Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man

I outwaited Guild again until presently he said: “Well, I guess there ain't been a great deal of harm done, sonny, if you're sure you ain't doing harm by holding back some other things we ought to know.”

The boy shook his head. “No, sir, I'm not holding back anything.”

“You don't know anything about that knife and chain your mother give us?”

“No, sir, and I didn't know a thing about it till after she had given it to you.”

“How is she?” I asked.

“Oh, she's all right, I think, though she said she was going to stay in bed today.”

Guild narrowed his eyes. “What's the matter with her?”

“Hysteria,” I told him. “She and the daughter had a row last night and she blew up.”

“A row about what?”

“God knows—one of those feminine brain-storms.”

Guild said, “Hm-m-m,” and scratched his chin.

“Was Flint right in saying you didn't get a chance to hunt for your paper?” I asked the boy.

“Yes. I hadn't even had time to shut the door when he ran at me.”

“They're grand detectives I got working for me,” Guild growled. “Didn't he yell, 'Boo!' when he jumped out at you? Never mind. Well, son, I can do one of two things, and the which depends on you. I can hold you for a while or I can let you go in exchange for a promise that you'll let me know as soon as your father gets in touch with you and let me know what he tells you and where he wants you to meet him, if any.”

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 that 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.

Guild had red-haired Flint in again and put the thumbscrews on him. The ned-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 we 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 anywhcres 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 any— thing 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.