Дэшил Хэммет - The Collected Dashiell Hammett

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.

“Really,” I said, “you must harbor a poor opinion of my ability if you think I have not also taken cognizance of the fact that if Glenn were standing where he said he was standing, and if, as he says, the bandit did not turn his head, then he could not have seen the scar on the bandit’s left cheek.”

Despite his evident discomfiture, Sergeant Hooley acknowledged defeat without resentment.

“I might of known you’d tumble to that,” he admitted, rubbing his chin with a reflective thumb. “Well, I reckon we might as well take him along now as later, unless you’ve got some other notion in your head.”

Consulting my watch, I saw that it was now twenty-four minutes past noon: my investigation had thus far, thanks to the police detectives’ having assembled all the witnesses, consumed only ten or twelve minutes.

“If Glenn were stationed at Powell Street to mislead us,” I suggested, “then isn’t it quite likely that the bandit did not escape in that direction at all? It occurs to me that there is a barber shop two doors from here in the opposite direction — toward Stockton Street. That barber shop, which I assume has a door opening into the Bulwer Building, as barber shops similarly located invariably do, may have served as a passageway through which the bandit could have got quickly off the street. In any event, I consider it a possibility that we should investigate.”

“The barber shop it is!” Sergeant Hooley spoke to his colleague, “Wait here with these folks till we’re back, Strong. We won’t be long.”

“Right,” Detective Strong replied.

In the street we found fewer curious spectators than before.

“Might as well go inside, Tim,” Sergeant Hooley said to the policeman in front as we passed him on our way to the barber shop.

The barber shop was about the same size as the jewelry store. Five of its six chairs were filled when we went in, the vacant one being that nearest the front window. Behind it stood a short swarthy man who smiled at us and said, “Next,” as is the custom of barbers.

Approaching, I tendered him one of my cards, from perusal of which he looked up at me with bright interest that faded at once into rather infantile disappointment. I was not unfamiliar with this phenomenon: there are a surprising number of people who, on learning that my name is Thin, are disappointed in not finding me an emaciated skeleton or, what would doubtless be even more pleasing, grossly fat.

“You know, I assume, that Barnable’s store has been robbed?”

“Sure! It’s getting tough the way those babies knock ’em over in broad daylight!”

“Did you by any chance hear the report of the pistol?”

“Sure! I was shaving a fellow, Mr. Thorne, the real estate man. He always waits for me no matter how many of the other barbers are loafing. He says — Anyhow, I heard the shot and went to the door to look up there, but I couldn’t keep Mr. Thorne waiting, you understand, so I didn’t go up there myself.”

“Did you see anyone who might have been the bandit?”

“No. Those fellows move quick, and at lunchtime, when the street’s full of people, I guess he wouldn’t have much trouble losing himself. It’s funny the way—”

In view of the necessity of economizing on time, I risked the imputation of discourtesy by interrupting the barber’s not very pertinent comments.

“Did any man pass through here, going from the street into the Bulwer Building, immediately after you heard the shot?”

“Not that I remember, though lots of men use this shop as a kind of short cut from their offices to the street.”

“But you remember no one passing through shortly after you heard the shot?”

“Not going in. Going out, maybe, because it was just about lunchtime.”

I considered the men the barbers were working on in the five occupied chairs. Only two of these men wore blue trousers. Of the two, one had a dark mustache between an extremely outstanding nose and chin; the other’s face, pink from the shaving it had just undergone, was neither conspicuously thin nor noticeably plump, nor was his profile remarkable for either ugliness or beauty. He was a man of about thirty-five years, with fair hair and, as I saw when he smiled at something his barber said, teeth that were quite attractive in their smooth whiteness.

“When did the man in the third chair” — the one I have just described — “come in?”

“If I ain’t mistaken, just before the hold-up. He was just taking off his collar when I heard the shot. I’m pretty sure of it.”

“Thank you,” I said, turning away.

“A tough break,” Sergeant Hooley muttered in my ear.

I looked sharply at him.

“You forget or, rather, you think I have forgotten, Knight’s gloves.”

Sergeant Hooley laughed shortly. “I forgot ’em for a fact. I must be getting absent-minded or something.”

“I know of nothing to be gained by dissembling, Sergeant Hooley. The barber will be through with our man presently.” Indeed, the man rose from the chair as I spoke. “I suggest that we simply ask him to accompany us to the jeweler’s.”

“Fair enough,” the sergeant agreed.

We waited until our man had put on his collar and tie, his blue jacket, gray coat, and gray hat. Then, exhibiting his badge, Sergeant Hooley introduced himself to the man.

“I’m Sergeant Hooley. I want you to come up the street with me.”

“What?”

The man’s surprise was apparently real, as it may well have been.

Word for word, the sergeant repeated his statement.

“What for?”

I answered the man’s question in as few words as possible.

“You are under arrest for robbing Barnable’s jewelry store.”

The man protested somewhat truculently that his name was Brennan, that he was well-known in Oakland, that someone would pay for this insult, and so on. For a minute it seemed that force would be necessary to convey our prisoner to Barnable’s, and Sergeant Hooley had already taken a grip on the man’s wrist when Brennan finally submitted, agreeing to accompany us quietly.

Glenn’s face whitened and a pronounced tremor disturbed his legs as we brought Brennan into the jewelry store, where Mrs. Dolan and Messrs. Barnable, Julius, Knight, and Strong came eagerly to group themselves around us. The uniformed man the Sergeant had called Tim remained just within the street door.