The Thin Man

by Dashiell Hammett

  She stood up and stretched without lifting her arms. Her face was pink and lovely as it always is when she has been sleeping. She smiled drowsily at me and said: “Let’s go home. I don’t like these people. Come on, get your hat and coat, Dorothy.”

  Mimi said to Dorothy: “Go to bed.”

  Dorothy put the tips of the fingers of her left hand to her mouth and whimpered through them: “Don’t let her beat me, Nick.” I was watching Mimi, whose face wore a placid half-smile, but her nostrils moved with her breathing and I could hear her breathing.

  Nora went around to Dorothy. “Come on, we’ll wash your face and—” Mimi made an animal noise in her throat, muscles thickened on the back of her neck, and she put her weight on the balls of her feet.

  Nora stepped between Mimi and Dorothy. I caught Mimi by a shoulder as she started forward, put my other arm around her waist from behind, and lifted her off her feet. She screamed and hit back at me with her fists and her hard sharp high heels made dents in my shins.

  Nora pushed Dorothy out of the room and stood in the doorway watching us. Her face was very live. I saw it clearly, sharply. everything else was blurred. When clumsy, ineffectual blows on my back and shoulder brought me around to find Gilbert pommeling me, I could see him but dimly and I hardly felt the contact when I shoved him aside. “Cut it out. I don’t want to hurt you, Gilbert.” I carried Mimi over to the sofa and dumped her on her back on it, sat on her knees, got a wrist in each hand.

  Gilbert was at me again. I tried to pop his kneecap, but kicked him too low, kicked his leg from under him. He went down on the floor in a tangle. I kicked at him again, missed, and said: “We can fight afterwards. Get some water.”

  Mimi’s face was becoming purple. Her eyes protruded, glassy, senseless, enormous. Saliva bubbled and hissed between clenched teeth with her breathing, and her red throat—her whole body—was a squirming mass of veins and muscles swollen until it seemed they must burst. Her wrists were hot in my hands and sweat made them hard to hold. Nora beside me with a glass of water was a welcome sight. “Chuck it in her face,” I said.

  Nora chucked it. Mimi separated her teeth to gasp and she shut her eyes. She moved her head violently from side to side, but there was less violence in the squirming of her body. “Do it again,” I said. The second glass of water brought a spluttering protest from Mimi and the fight went out of her body. She lay still, limp, panting.

  I took my hands away from her wrists and stood up. Gilbert, standing on one foot, was leaning against a table nursing the leg I kicked. Dorothy, big-eyed and pale, was in the doorway, undecided whether to come in or run off and hide. Nora, beside me, holding the empty glass in her hand, asked: “Think she’s all right?”

  “Sure.”

  Presently Mimi opened her eyes, tried to blink the water out of them. I put a handkerchief in her hand. She wiped her face, gave a long shivering sigh, and sat up on the sofa. She looked around the room, still blinking a little. When she saw me she smiled feebly. There was guilt in her smile, but nothing you could call remorse. She touched her hair with an unsteady hand and said: “I’ve certainly been drowned.”

  I said: “Some day you’re going into one of those things and not come out of it.”

  She looked past me at her son. “Gil. What’s happened to you?” she asked.

  He hastily took his hand off his leg and put his foot down on the floor. “I—uh—nothing,” he stammered. “I’m perfectly all right.” He smoothed his hair, straightened his necktie.

  She began to laugh. “Oh, Gil, did your really try to protect me? And from Nick?” Her laughter increased. “It was awfully sweet of you, but awfully silly. Why, he’s a monster, Gil. Nobody could—” She put my handkerchief over her mouth and rocked back and forth.

  I looked sidewise at Nora. Her mouth was set and her eyes were almost black with anger. I touched her arm. “Let’s blow. Give your mother a drink, Gilbert. She’ll be all right in a minute or two.”

  Dorothy, hat and coat in her hands, tiptoed to the outer door. Nora and I found our hats and coats and followed her out, leaving Mimi laughing into my handkerchief on the sofa. None of the three of us had much to say in the taxicab that carried us over to the Normandie. Nora was brooding, Dorothy seemed still pretty frightened, and I was tired—it had been a full day.

  It was nearly five o’clock when we got home. Asta greeted us boisterously. I lay down on the floor to play with her while Nora went into the pantry to make coffee. Dorothy wanted to tell me something that happened to her when she was a little child. I said: “No. You tried that Monday. What is it? a gag? It’s late. What was it you were afraid to tell me over there?”

  “But you’d understand better if you’d let me—”

  “You said that Monday. I’m not a psychoanalyst. I don’t know anything about early influences. I don’t give a damn about them. And I’m tired—I been ironing all day.”

  She pouted at me. “You seem to be trying to make it as hard for me as you can.”

  “Listen, Dorothy,” I said, “you either know something you were afraid to say in front of Mimi and Gilbert or you don’t. If you do, spit it out. I’ll ask you about any of it I find myself not understanding.”

  She twisted a fold of her skirt and looked sulkily at it, but when she raised her eyes they became bright and excited. She spoke in a whisper loud enough for anybody in the room to hear: “Gil’s been seeing my father and he saw him today and my father told him who killed Miss Wolf.”

  “Who?”

  She shook her head. “He wouldn’t tell me. He’d just tell me that.”

  “And that’s what you were afraid to say in front of Gil and Mimi?”

  “Yes. You’d understand that if you’d let me tell you—”

  “Something that happened when you were a little child. Well, I won’t. Stop it. What else did he tell you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing about Nunheim?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Where is your father?”

  “Gil didn’t tell me.”

  “When did he meet him?”

  “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 I— 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, “Goodnight,” 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 convinc
ing 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 incoming 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 get excited?”

  “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 Macaulay 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 halfway, 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 living-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 you 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. What’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 ever 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 walked 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.”