Nightmare Town

by Dashiell Hammett

  Spade said: “Never mind that. Now about the butler?”

  “I don’t know anything about the butler,” the old man replied, looking at Spade with steady eyes.

  Spade said: “You had to kill him quick, before he had time to do or say anything. So you slip down the back stairs, open the kitchen door to fool people, go to the front door, ring the bell, shut the door, and hide in the shadow of the cellar door under the front steps. When Jarboe answered the doorbell you shot him—the hole was in the back of his head—pulled the light switch just inside the cellar door, and ducked up the back stairs in the dark and shot yourself carefully in the arm. I got up there too soon for you; so you smacked me with the gun, chucked it through the door, and spread yourself on the floor while I was shaking pinwheels out of my noodle.”

  The old man sniffed again. “You’re just—”

  “Stop it,” Spade said patiently. “Don’t let’s argue. The first killing was an accident—all right. The second couldn’t be. And it ought to be easy to show that both bullets, and the one in your arm, were fired from the same gun. What difference does it make which killing we can prove first-degree murder on? They can only hang you once.” He smiled pleasantly. “And they will.”

  A MAN NAMED THIN

  Papa was, though I may be deemed an undutiful son for saying it, in an abominable mood. His chin protruded across the desk at me in a fashion that almost justified the epithet of brutal which had once been applied to it by an unfriendly journalist; and his mustache seemed to bristle with choler of its own, though this was merely the impression I received. It would be preposterous to assume actual change in the mustache which, whatever Papa’s humor, was always somewhat irregularly salient.

  “So you’re still fooling with this damned nonsense of yours?”

  On Papa’s desk, under one of his hands, lay a letter which, its odd shape and color informed me immediately, was from the editor of The Jongleur to whom, a few days before, I had sent a sonnet.

  “If you mean my writing,” I replied respectfully, but none the less staunchly; for my thirtieth birthday being some months past, I considered myself entitled to some liberty of purpose, even though that purpose might be distasteful to Papa. “If you mean my writing, Papa, I assure you I am not fooling, but am completely in earnest.”

  “But why in”—if now and then I garble Papa’s remarks in reporting them, it is not, I beg you to believe, because he is addicted to incoherencies, but simply because he frequently saw fit to sacrifice the amenities of speech to what he considered a vigor of expression—“do you have to pick on poetry? Aren’t there plenty of other things to write about? Why, Robin, you could write some good serious articles about our work, articles that would tell the public the truth about it and at the same time give us some advertising.”

  “One writes what one is impelled to write,” I began not too hopefully, for this was by no means the first time I had begun thus. “The creative impulse is not to be coerced into—”

  “Florence!”

  I do not like to say Papa bellowed, but the milder synonyms are not entirely adequate to express the volume of sound he put into our stenographer’s given name by which he insisted on addressing her.

  Miss Queenan appeared at the door—an unfamiliar Miss Queenan who did not advance to Papa’s desk with that romping mixture of flippancy and self-assurance which the press, with its propensity to exaggerate, has persuaded our generation to expect; instead, she stood there awaiting Papa’s attention.

  “After this, Florence, will you see that my desk is not cluttered up with correspondence dealing with my son’s Mother Goose rhymes!”

  “Yes, Mr. Thin,” she replied in a voice surprisingly meek for someone accustomed to speak to Papa as if she were a member of his family.

  “My dear Papa,” I endeavored to remonstrate when Miss Queenan had retired, “I really think—”

  “Don’t dear Papa me! And you don’t think! Nobody that thought could be such a…”

  It would serve no purpose to repeat Papa’s words in detail. They were, for the most part, quite unreasonable, and not even my deep-seated sense of filial propriety could enable me to keep my face from showing some of the resentment I felt; but I heard him through in silence and when he had underscored his last sentence by thrusting The Jongleur’s letter at me, I withdrew to my office.

