Текст книги "The Thin Man"

Автор книги: Dashiell Hammett

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

 

22

Business was good at the Pigiron Club. The place was full of people, noise, and smoke. Studsy came from behind the cash register to greet us. “I was hoping you’d come in.” He shook my hand and Nora’s and grinned broadly at Dorothy.

“Anything special?” I asked.

He made a bow. “Everything’s special with ladies like these.” I introduced him to Dorothy.

He bowed to her and said something elaborate about any friend of Nick’s and stopped a waiter. “Pete, put a table up here for Mr. Charles.”

“Pack them in like this every night?” I asked.

“I got no kick,” he said. “They come once, they come back again. Maybe I ain’t got no black marble cuspidors, but you don’t have to spit out what you buy here. Want to lean against the bar whilst they’re putting up that table?” We said we did and ordered drinks.

“Hear about Nunheim?” I asked.

He looked at me for a moment before making up his mind to say: “Uh-huh, I heard. His girl’s down there”—he moved his head to indicate the other end of the room—“celebrating, I guess.”

I looked past Studsy down the room and presently picked out big red-haired Miriam sitting at a table with half a dozen men and women. “Hear who did it?” I asked.

“She says the police done it—he knew too much.”

“That’s a laugh,” I said.

“That’s a laugh,” he agreed. “There’s your table. Set right down. I’ll be back in a minute.”

We carried our glasses over to a table that had been squeezed in between two tables which had occupied a space large enough for one and made ourselves as nearly comfortable as we could.

Nora tasted her drink and shuddered. “Do you suppose this could be the ‘bitter vetch’ they used to put in crossword puzzles?”

Dorothy said: “Oh, look.”

We looked and saw Shep Morelli coming towards us. His face had attracted Dorothy’s attention. Where it was not dented it was swollen and its coloring ranged from deep purple around one eye to the pale pink of a piece of court-plaster on his chin. He came to our table and leaned over a little to put both fists on it. “Listen,” he said, “Studsy says I ought to apologize.”

Nora murmured, “Old Emily Post Studsy,” while I asked, “Well?”

Morelli shook his battered head. “I don’t apologize for what I do—people’ve got to take it or leave it—but I don’t mind telling you I’m sorry I lost my noodle and cracked down on you and I hope it ain’t bothering you much and if there’s anything I can do to square it I—”

“Forget it. Sit down and have a drink. This is Mr. Morelli, Miss Wynant.” Dorothy’s eyes became wide and interested.

Morelli found a chair and sat down. “I hope you won’t hold it against me, neither,” he told Nora.

She said: “It was fun.” He looked at her suspiciously.

“Out on bail?” I asked.

“Uh-huh, this afternoon.” He felt his face gingerly with one hand. “That’s where the new ones come from. They had me resisting some more arrest just for good measure before they turned me loose.”

Nora said indignantly: “That’s horrible. You mean they really—” I patted her hand.

Morelli said: “You got to expect it.” His swollen lower lip moved in what was meant for a scornful smile. “It’s all right as long as it takes two or three of ’em to do it.”

Nora turned to me. “Did you do things like that?”

“Who? Me?”

Studsy came over to us carrying a chair. “They lifted his face, huh?” he said, nodding at Morelli. We made room for him and he sat down. He grinned complacently at Nora’s drink and at Nora. “I guess you don’t get no better than that in your fancy Park Avenue joints—and you pay four bits a slug for it here.” Nora’s smile was weak, but it was a smile. She put her foot on mine under the table

I asked Morelli: “Did you know Julia Wolf in Cleveland?”

He looked sidewise at Studsy, who was leaning back in his chair, gazing around the room, watching his profits mount.

“When she was Rhoda Stewart,” I added.

He looked at Dorothy. I said: “You don’t have to be cagey. She’s Clyde Wynant’s daughter.”

Studsy stopped gazing around the room and beamed on Dorothy. “So you are? And how is your pappy?”

“But I haven’t seen him since I was a little girl,” she said.

Morelli wet the end of a cigarette and put it between his swollen lips. “I come from Cleveland.” He struck a match. His eyes were dull—he was trying to keep them dull. “She wasn’t Rhoda Stewart except once—Nancy Kane.” He looked at Dorothy again. “Your father knows it.”

“Do you know my father?”

“We had some words once.”

“What about?” I asked.

“Her.” The match in his hand had burned down to his fingers. He dropped it, struck another, and lit his cigarette. He raised his eyebrows at me, wrinkling his forehead. “Is this O.K.?”

“Sure. There’s nobody here you can’t talk in front of.”

“O.K. He was jealous as hell. I wanted to take a poke at him. but she wouldn’t let me. That was all right: he was her bank-roll.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Six months, eight months.”

“Have you seen him since she got knocked off?”

He shook his head. “I never seen him but a couple of times, and this time I’m telling you about is the last.”

“Was she gypping him?”

“She don’t say she is. I figure she is.”

“Why?”

“She’s a wise head—plenty smart. She was getting dough somewheres. Once I wanted five grand.” He snapped his fingers. “Cash.”

I decided against asking if he had paid her back. “Maybe he gave it to her.”

“Sure—maybe.”

“Did you tell any of this to the police?” I asked.

He laughed once, contemptuously. “They thought they could smack it out of me. Ask ’em what they think now. You’re a right guy. I don’t—” He broke off, took the cigarette from between his lips. “The earysipelas kid,” he said and put out a hand to touch the ear of a man who, sitting at one of the tables we had been squeezed in between, had been leaning further and further back towards us. The man jumped and turned a startled pale pinched face around over his shoulder at Morelli.

