The Thin Man (6 page)

I put the telegram in an envelope with a note saying it had just reached me and sent it by messenger to the Police Department Homicide Bureau.

In the taxicab Nora asked: “You’re sure you feel all right?”

“Sure.”

“And this isn’t going to be too much for you?”

“I’m all right. What’d you think of the girl’s story?”

She hesitated. “You don’t believe her, do you?”

“God forbid—at least till I’ve checked it up.”

“You know more about this kind of thing than I do,” she said, “but I think she was at least trying to tell the truth.”

“A lot fancier yarns come from people who are trying to do that. It’s not easy once you’re out of the habit.”

She said: “I bet you know a lot about human nature, Mr. Charles. Now don’t you? Some time you must tell me about your experiences as a detective.”

I said: “Buying a gun for twelve bucks in a speakeasy. Well, maybe, but …”

We rode a couple of blocks in silence. Then Nora asked: “What’s really the matter with her?”

“Her old man’s crazy: she thinks she is.”

“How do you know?”

“You asked me. I’m telling you.”

“You mean you’re guessing?”

“I mean that’s what’s wrong with her; I don’t know whether Wynant’s actually nuts and I don’t know whether she inherited any of it if he is, but she thinks both answers are yes, and it’s got her doing figure eights.”

When we stopped in front of the Courtland she said: “That’s horrible, Nick. Somebody ought to—”

I said I didn’t know: maybe Dorothy was right. “Likely as not she’s making doll clothes for Asta right now.”

We sent our name up to the Jorgensens and, after some delay, were told to go up. Mimi met us in the corridor when we stepped out of the elevator, met us with open arms and many words. “Those wretched newspapers. They had me frantic with their nonsense about your being at death’s door. I phoned twice, but they wouldn’t give me your apartment, wouldn’t tell me how you were.” She had both of my hands. “I’m so glad, Nick, that it was just a pack of lies, even if you will have to take pot luck with us tonight. Naturally I didn’t expect you and— But you’re pale. You really have been hurt.”

“Not much,” I said. “A bullet scraped my side, but it doesn’t amount to anything.”

“And you came to dinner in spite of that! That is flattering, but I’m afraid it’s foolish too.” She turned to Nora. “Are you sure it was wise to let him—”

“I’m not sure,” Nora said, “but he wanted to come.”

“Men are such idiots,” Mimi said. She put an arm around me. “They either make mountains out of nothing or utterly neglect things that may— But come in. Here, let me help you.”

“It’s not that bad,” I assured her, but she insisted on leading me to a chair and packing me in with half a dozen cushions.

Jorgensen came in, shook hands with me, and said he was glad to find me more alive than the newspapers had said. He bowed over Nora’s hand. “If I may be excused one little minute more I will finish the cocktails.” He went out.

Mimi said: “I don’t know where Dorry is. Off sulking somewhere, I suppose. You haven’t any children, have you?”

Nora said: “No.”

“You’re missing a lot, though they can be a great trial sometimes.” Mimi sighed. “I suppose I’m not strict enough. When I do have to scold Dorry she seems to think I’m a complete monster.” Her face brightened. “Here’s my other tot. You remember Mr. Charles, Gilbert. And this is Mrs. Charles.” Gilbert Wynant was two years younger than his sister, a gangling pale blond boy of eighteen with not too much chin under a somewhat slack mouth. The size of his remarkably clear blue eyes, and the length of the lashes, gave him a slightly effeminate look. I hoped he had stopped being the whining little nuisance he was as a kid.

Jorgensen brought in his cocktails, and Mimi insisted on being told about the shooting. I told her, making it even more meaningless than it had been. “But why should he have come to you?” she asked.

“God knows. I’d like to know. The police’d like to know.”

Gilbert said: “I read somewhere that when habitual criminals are accused of things they didn’t do—even little things—they’re much more upset by it than other people would be. Do you think that’s so, Mr. Charles?”

“It’s likely.”

“Except,” Gilbert added, “when it’s something big, you know, something they would like to’ve done.” I said again it was likely.

Mimi said: “Don’t be polite to Gil if he starts talking nonsense, Nick. His head’s so cluttered up with reading. Get us another cocktail, darling.” He went over to get the shaker. Nora and Jorgensen were in a corner sorting phonograph records.

I said: “I had a wire from Wynant today.”

Mimi looked warily around the room, then leaned forward, and her voice was almost a whisper: “What did he say?”

“Wanted me to find out who killed her. It was sent from Philadelphia this afternoon.”

She was breathing heavily. “Are you going to do it?”

I shrugged. “I turned it over to the police.” Gilbert came back
with the shaker. Jorgensen and Nora had put Bach’s “Little Fugue” on the phonograph. Mimi quickly drank her cocktail and had Gilbert pour her another.

He sat down and said: “I want to ask you: can you tell dope-addicts by looking at them?” He was trembling.

“Very seldom. Why?”

“I was wondering. Even if they’re confirmed addicts?”

“The further along they are, the better the chances of noticing that something’s wrong, but you can’t often be sure it’s dope.”

“Another thing,” he said, “Gross says when you’re stabbed you only feel a sort of push at the time and it’s not until afterwards that it begins to hurt. Is that so?”

“Yes, if you’re stabbed reasonably hard with a reasonably sharp knife. A bullet’s the same way: you only feel the blow—and with a small-calibre steel-jacketed bullet not much of that—at first. The rest comes when the air gets to it.”

