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 the 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 red-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 he 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 anywheres 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 anything 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 children 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 left,” 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 had got him bleeding somewhere inside.”
“I’ll kill that mugg,” he snarled. “Then I be
tter 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: “Hold 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 love 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 Electric 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”—poin
ting 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 or 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 he 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—”
The Thin Man Page 17
