The Thin Man (18 page)

“You can talk here.” She got up from the chair. “I’ll go out and talk to Mrs. Charles till you’re through.” She tapped my cheek playfully with the tip of a forefinger as she passed me. “Don’t let them say too horrid things about me, Nick.” Andy opened the door for her, shut it behind her, and made the
o
and the blowing noise again.

I lay down on the bed. “Well,” I asked, “what’s what?”

Guild cleared his throat. “She told us about finding this here chain and knife on the floor where the Wolf dame had most likely broke it off fighting with Wynant, and she told us the reasons why she’d hid it till now. Between me and you, that don’t make any too much sense, looking at it reasonably, but maybe that ain’t the way to look at it in this case. To tell you the plain truth, I don’t know what to make of her in a lot of ways, I don’t for a fact.”

“The chief thing,” I advised them, “is not to let her tire you out. When you catch her in a lie, she admits it and gives you another lie to take its place and, when you catch her in that one, admits it and gives you still another, and so on. Most people—even women—get discouraged after you’ve caught them in the third or fourth straight lie and fall back on either the truth or silence, but not Mimi. She keeps trying and you’ve got to be careful or you’ll find yourself believing her, not because she seems to be telling the truth, but simply because you’re tired of disbelieving her.”

Guild said: “Hm-m-m. Maybe.” He put a finger inside his collar. He seemed very uncomfortable. “Look here, do you think she killed that dame?”

I discovered that Andy was staring at me so intently that his eyes bulged. I sat up and put my feet on the floor. “I wish I knew. That chain business looks like a plant, all right, but … We can find out whether he had a chain like that, maybe whether he still has it. If she remembered the chain as well as she said she did, there’s no reason why she couldn’t have told a jeweler how to make one, and anybody can buy a knife and have any initials they want engraved on it. There’s plenty to be said against the probability of her having gone that far. If she did plant it, it’s more likely she had the original chain—maybe she’s had it for years—but all that’s something for you folks to check up.”

“We’re doing the best we can,” Guild said patiently. “So you do think she did it?”

“The murder?” I shook my head. “I haven’t got that far yet. How about Nunheim? Did the bullets match up?”

“They did—from the same gun as was used on the dame—all five of them.”

“He was shot five times?”

“He was, and close enough to burn his clothes.”

“I saw his girl, the big red-head, tonight in a speak,” I told him. “She’s saying you and I killed him because he knew too much.”

He said: “Hm-m-m. What speak was that? I might want to talk to her.”

“Studsy Burke’s Pigiron Club,” I said, and gave him the address. “Morelli hangs out there too. He tells me Julia Wolf’s real name is Nancy Kane and she has a boy friend doing time in Ohio—Face Peppler.”

From the tone of Guild’s “Yes?” I imagined he had already found out about Peppier and about Julia’s past. “And what else did you pick up in your travels?”

“A friend of mine—Larry Crowley, a press agent—saw Jorgensen coming out of a hock-shop on Sixth near Forty-sixth yesterday afternoon.”

“Yes?”

“You don’t seem to get excited about my news. I’m—”

Mimi opened the door and came in with glasses, whisky, and mineral water on a tray. “I thought you’d like a drink,” she said cheerfully. We thanked her.

She put the tray on the table, said, “I don’t mean to interrupt,” smiled at us with that air of amused tolerance which women like to affect towards male gatherings, and went out.

“You were saying something,” Guild reminded me.

“Just that if you people think I’m not coming clean with you, you ought to say so. We’ve been playing along together so far and I wouldn’t want—”

“No, no,” Guild said hastily, “it’s nothing like that, Mr. Charles.” His face had reddened a little. “I been—The fact is the Commissioner’s been riding us for action and I guess I been kind of passing it on. This second murder’s made things tough.” He turned to the tray on the table. “How’ll you have yours?”

“Straight, thanks. No leads on it?”

“Well, the same gun and a lot of bullets, same as with her, but that’s about all. It was a rooming-house hallway in between a couple stores. Nobody there claims they know Nunheim or Wynant or anybody else we can connect. The door’s left unlocked, anybody could walk in, but that don’t make too much sense when you come to think of it.”

“Nobody saw or heard anything?”

“Sure, they heard the shooting, but they didn’t see anybody doing it.” He gave me a glass of whisky.

