The Thin Man

by Dashiell Hammett

  I said: “You don’t want to pick a fight with me, Mimi.”

  She looked at me as if she were going to say I love you, and asked: “Is that a threat?”

  “All right,” I said, “have me arrested for kidnapping, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and mopery.”

  She said suddenly in a harsh enraged voice: “And tell your wife to stop pawing my husband.” Nora, looking for another phonograph record with Jorgensen, had a hand on his sleeve. They turned to look at Mimi in surprise.

  I said: “Nora, Mrs. Jorgensen wants you to keep you hands off Mr. Jorgensen.”

  “I’m awfully sorry.” Nora smiled at Mimi, then looked at me, put a very artificial expression of concern on her face, and in a somewhat singsong voice, as if she were a schoolchild reciting a piece, said: “Oh, Nick, you’re pale. I’m sure you have exceeded your strength and will have a relapse. I’m sorry, Mrs. Jorgensen, but I think I should get him home and to bed right away. You will forgive us, won’t you?” Mimi said she would. Everybody was the soul of politeness to everybody else. We went downstairs and got a taxicab.

  “Well,” Nora said, “so you talked yourself out of a dinner. What do you want to do now? Go home and eat with Dorothy?”

  I shook my head. “I can do without Wynants for a little while. Let’s go to Max’s: I’d like some snails.”

  “Right. Did you find out anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  She said meditatively: “It’s a shame that guy’s so handsome.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Just a big doll. It’s a shame.” We had dinner and went back to the Normandie. Dorothy was not there. I felt as if I had expected that. Nora went through the rooms, called up the desk. No note, no message had been left for us. “So what?” she asked.

  It was not quite ten o’clock. “Maybe nothing,” I said.

  “Maybe anything. My guess is she’ll show up about three in the morning, tight, with a machine-gun she bought in Childs’.”

  Nora said: “To hell with her. Get into pyjamas and lie down.”

  11

  My side felt a lot better when Nora called me at noon the next day. “My nice policeman wants to see you,” she said. “How do you feel?”

  “Terrible. I must’ve gone to bed sober.” I pushed Asta out of the way and got up.

  Guild rose with a drink in his hand when I entered the living-room, and smiled all across his broad sandy face. “Well, well, Mr. Charles, you look spry enough this morning.” I shook hands with him and said yes I felt pretty good, and we sat down. He frowned good-naturedly. “Just the same, you oughtn’t’ve played that trick on me.”

  “Trick?”

  “Sure, running off to see people when I’d put off asking you questions to give you a chance to rest up. I kind of figured that ought to give me first call on you, as you might say.”

  “I didn’t think,” I said. “I’m sorry. See that wire I got from Wynant?”

  “Uh-huh. We’re running it out in Philly.”

  “Now about that gun,” I began, “I—” He stopped me. “What gun? That ain’t a gun any more. The firing pin’s busted off, the guts are rusted and jammed. If anybody’s fired it in six months—or could—I’m the Pope of Rome. Don’t let’s waste any time talking about that piece of junk.”

  I laughed. “That explains a lot. I took it away from a drunk who said he’d bought it in a speakeasy for twelve bucks. I believe him now.”

  “Somebody’ll sell him the City Hall one of these days. Man to man, Mr. Charles, are you working on the Wolf job or ain’t you?”

  “You saw the wire from Wynant.”

  “I did. Then you ain’t working for him. I’m still asking you.”

  “I’m not a private detective any more. I’m not any kind of detective.”

  “I heard that. I’m still asking you.” “All right. No.”

  He thought for a moment, said: “Then let me put it another way: are you interested in the job?”

  “I know the people, naturally I’m interested.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t expect to be working on it?”

  The telephone rang and Nora went to answer it.

  “To be honest with you, I don’t know. If people keep on pushing me into it, I don’t know how far they’ll carry me.”

  Guild wagged his head up and down. “I can see that. I don’t mind telling you I’d like to have you in on it—on the right side.”

