and started to tell me something. Then she yelled and pushed me out of the way just as this fellow started snapping caps at me.”

  VanSlack: “Lois MacFay, hum? Do you—the question will surprise you no doubt—but do you think she might have been—you know?”

  Nick: “Putting me on the spot? The first bullet would have caught me if she hadn’t pushed me out of the way. I felt it go past.”

  VanSlack: “It was just a thought. Where is she?”

  Nick looks around. “I don’t know.”

  Police throw the beams from their lights across the grounds. Lois is lying on the grass back where Nick was first shot at, apparently unconscious, with blood staining her clothes.

  Nick kneels beside her, feeling for a pulse, then says: “She’s alive.”

  Another of the men says: “It’s just her arm,” and opens a knife to rip her sleeve.

  Lois’s eyes open. She sees Nick and asks: “Was it—Dudley?”

  Nick: “Yes.”

  Lois shudders, then asks: “Did they catch him?”

  Nick: “He’s dead.”

  Lois shuts her eyes.

  The man who has been examining Lois’s arm says: “She’ll be okay. The bullet only took a hunk of flesh out.”

  VanSlack: “Well, let’s carry her up to the house. I want to talk to her when she comes to.” Then to Nick: “What was it she started to tell you?”

  Lois opens her eyes again and sits up, saying: “I’m not badly hurt. It was the shock. Oh, Nick, it was true then!”

  Nick: “What was true?”

  Lois: “What I tried to tell you, about Dudley.” She begins to cry. “Oh, it can’t be true. I loved him so.”

  Nick: “He killed Colonel MacFay?”

  Lois: “That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

  VanSlack: “I don’t want to seem unkind, Miss MacFay, but surely you can see that all this might have been avoided if you had come to us with your suspicions, whatever they were.”

  Lois: “I know, but how could I believe it? I can’t believe it now.”

  VanSlack: “It’s not a matter of what you believe, Miss MacFay, it’s more—well—what happened that you wanted to talk to Mr. Charles about?”

  Lois: “It was about Dudley. He—it started right after Papa was killed. Dudley suggested that we say we were together at the time Papa was killed—so the police wouldn’t bother me, he said. I told him we couldn’t do that, but I didn’t think anything of it until later when he began to act funny.

  VanSlack: “Funny in just what way?

  Lois: “Nothing that anyone who didn’t know him so well would notice, but I noticed it. And then after that policeman said the knife had been found, and you and Mr. Charles went out, he acted still funnier, and when he went out of the room I followed him to ask him what was the matter, I saw him in his room putting a pistol in his pocket, and then I didn’t know what to think except that I’d better find Mr. Charles as soon as possible and ask him what he thought.”

  (Those of Horn’s actions which fit in with her story may be shown in their proper place if necessary, depending on whether it is thought better to bolster up her story than to keep the audience in doubt as to who Nick’s assailant is until the last moment.)

  Nick and VanSlack are together in the rear of a car being driven toward New York City. The sun is not yet up, though it is fairly light.

  VanSlack: “It’s amazing the obstacles one runs into in this work, isn’t it?”

  Nick: “Oh, quite.”

  VanSlack: “It’s so unfortunate that your dog should have found the knife with nobody around to see where he found it. Now we’ll probably never know.”

  Nick: “I’m apologizing. No fingerprints on the knife?”

  VanSlack: “There’d hardly be, after the dog had been playing with it for nobody knows how long. Though there are plenty of his tooth prints on it. But I daresay we can safely assume it was the knife used for the murder. Don’t you think so?”

  Nick: “I think so.” After a pause. “How do you fit Horn into all this?”

  VanSlack: “I should ask you that. After all, you’re the one who killed him.”

  Nick: “Maybe I am, maybe not. A lot of you people were shooting at him, too. All we know is that I am the one he was trying to kill.”

  VanSlack: “Doesn’t that come to the same thing in a sense?” Looks at his watch. “Now that you have had time to think, perhaps you can remember something—something that happened or was said—that might have slipped your memory in the excitement . . . if you know what I mean.”

  Nick: “I know what you mean. You mean if I’ve been holding out on you, you’ll make it easy for me to come clean now.”

  VanSlack: “Not at all, Mr. Charles. Well, not exactly. But perhaps Miss MacFay’s story was not . . .”

  Nick: “Miss MacFay may be a liar but that was a truthful bullet she pushed me out of the way of.”

  VanSlack, sighing: “I suppose it was, but it makes the whole thing more confusin
g, doesn’t it?”

  Nick, shrugging: “Maybe yes, maybe no. All we’ve got to find out is why Horn should try to kill me when I found the knife that killed MacFay and that belonged to Church’s henchman.”

  VanSlack: “That’s exactly it, and I must say that from my viewpoint everything would be clearer if it were not for your statements that Miss MacFay was with you and Mrs. Charles at the time of her father’s murder and that she did save you from being killed by Horn.”

  Nick: “What do you want me to do? Confess that Horn killed me?”

  VanSlack, his voice and manner for the first time cold and menacing: “What I want you to do, Mr. Charles, is to tell me the truth.”

  Nick stares at him a moment, then laughs. “You know, I am beginning to think you’ve really got hold of something, even if you don’t know what it is or what to do with it. My guess is you are bouncing around not more than six inches away from the answer to the whole thing.”

  VanSlack looks down at the space between him and Nick on the seat of the car. The space is about six inches.

  Back at MacFay’s Lois is lying on her bed with her eyes shut. Mrs. Bellam sits in a chair beside the bed, placidly knitting.

  Mrs. Bellam: “Whatever Mr. Horn did in this world, he is now answering for in the other world and it is not for us to judge him.”

  Lois, opening her eyes, sitting up: “But why did he kill Papa?”

  Mrs. Bellam: “Lie down, dear. Men’s hearts are incomprehensible.”

  Lois: “But Papa was so good to Dudley. He—”

  Mrs. Bellam: “How are we, with our limited understandings, to say what is good and what is not good?” She pauses to count a row of stitches. “It would be easy for us in our worldliness to say that Colonel MacFay was the most wicked man that ever lived, but how can we look into his inner soul?”

  Lois: “But nobody could say that. He wasn’t. He wasn’t.”

  Mrs. Bellam, quietly as before: “Only by human standards, my dear.”

  Lois: “But look how good he was to me, and to Dudley.”

  Mrs. Bellam: “Colonel MacFay was afraid of Dudley Horn. Dudley Horn knew too much about him, even knew how he was robbing that nice Mr. and Mrs. Charles.”