  The letter, which had come to Papa’s desk through the carelessness of the editor in omitting the Jr. from my name, had to do with the sonnet I have already mentioned—a sonnet entitled “Fictitious Tears.” The editor’s opinion was that its concluding couplet, which he quoted in his letter, was not, as he politely put it, up to my usual standard, and he requested that I rewrite it, adjusting it more exactly to the tone of the previous lines, for which it was, he thought, a trifle too serious.

  And glisten there no less incongruously

  Than Christmas balls on deadly upas tree.

  I reminded myself, as I took my rhyming dictionary from behind Gross’s Kriminal Psychologie where, in the interest of peace, I habitually concealed it, that I had not been especially pleased with those two lines; but after repeated trials I had been unable to find more suitable ones. Now, as I heard the noon whistles, I brought out my carbon copy of the sonnet and determined to devote the quiet of the luncheon hour to the creation of another simile that would express incongruity in a lighter vein.

  To that task I addressed myself, submerging my consciousness to such an extent that when I heard Papa’s voice calling “Robin!” with a force that fairly agitated the three intervening partitions, I roused as if from sleep, with a suspicion that the first call I had heard had not been the first Papa had uttered. This suspicion was confirmed when, putting away paper and books, I hastened into Papa’s presence.

  “Too busy listening to the little birdies twitter to hear me?” But this was mere perfunctory gruffness; his eyes were quite jovial so that in a measure I was prepared for his next words. “Barnable’s stuck up. Get to it.”

  The Barnable Jewelry company’s store was six blocks from our offices, and a convenient street car conveyed me there before Papa’s brief order was five minutes old. The store, a small one, occupied a portion of the ground floor of the Bulwer Building, on the north side of O’Farrell Street, between Powell and Stockton Streets. The store’s neighbors on the ground floor of the same building were, going east toward Stockton Street, a haberdasher (in whose window, by the way, I noticed an intriguing lavender dressing robe), a barber shop, and a tobacconist’s; and going westward toward Powell Street, the main entrance and lobby of the Bulwer Building, a prescription druggist, a hatter, and a lunchroom.

  At the jeweler’s door a uniformed policeman was busily engaged in preventing a curious crowd, most of whom presumably out on their luncheon hours, from either blocking the sidewalk or entering the store. Passing through this throng, I nodded to the policeman, not that I was personally acquainted with him but because experience had taught me that a friendly nod will often forestall questions, and went into the store.

  Detective-Sergeant Hooley and Detective Strong of the Police Department were in the store. In one hand the former held a dark gray cap and a small automatic pistol which did not seem to belong to any of the people to whom the detectives were talking: Mr. Barnable, Mr. Barnable’s assistant, and two men and a woman unknown to me.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” I addressed the detectives. “May I participate in the inquiry?”

  “Ah, Mr. Thin!”

  Sergeant Hooley was a large man whose large mouth did nothing to shape his words beyond parting to emit them, so that they issued somewhat slovenly from a formless opening in his florid face. His face held now, as when I had engaged him in conversation heretofore, an elusively derisive expression—as if, with intent to annoy, he pretended to find in me, in my least word or act, something amusing. The same impulse was noticeable in the stressed mister with which he invariably prefixed my name, notwithstanding that he called Papa Bob, a fa
miliarity I was quite willing to be spared.

  “As I was telling the boys, participating is just exactly what we need.” Sergeant Hooley exercised his rather heavy wit. “Some dishonest thief has been robbing the joint. We’re about through inquiring, but you look like a fellow that can keep a secret, so I don’t mind letting you in on the dirt, as we used to say at dear old Harvard.”

  I am not privy to the quirk in Sergeant Hooley’s mind which makes attendance at this particular university constitute, for him, a humorous situation; nor can I perceive why he should find so much pleasure in mentioning that famous seat of learning to me who, as I have often taken the trouble to explain to him, attended an altogether different university.

  “What seems to have happened,” he went on, “is that some bird come in here all by himself, put Mr. Barnable and his help under the gun, took ’em for what was in the safe, and blew out, trampling over some folks that got in his way. He then beat it up to Powell Street, jumped into a car, and what more do you want to know?”