  “You mean not on Wynant’s side. Did he do it?”

  “That I couldn’t say, Mr. Charles, but I don’t have to tell you he ain’t helping us any to find out who did it.”

  Nora appeared in the doorway. “Telephone, Nick.”

  Herbert Macaulay was on the wire. “Hello, Charles. How’s the wounded?”

  “I’m all right, thanks.”

  “Did you hear from Wynant?”

  “Yes.”

  “I got a letter from him saying he had wired you. Are you too sick to—”

  “No, I’m up and around. If you’ll be in your office late this afternoon I’ll drop in.”

  “Swell,” he said. “I’ll be here till six.”

  I returned to the living-room. Nora was inviting Guild to have lunch while we had breakfast. He said it was mighty kind of her. I said I ought to have a drink before breakfast. Nora went to order meals and pour drinks. Guild shook his head and said: “She’s a mighty fine woman, Mr. Charles.” I nodded solemnly.

  He said: “Suppose you should get pushed into this thing, as you say, I’d like it a lot more to feel you were working with us than against us.”

  “So would I.”

  “That’s a bargain then,” he said. He hunched his chair around a little. “I don’t guess you remember me, but back when you were working this town I was walking beat on Forty-second Street.”

  “Of course,” I said, lying politely. “I knew there was something familiar about— Being out of uniform makes a difference.”

  “I guess it does. I’d like to be able to take it as a fact that you’re not holding out anything we don’t already know.”

  “I don’t mean to. I don’t know what you know. I don’t know very much. I haven’t seen Macaulay since the murder and I haven’t even been following it in the newspapers.” The telephone was ringing again. Nora gave us our drinks and went to answer it.

  “What we know ain’t much of a secret,” Guild said, “and if you want to take the time to listen I don’t mind giving it to you.” He tasted his drink and nodded approvingly. “Only there’s a thing I’d like to ask first. When you went to Mrs. Jorgensen’s last night, did you tell her about getting the telegram from him?”

  “Yes, and I told her I’d turned it over to you.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Nothing. She asked questions. She’s trying to find him.”

  He put his head a little to one side and partly closed one eye. “You don’t think there’s any chance of them being in cahoots, do you?” He held up a hand. “Understand I don’t know why they would be or what it’d be all about if they were, but I’m just asking.”

  “Anything’s possible,” I said, “but I’d say it was pretty safe they aren’t working together. Why?”

  “I guess you’re right.” Then he added vaguely: “But there’s a couple of points.” He sighed. “There always is. Well, Mr. Charles, here’s just about all we know for certain and if you give us a little something more here and there as we go along I’ll be mighty thankful to you.” I said something about doing my best.

  “Well, along about the 3rd of last October Wynant tells Macaulay he’s got to leave town for a while. He don’t tell Macaulay where he’s going or what for, but Macaulay gets the idea that he’s off to work on some invention or other that he wants to keep quiet—and he gets it out of Julia Wolf later that he’s right—and he guesses Wynant’s gone off to hide somewhere in the Adirondacks, but when he asks her about t
hat later she says she don’t know any more about it than he does.”

  “She know what the invention was?”

  Guild shook his head. “Not according to Macaulay, only that it was probably something that he needed room for and machinery or things that cost money, because that’s what he was fixing up with Macaulay. He was fixing it so Macaulay could get hold of his stocks and bonds and other things he owned and turn ’em into money when he wanted it and take care of his banking and everything just like Wynant himself.”

  “Power of attorney covering everything, huh?”

  “Exactly. And listen, when he wanted money, he wanted it in cash.”

  “He was always full of screwy notions,” I said.

  “That’s what everybody says. The idea seems to be he don’t want to take any chances on anybody tracing him through checks, or anybody up there knowing he’s Wynant. That’s why he didn’t take the girl along with him—didn’t even let her know where he was, if she was telling the truth-and let his whiskers grow.” With his left hand he stroked an imaginary beard.