“Find any empty shells?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Neither time. Probably a revolver.”

“And he emptied it both times—counting the shot that hit her telephone—if, like a lot of people, he carried an empty chamber under the hammer.”

Guild lowered the glass he was raising towards his mouth. “You’re not trying to find a Chinese angle on it, are you,” he complained, “just because they shoot like that?”

“No, but any kind of angle would help some. Find out where Nunheim was the afternoon the girl was killed?”

“Uh-huh. Hanging around the girl’s building—part of the time anyhow. He was seen in front and he was seen in back, if you’re going to believe people that didn’t think much of it at the time and haven’t got any reason for lying about it. And the day before the killing he had been up to her apartment, according to an elevator boy. The boy says he came down right away and he don’t know whether he got in or not.”

I said: “So. Maybe Miriam’s right, maybe he did know too much. Find out anything about the four-thousand difference between what Macaulay gave her and what Clyde Wynant says he got from her?”

“No.”

“Morelli says she always had plenty of money. He says she once lent him five thousand in cash.”

Guild raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Yes. He also says Wynant knew about her record.”

“Seems to me,” Guild said slowly, “Morelli did a lot of talking to you.”

“He likes to talk. Find out anything more about what Wynant was working on when he left, or what he was going away to work on?”

“No. You’re kind of interested in that shop of his.”

“Why not? He’s an inventor, the shop’s his place. I’d like to have a look at it some time.”

“Help yourself. Tell me some more about Morelli, and how you go about getting him to open up.”

“He likes to talk. Do you know a fellow called Sparrow? A big fat pale fellow with a pansy voice?”

Guild frowned. “No. Why?”

“He was there—with Miriam—and wanted to take a crack at me, but they wouldn’t let him.”

“And what’d he want to do that for?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because she told him I helped knock Nunheim off—helped you.”

Guild said: “Oh.” He scratched his chin with a thumbnail, looked at his watch. “It’s getting kind of late. Suppose you drop in and see me some time tomorrow—today.”

I said, “Sure,” instead of the things I was thinking, nodded at him and Andy, and went out to the living-room.

Nora was sleeping on the sofa. Mimi put down the book she was reading and asked: “Is the secret session over?”

“Yes.” I moved towards the sofa.

Mimi said: “Let her sleep awhile, Nick. You’re going to stay till after your police friends have gone, aren’t you?”

“All right. I want to see Dorothy again.”

“But she’s asleep.”

“That’s all right. I’ll wake her up.”

“But—” Guild and Andy came in, said their goodnights, Guild looked regretfully at the sleeping Nora, and they left.

Mimi sighed. “I’m tired of policemen,” she said. “You remember that story?”

“Yes.”

Gilbert came in. “Do they really think Chris did it?”

“No,” I said.

“Who do they think?”

“I could’ve told you yesterday. I can’t today.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Mimi protested. “They know very well and you know very well that Clyde did it.” When I said nothing she repeated, more sharply: “You know very well that Clyde did it.”

“He didn’t,” I said.

An expression of triumph brightened Mimi’s face. “You
are
working for him, now aren’t you?” My “No” bounced off her with no effect whatever.

Gilbert asked, not argumentatively, but as if he wanted to know: “Why couldn’t he?”

“He could’ve, but he didn’t. Would he have written those letters throwing suspicion on Mimi, the one person who’s helping him by hiding the chief evidence against him?”

“But maybe he didn’t know that. Maybe he thought the police were simply not telling all they knew. They often do that, don’t they? Or maybe he thought he could discredit her, so they wouldn’t believe her if—”

“That’s it,” Mimi said. “That’s exactly what he did, Nick.”

I said to Gilbert: “You don’t think he killed her.”

“No, I don’t think he did, but I’d like to know why you don’t think so—you know—your method.”

“And I’d like to know yours.”

His face flushed a little and there was some embarrassment in his smile. “Oh, but I—it’s different.”

“He
knows
who killed her,” Dorothy said from the doorway. She was still dressed. She stared at me fixedly, as if afraid to look at anybody else. Her face was pale and she held her small body stiffly erect.

Nora opened her eyes, pushed herself up on an elbow, and asked, “What?” sleepily. Nobody answered her.

Mimi said: “Now, Dorry, don’t let’s have one of those idiotic dramatic performances.”