  “At what time did this occur?”

  “Right after twelve o’clock, Mr. Thin—not more than a couple of minutes after, if that many,” said Mr. Barnable, who had circled the others to reach my side. His brown eyes were round with excitement in his round brown face, but not especially melancholy, since he was insured against theft in the company on whose behalf I was now acting.

  “He makes Julius and me lay down on the floor behind the counter while he robs the safe, and then he backs out. I tell Julius to get up and see if he’s gone, but just then he shoots at me.” Mr. Barnable pointed a spatulate finger at a small hole in the rear wall, near the ceiling. “So I didn’t let Julius get up till I was sure he’d gone. Then I phoned the police and your office.”

  “Was anyone else, anyone besides you and Julius, in the store when the robber entered?”

  “No. We hadn’t had anyone in for maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “Would you be able to identify the robber if you were to see him again, Mr. Barnable?”

  “Would I? Say, Mr. Thin, would Carpentier know Dempsey?”

  This counter-question, which seemed utterly irrelevant, was intended, I assumed, as an affirmative.

  “Kindly describe him for me, Mr. Barnable.”

  “He was maybe forty years old and tough-looking, a fellow just about your size and complexion.” I am, in height and weight, of average size, and my complexion might best be described as medium, so there was nothing in any way peculiar about my having these points of resemblance to the robber; still I felt that the jeweler had been rather tactless in pointing them out. “His mouth was kind of pushed in, without much lips, and his nose was long and flattish, and he had a scar on one side of his face. A real tough-looking fellow!”

  “Will you describe the scar in greater detail, Mr. Barnable?”

  “It was back on his cheek, close to his ear, and ran all the way down from under his cap to his jawbone.”

  “Which cheek, Mr. Barnable?”

  “The left,” he said tentatively, looking at Julius, his sharp-featured young assistant. When Julius nodded, the jeweler repeated, with certainty, “The left.”

  “How was he dressed, Mr. Barnable?”

  “A blue suit and that cap the sergeant has got. I didn’t notice anything else.”

  “His eyes and hair, Mr. Barnable?”

  “Didn’t notice.”

  “Exactly what did he take, Mr. Barnable?”

  “I haven’t had time to check up yet, but he took all the unset stones that were in the safe—mostly diamonds. He must have got fifty thousand dollars’ worth if he got a nickel!”

  I permitted a faint smile to show on my lips while I looked coldly at the jeweler.

  “In the event that we fail to recover the stones, Mr. Barnable, you are aware that the insurance company will require proof of the purchase of every missing item.”

  He fidgeted, screwing his round face up earnestly.

  “Well, anyways, he got twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth, if it’s the last thing I ever say in this world, Mr. Thin, on my word of honor as a gentleman.”

  “Did he take anything besides the unset stones, Mr. Barnable?”

  “Those and some money that was in the safe—about two hundred dollars.”

  “Will you please draw up a list immediately, Mr. Barnable, with as accurate a description of each missing item as possible. Now what evidence have we, Sergeant Hooley, of the robber’s subsequent actions?”

  “Well, first thing, he subsequently bumped into Mrs. Dolan as he was making his getaway. Seems she was—”

  “Mrs. Dolan has an account here,” the jeweler called from the rear of the store when he and Julius had gone to comply with my request. Sergeant Hooley jerked his thumb at the woman who stood on my left.

  She was a woman of fewer years than forty, with humorous brown eyes set in a healthily pink face. Her clothes, while neat, were by no means new or stylish, and her whole appearance was such as to cause the adjective “capable” to come into one’s mind, an adjective further justified by the crisp freshness of the lettuce and celery protruding from the top of the shopping-bag in her arms.

  “Mrs. Dolan is manager of an apartment building on Ellis Street,” the jeweler concluded his introduction, while the woman and I exchanged smiling nods.