  “ ‘Up there,’ ” I quoted. “So he was in the Adirondacks?”

  Guild moved one shoulder. “I just said that because that and Philadelphia are the only ideas anybody’s give us. We’re trying the mountains, but we don’t know. Maybe Australia.”

  “And how much of this money in cash did Wynant want?”

  “I can tell you that exactly.” He took a wad of soiled, bent and dog-eared papers out of his pocket, selected an envelope that was a shade dirtier than most of the others, and stuffed the others back in his pocket. “The day after he talked to Macaulay he drew five thousand out of the bank himself, in cash. On the 28th—this is October, you understand—he had Macaulay get another five for him, and twenty-five hundred on the 6th of November, and a thousand on the 15th, and seventy-five hundred on the 30th, and fifteen hundred on the 6th—that would be December—and a thousand on the 18th, and five thousand on the 22nd, which was the day before she was killed.”

  “Nearly thirty thou,” I said. “A nice bank balance he had.”

  “Twenty-eight thousand five hundred, to be exact.” Guild returned the envelope to his pocket. “But you understand it wasn’t all in there. After the first call Macaulay would sell something every time to raise the dough.” He felt in his pocket again. “I got a list of the stuff he sold, if you want to see it.”

  I said I didn’t. “How’d he turn the money over to Wynant?”

  “Wynant would write the girl when he wanted it, and she’d get it from Macaulay. He’s got her receipts.”

  “And how’d she get it to Wynant?”

  Guild shook his head. “She told Macaulay she used to meet him places he told her, but he thinks she knew where he was, though she always said she didn’t.”

  “And maybe she still had the last five thousand on her when she was killed, huh?”

  “Which might make it robbery, unless”—Guild’s watery gray eyes were almost shut—“he killed her when he came there to get it.”

  “Or unless,” I suggested, “somebody else who killed her for some other reason found the money there and thought they might as well take it along.”

  “Sure,” he agreed. “Things like that happen all the time. It even happens sometimes that the first people that find a body like that pick up a little something before they turn in the alarm.” He held up a big hand. “Of course, with Mrs. Jorgensen—a lady like that—I hope you don’t think I’m—”

  “Besides,” I said, “she wasn’t alone, was she?”

  “For a little while. The phone in the apartment was out of whack, and the elevator boy rode the superintendent down to phone from the office. But get me right on this, I’m not saying Mrs. Jorgensen did anything funny. A lady like that wouldn’t be likely—”

  “What was the matter with the phone?” I asked.

  The doorbell rang. “Well,” Guild said, “I don’t know just what to make of it. The phone had—” He broke off as a waiter came in and began to set a table. “About the phone,” Guild said when we were sitting at the table, “I don’t know just what to make of it, as I said. It had a bullet right smack through the mouthpiece of it.”

  “Accidental or—?”

  “I’d just as lief ask you. It was from the same gun as the four that hit her, of course, but whether he missed her with that one or did it on purpose I don’t know. It seems like a kind of noisy way to put a phone on the bum.”

  “That reminds me,” I said, “didn’t anybody hear all this shooting? A .32’s not a shotgun, but somebody ought to’ve heard it.”

  “Sure,” he said disgustedly. “The place is lousy with people that think they heard things now, but nobody did anything about it then, and God knows they don’t get together much on what they think they heard.”

  “It’s always like that,” I said sympathetically.

  “Don’t I know it.” He put a forkful of food in his mouth. “Where was I? Oh, yes, about Wynant. He gave up his apartment when he went away, and put his stuff in storage. We been looking through it—the stuff—but ain’t found anything yet to show where he went or even what he was working on, which we thought maybe might help. We didn’t have any better luck in his shop on First Avenue. It’s been locked up too since he went away, except that she used to go down there for an hour or two once or twice a week to take care of his mail and things. There’s nothing to tell us anything in the mail that’s come since she got knocked off. We didn’t find anything in her place to help.” He smiled at Nora. “I guess this must be pretty dull to you, Mrs. Charles.”

