Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man

“Probably,” Nora said.

“It's a word you've got to use a lot in this business. The letter to Gilbert was only for the purpose of showing that Wynant had a key to the girl's apartment, and sending Gilbert there was only a way of making sure that he'd fall into the hands of the police, who'd squeeze him and not let him keep the information about the letter and the key to himself. Then Mimi finally comes through with the watch-chain, but meanwhile another worry comes up. She's persuaded Guild to suspect me a little. I've an idea that when Macaulay came to me this morning with that hooey he intended to get me up to Scarsdale and knock me off, making me number three on the list of Wynant's victims. Maybe he just changed his mind, maybe he thought I was suspicious, too willing to go up there without policemen. Anyhow, Gilbert's lie about having seen Wynant gave him another idea. If he could get somebody to say they had seen Wynant and stick to it. . . Now this part we know definitely.”

“Thank God.”

“He went to see Mimi this afternoon—riding up two floors above hers and walking down so the elevator boys wouldn't remember having carried him to her floor—and made her a proposition. He told her there was no question about Wynant's guilt, but that it was doubtful if the police would ever catch him. Meanwhile he, Macaulay, had the whole estate in his hands. He couldn't take a chance on appropriating any of it, but he'd fix it so she could—if she would split with him. He'd give her these bonds he had in his pocket and this check, but she'd have to say that Wynant had given them to her and she'd have to send this note, which he also had, over to Macaulay as if from Wynant. He assured her that Wynant, a fugitive, could not show up to deny his gift, and, except for herself and her children, there was no one else who had any interest in the estate, any reason for questioning the deal. Mimi's not very sensible where she sees a chance to make a profit, so it was all 0. K. with her, and he had what he wanted—somebody who'd seen Wynant alive. He warned her that everybody would think Wynant was paying her for some service, but if she simply denied it there would be nothing anybody could prove.”

“Then what he told you this morning about Wynant instructing him to give her any amount she asked for was simply in preparation?”

“Maybe, maybe it was an earlier fumbling towards that idea. Now are you satisfied with what we've got on him?”

“Yes, in a way. There seems to be enough of it, but it's not very neat.”

“It's neat enough to send him to the chair,” I said, “and that's all that counts. It takes care of all the angles and I can't think of any other theory that would. Naturally it wouldn't hurt to find the pistol, and the typewriter he used for the Wynant letters, and they must be somewhere around where he can get at them when he needs them.” (We found them in the Brooklyn apartment he had rented as George Foley.)

“Have it your own way,” she said, “but I always thought detectives waited until they had every little detail fixed in—”

“And then wonder why the suspect's had time to get to the farthest country that has no extradition treaty.”

She laughed. “All right, all right. Still want to leave for San Francisco tomorrow?”

“Not unless you're in a hurry. Let's stick around awhile. This excitement has put us behind in our drinking.”

“It's all right by me. What do you think will happen to Mimi and Dorothy and Gilbert now?”

“Nothing new. They'll go on being Mimi and Dorothy and Gilbert just as you and I will go on being us and the Quinns will go on being the Quinns. Murder doesn't round out anybody's life except the murdered's and sometimes the murderer's.”

“That may be,” Nora said, “but it's all pretty unsatisfactory.”