Mimi drank her third cocktail and said: “I think you’re both being indecently gruesome, especially after what happened to Nick today. Do try to find Dorry, Gil. You must know some of her friends. Phone them. I suppose she’ll be along presently, but I worry about her.”

“She’s over at our place,” I said.

“At your place?” Her surprise may have been genuine.

“She came over this afternoon and asked if she could stay with us awhile.”

She smiled tolerantly and shook her head. “These youngsters!” She stopped smiling. “Awhile?” I nodded. Gilbert, apparently waiting to ask me another question, showed no interest in this conversation between his mother and me.

Mimi smiled again and said: “I’m sorry she’s bothering you and your wife, but it’s a relief to know she’s there instead of off the Lord only knows where. She’ll have finished her pouting by the time you get back. Send her along home, will you?” She poured me a cocktail. “You’ve been awfully nice to her.” I did not say anything.

Gilbert began: “Mr. Charles, do criminals—I mean professional criminals—usually—”

“Don’t interrupt, Gil,” Mimi said. “You will send her along home, won’t you?” She was pleasant, but she was Dorothy’s Queen of France.

“She can stay if she wants. Nora likes her.”

She shook a crooked finger at me. “But I won’t have you spoiling her like that. I suppose she told you all sorts of nonsense about me.”

“She did say something about a beating.”

“There you are,” Mimi said complacently, as if that proved her point. “No, you’ll have to send her home, Nick.” I finished my cocktail. “Well?” she asked.

“She can stay with us if she wants, Mimi. We like having her.”

“That’s ridiculous. Her place is at home. I want her here.” Her voice was a little sharp. “She’s only a baby. You shouldn’t encourage her foolish notions.”

“I’m not doing anything. If she wants to stay, she stays.”

Anger was a very pretty thing in Mimi’s blue eyes. “She’s my child and she’s a minor. You’ve been very kind to her, but this isn’t being kind to her or to me, and I won’t have it. If you won’t send her home, I’ll take steps to bring her home. I’d rather not be disagreeable about it, but”—she leaned forward and deliberately spaced her words—“she’s coming home.”

I said: “You don’t want to pick a fight with me, Mimi.”

She looked at me as if she were going to say I love you, and asked: “Is that a threat?”

“All right,” I said, “have me arrested for kidnapping, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and mopery.”

She said suddenly in a harsh enraged voice: “And tell your wife to stop pawing my husband.” Nora, looking for another phonograph record with Jorgensen, had a hand on his sleeve. They turned to look at Mimi in surprise.

I said: “Nora, Mrs. Jorgensen wants you to keep you hands off Mr. Jorgensen.”

“I’m awfully sorry.” Nora smiled at Mimi, then looked at me, put a very artificial expression of concern on her face, and in a somewhat singsong voice, as if she were a schoolchild reciting a piece, said: “Oh, Nick, you’re pale. I’m sure you have exceeded your strength and will have a relapse. I’m sorry, Mrs. Jorgensen, but I think I should get him home and to bed right away. You will forgive us, won’t you?” Mimi said she would. Everybody was the soul of politeness to everybody else. We went downstairs and got a taxicab.

“Well,” Nora said, “so you talked yourself out of a dinner. What do you want to do now? Go home and eat with Dorothy?”

I shook my head. “I can do without Wynants for a little while. Let’s go to Max’s: I’d like some snails.”

“Right. Did you find out anything?”

“Nothing.”

She said meditatively: “It’s a shame that guy’s so handsome.”

“What’s he like?”

“Just a big doll. It’s a shame.” We had dinner and went back to the Normandie. Dorothy was not there. I felt as if I had expected that. Nora went through the rooms, called up the desk. No note, no message had been left for us. “So what?” she asked.

It was not quite ten o’clock. “Maybe nothing,” I said.

“Maybe anything. My guess is she’ll show up about three in the morning, tight, with a machine-gun she bought in Childs’.”

Nora said: “To hell with her. Get into pyjamas and lie down.”

My side felt a lot better when Nora called me at noon the next day. “My nice policeman wants to see you,” she said. “How do you feel?”

“Terrible. I must’ve gone to bed sober.” I pushed Asta out of the way and got up.

Guild rose with a drink in his hand when I entered the living-room, and smiled all across his broad sandy face. “Well, well, Mr. Charles, you look spry enough this morning.” I shook hands with him and said yes I felt pretty good, and we sat down. He frowned good-naturedly. “Just the same, you oughtn’t’ve played that trick on me.”

“Trick?”

“Sure, running off to see people when I’d put off asking you questions to give you a chance to rest up. I kind of figured that ought to give me first call on you, as you might say.”

“I didn’t think,” I said. “I’m sorry. See that wire I got from Wynant?”

“Uh-huh. We’re running it out in Philly.”

“Now about that gun,” I began, “I—” He stopped me. “What gun? That ain’t a gun any more. The firing pin’s busted off, the guts are rusted and jammed. If anybody’s
fired it in six months—or could—I’m the Pope of Rome. Don’t let’s waste any time talking about that piece of junk.”

I laughed. “That explains a lot. I took it away from a drunk who said he’d bought it in a speakeasy for twelve bucks. I believe him now.”

“Somebody’ll sell him the City Hall one of these days. Man to man, Mr. Charles, are you working on the Wolf job or ain’t you?”

“You saw the wire from Wynant.”

“I did. Then you ain’t working for him. I’m still asking you.”

“I’m not a private detective any more. I’m not any kind of detective.”

“I heard that. I’m still asking you.” “All right. No.”