  “Dull?” She was surprised. “I’m sitting on the edge of my chair.”

  “Ladies usually like more color,” he said, and coughed, “kind of glamour. Anyways, we got nothing to show where he’s been, only he phones Macaulay last Friday and says to meet him at two o’clock in the Plaza lobby Macaulay wasn’t in, so he just left the message.”

  “Macaulay was here,” I said, “for lunch.”

  “He told me. Well, Macaulay don’t get to the Plaza till nearly three and he don’t find any Wynant there and Wynant ain’t registered there. He tries describing him, with and without a beard, but nobody at the Plaza remembers seeing him. He phones his office, but Wynant ain’t called up again. And then he phones Julia Wolf and she tells him she don’t even know Wynant’s in town, which he figures is a lie, because he had just give her five thousand dollars for Wynant yesterday and figures Wynant’s come for it, but he just says all right and hangs up and goes on about his business.”

  “His business such as what?” I asked.

  Guild stopped chewing the piece of roll he had just bitten off. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to know, at that. I’ll find out. There didn’t seem to be anything pointing at him, so we didn’t bother with that, but it don’t ever hurt any to know who’s got an alibi and who ain’t.”

  I shook my head no at the question he had decided not to ask. “I don’t see anything pointing at him, except that he’s Wynant’s lawyer and probably knows more than he’s telling.”

  “Sure. I understand. Well, that’s what people have lawyers for, I guess. Now about the girl: maybe Julia Wolf wasn’t her real name at all. We ain’t been able to find out for sure yet, but we have found out she wasn’t the kind of dame you’d expect him to be trusting to handle all that dough—I mean if he knew about her.”

  “Had a record?”

  He wagged his head up and down. “This is elegant stew. A couple of years before she went to work for him she did six months on a badger-game charge out West, in Cleveland, under the name of Rhoda Stewart.”

  “You suppose Wynant knew that?”

  “Search me. Don’t look like he’d turn her loose with that dough if he did, but you can’t tell. They tell me he was kind of nuts about her, and you know how guys can go. She was running around off and on with this Shep Morelli and his boys too.”

  “Have you really got anything on him?” I asked.

  “N
ot on this,” he said regretfully, “but we wanted him for a couple of other things.” He drew his sandy brows together a little. “I wish I knew what sent him here to see you. Of course these junkies are likely to do anything, but I wish I knew.”

  “I told you all I knew.”

  “I’m not doubting that,” he assured me. He turned to Nora. “I hope you don’t think we were too rough with him, but you see you got to—” Nora smiled and said she understood perfectly and filled his cup with coffee. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “What’s a junkie?” she asked.

  “Hop-head.”

  She looked at me. “Was Morelli—?”

  “Primed to the ears,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she complained. “I miss everything.” She left the table to answer the telephone.

  Guild asked: “You going to prosecute him for shooting you?”

  “Not unless you need it.”

  He shook his head. His voice was casual, though there was some curiosity in his eyes. “I guess we got enough on him for a while.”

  “You were telling me about the girl.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Well, we found out she’d been spending a lot of nights away from her apartment—two or three days at a stretch sometimes. Maybe that’s when she was meeting Wynant. I don’t know. We ain’t been able to knock any holes in Morelli’s story of not seeing her for three months. What do you make of that?”

  “The same thing you do,” I replied. “It’s just about three months since Wynant went off. Maybe it means something, maybe not.” Nora came in and said Harrison Quinn was on the telephone. He told me he had sold some bonds I was writing off losses on and gave me the prices. “Have you seen Dorothy Wynant?” I asked.

  “Not since I left her in your place, but I’m meeting her at the Palma for cocktails this afternoon. Come to think of it, she told me not to tell you. How about that gold, Nick? You’re missing something if you don’t get in on it. Those wild men from the West are going to give us some kind of inflation as soon as Congress meets, that’s certain, and even if they don’t, everybody expects them to. As I told you last week, there’s already talk of a pool being—”