Dorothy said: “You can beat me after they’ve gone. You will.” She said it without taking her eyes off mine. Mimi tried to look as if she did not know what her daughter was talking about.

“Who does he know killed her?” I asked.

Gilbert said: “You’re making an ass of yourself, Dorry, you’re—”

I interrupted him: “Let her. Let her say what she’s got to say. Who killed her, Dorothy?”

She looked at her brother and lowered her eyes and no longer held herself erect. Looking at the floor, she said indistinctly: “I don’t know. He knows.” She raised her eyes to mine and began to tremble. “Can’t you see I’m afraid?” she cried. “I’m afraid of them. Take me away and I’ll tell you, but I’m afraid of them.”

Mimi laughed at me. “You asked for it. It serves you right.”

Gilbert was blushing. “It’s so silly,” he mumbled.

I said: “Sure, I’ll take you away, but I’d like to have it out now while we’re all together.”

Dorothy shook her head. “I’m afraid.”

Mimi said: “I wish you wouldn’t baby her so, Nick. It only makes her worse. She—”

I asked Nora: “What do you say?”

She stood up and stretched without lifting her arms. Her face was pink and lovely as it always is when she has been sleeping. She smiled drowsily at me and said: “Let’s go home. I don’t like these people. Come on, get your hat and coat, Dorothy.”

Mimi said to Dorothy: “Go to bed.”

Dorothy put the tips of the fingers of her left hand to her mouth and whimpered through them: “Don’t let her beat me, Nick.” I was watching Mimi, whose face wore a placid half-smile, but her nostrils moved with her breathing and I could hear her breathing.

Nora went around to Dorothy. “Come on, we’ll wash your face and—” Mimi made an animal noise in her throat, muscles thickened on the back of her neck, and she put her weight on the balls of her feet.

Nora stepped between Mimi and Dorothy. I caught Mimi by a shoulder as she started forward, put my other arm around her waist from behind, and lifted her off her feet. She screamed and hit back at me with her fists and her hard sharp high heels made dents in my shins.

Nora pushed Dorothy out of the room and stood in the doorway watching us. Her face was very live. I saw it clearly, sharply. everything else was blurred. When clumsy, ineffectual blows on my back and shoulder brought me around to find Gilbert pommeling me, I could see him but dimly and I hardly felt the contact when I shoved him aside. “Cut it out. I don’t want to hurt you, Gilbert.” I carried Mimi over to the sofa and dumped her on her back on it, sat on her knees, got a wrist in each hand.

Gilbert was at me again. I tried to pop his kneecap, but kicked him too low, kicked his leg from under him. He went down on the floor in a tangle. I kicked at him again, missed, and said: “We can fight afterwards. Get some water.”

Mimi’s face was becoming purple. Her eyes protruded, glassy, senseless, enormous. Saliva bubbled and hissed between clenched teeth with her breathing, and her red throat—her whole body—was a squirming mass of veins and muscles swollen until it seemed they must burst. Her wrists were hot in my hands and sweat made them hard to hold. Nora beside me with a glass of water was a welcome sight. “Chuck it in her face,” I said.

Nora chucked it. Mimi separated her teeth to gasp and she shut her eyes. She moved her head violently from side to side, but there was less violence in the squirming of her body. “Do it again,” I said. The second glass of water brought a spluttering protest from Mimi and the fight went out of her body. She lay still, limp, panting.

I took my hands away from her wrists and stood up. Gilbert, standing on one foot, was leaning against a table nursing the leg I kicked. Dorothy, big-eyed and pale, was in the doorway, undecided whether to come in or run off and hide. Nora, beside me, holding the empty glass in her hand, asked: “Think she’s all right?”

“Sure.”

Presently Mimi opened her eyes, tried to blink the water out of them. I put a handkerchief in her hand. She wiped her face, gave a long shivering sigh, and sat up on the sofa. She looked around the room, still blinking a little. When she saw me she smiled feebly. There was guilt in her smile, but nothing you could call remorse. She touched her hair with an unsteady hand and said: “I’ve certainly been drowned.”

I said: “Some day you’re going into one of those things and not come out of it.”

She looked past me at her son. “Gil. What’s happened to you?” she asked.

He hastily took his hand off his leg and put his foot down on the floor. “I—uh—nothing,” he stammered. “I’m perfectly all right.” He smoothed his hair, straightened his necktie.