  “Thank you, Mr. Barnable. Proceed, Sergeant Hooley.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Thin. Seems she was coming in to make a payment on her watch, and just as she put a foot inside the door, this stick-up backed into her, both of them taking a tumble. Mr. Knight, here, saw the mix-up, ran in, knocked the thug loose from his cap and gun, and chased him up the street.”

  One of the men present laughed deprecatorily past an upraised sunburned hand which held a pair of gloves. He was a weather-browned man of athletic structure, tall and broad-shouldered, and dressed in loose tweeds.

  “My part wasn’t as heroic as it sounds,” he protested. “I was getting out of my car, intending to go across to the Orpheum for tickets, when I saw this lady and the man collide. Crossing the sidewalk to help her up, nothing was further from my mind than that the man was a bandit. When I finally saw his gun he was actually on the point of shooting at me. I had to hit him, and luckily succeeded in doing so just as he pulled the trigger. When I recovered from my surprise I saw he had dropped his gun and run up the street, so I set out after him. But it was too late. He was gone.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Knight. Now, Sergeant Hooley, you say the bandit escaped in a car?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Thin,” he said idiotically, “I did. Mr. Glenn here saw him.”

  “I was standing on the corner,” said Mr. Glenn, a plump man with what might be called the air of a successful salesman.

  “Pardon me, Mr. Glenn, what corner?”

  “The corner of Powell and O’Farrell,” he said, quite as if I should have known it without being told. “The northeast corner, if you want it exactly, close to the building line. This bandit came up the street and got into a coupé that was driving up Powell Street. I didn’t pay much attention to him. If I heard the shot I took it for an automobile noise. I wouldn’t have noticed the man if he hadn’t been bare-headed, but he was the man Mr. Barnable described—scar, pushed-in mouth, and all.”

  “Do you know the make or license number of the car he entered, Mr. Glenn?”

  “No, I don’t. It was a black coupé, and that’s all I know. I think it came from the direction of Market Street. A man was driving it, I believe, but I didn’t notice whether he was young or old or anything about him.”

  “Did the bandit seem excited, Mr. Glenn? Did he look back?”

  “No, he was as cool as you please, didn’t even seem in a hurry. He just walked up the street and got into the coupé, not looking to right or left.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Glenn. Now can anyone amplify or amend Mr. Barnable’s description of the bandit?”

  “His hair was gray,” Mr. Glenn said, “iron-gray.”

&n
bsp; Mrs. Dolan and Mr. Knight concurred in this, the former adding, “I think he was older than Mr. Barnable said—closer to fifty than to forty—and his teeth were brown and decayed in front.”

  “They were, now that you mention it,” Mr. Knight agreed.

  “Is there any other light on the matter, Sergeant Hooley?”

  “Not a twinkle. The shotgun cars are out after the coupé, and I reckon when the papers get out we’ll be hearing from more people who saw things, but you know how they are.”

  I did indeed. One of the most lamentable features of criminal detection is the amount of time and energy wasted investigating information supplied by people who, through sheer perversity, stupidity, or excessive imagination, insist on connecting everything they have chanced to see with whatever crime happens to be most prominent in the day’s news.

  Sergeant Hooley, whatever the defects of his humor, was an excellent actor: his face was bland and guileless and his voice did not vary in the least from the casual as he said, “Unless Mr. Thin has some more questions, you folks might as well run along. I have your address and can get hold of you if I need you again.”

  I hesitated, but the fundamental principle that Papa had instilled in me during the ten years of my service under him—the necessity of never taking anything for granted—impelled me to say, “Just a moment,” and to lead Sergeant Hooley out of the others’ hearing.

  “You have made your arrangements, Sergeant Hooley?”

  “What arrangements?”

  I smiled, realizing that the police detectives were trying to conceal their knowledge from me. My immediate temptation was, naturally enough, to reciprocate in kind; but whatever the advantages of working independently on any one operation, in the long run a private detective is wiser in cooperating with the police than in competing with them.