Morelli said: “Pull in that lug—it’s getting in our drinks.”

The man stammered, “I d-didn’t mean nothing, Shep,” and rammed his belly into his table trying to get as far as possible from us, which still did not take him out of ear-shot.

Morelli said, “You won’t ever mean nothing, but that don’t keep you from trying,” and returned his attention to me. “I’m willing to go all the way with you—the kid’s dead, it’s not going to hurt her any—but Mulrooney ain’t got a wrecking crew that can get it out of me.”

“Swell,” I said. “Tell me about her, where you first ran into her, what she did before she tied up with Wynant, where he found her.”

“I ought to have a drink.” He twisted himself around in his chair and called: “Hey, garsong—you with the boy on your back!”

The somewhat hunchbacked waiter Studsy had called Pete pushed through people to our table and grinned affectionately down at Morelli. “What’ll it be?” He sucked a tooth noisily. We gave our orders and the waiter went away.

Morelli said: “Me and Nancy lived in the same block. Old man Kane had a candy store on the corner. She used to pinch cigarettes for me.” He laughed. “Her old man kicked hell out of me once for showing her how to get nickels out of the telephone with a piece of wire. You know, the old-style ones. Jesus, we couldn’t’ve been more than in the third grade.” He laughed again, low in his throat. “I wanted to glaum some fixtures from a row of houses they were building around the corner and plant ’em in his cellar and tell Schultz, the cop on the beat, to pay him back, but she wouldn’t let me.”

Nora said: “You must’ve been a little darling.”

“I was that,” he said fondly. “Listen. Once when I was no more’n five or—”

A feminine voice said: “I thought that was you.”

I looked up and saw it was red-haired Miriam speaking to me. I said: “Hello.”

She put her hands on her hips and stared somberly at me. “So he knew too much for you.”

“Maybe, but he took it on the lam down the fire-escape with his shoes in his hand before he told us any of it.”

“Balls!”

“All right. What do you think he knew that was too much for us?”

“Where Wynant is,” she said.

“So? Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Art knew.”

“I wish he’d told us. We–”

“Balls!” she said again. “You know and the police know. Who do you think you’re kidding?”

“I’m not kidding. I don’t know where Wynant is.”

“You’re working for him and the police are working with you. Don’t kid me. Art thought knowing was going to get him a lot of money, poor sap. He didn’t know what it was going to get him.”

“Did he tell you he knew?” I asked.

“I’m not as dumb as you think. He told me he knew something that was going to get him big dough and I’ve seen how it worked out. I guess I can put two and two together.”

“Sometimes the answer’s four,” I said, “and sometimes it’s twenty-two. I’m not working for Wynant. Now don’t say, ‘Balls,’ again. Do you want to help—”

“No. He was a rat and he held out on the people he was ratting for. He asked for what he got, only don’t expect me to forget that I left him with you and Guild, and the next time anybody saw him he was dead.”

“I don’t want you to forget anything. I’d like you to remember whether—”

“I’ve got to go to the can,” she said and walked away. Her carriage was remarkably graceful.

“I don’t know as I’d want to be mixed up with that dame,” Studsy said thoughtfully. “She’s mean medicine.” Morelli winked at me.

Dorothy touched my arm.

“I don’t understand, Nick.”

I told her that was all right and addressed Morelli: “You were telling us about Julia Wolf.”

“Uh-huh. Well, old man Kane booted her out when she was fifteen or sixteen and got in some kind of a jam with a high-school teacher and she took up with a guy called Face Peppler, a smart kid if he didn’t talk too much. I remember once me and Face were—” He broke off and cleared his throat. “Anyways, Face and her stuck together—it must be five, six years, throwing out the time he was in the army and she was living with some guy that I can’t remember his name—a cousin of Dick O’Brien’s, a skinny dark-headed guy that liked his liquor. But she went back to Face when he come out of the army, and they stuck together till they got nailed trying to shake down some bird from Toronto. Face took it and got her off with six months—they gave him the business. Last I heard he was still in. I saw her when she came out—she touched me for a couple hundred to blow town. I hear from her once, when she sends it back to me and tells me Julia Wolf’s her name now and she likes the big city fine, but I know Face is hearing from her right along. So when I move here in ’28, I look her up. She’s—”

Miriam came back and stood with her hands on her hips as before. “I’ve been thinking over what you said. You must think I’m pretty dumb.”

“No,” I said, not very truthfully.

“It’s a cinch I’m not dumb enough to fall for that song and dance you tried to give me. I can see things when they’re right in front of me.”

“All right.”

“It’s not all right. You killed Art and—”

“Not so loud, girlie.” Studsy rose and took her arm. His voice was soothing. “Come along. I want to talk to you.” He led her towards the bar.

Morelli winked again. “He likes that. Well, I was saying I looked her up when I moved here, and she told me she had this job with Wynant and he was nuts about her and she was sitting pretty. It seems they learned her shorthand in Ohio when she was doing her six months and she figures maybe it’ll be an in to something—you know, maybe she can get a job somewheres where they’ll go out and leave the safe open. A agency had sent her over to do a couple days’ work for Wynant and she figured maybe he’d be worth more for a long pull than for a quick tap and a get-away, so she give him the business and wound up with a steady connection. She was smart enough to tell him she had a record and was trying to go straight now and all that, so’s not to have the racket spoiled if he found out anyhow, because she said his lawyer was a little leery of her and might have her looked up. I don’t know just what she was doing, you understand, because it’s her game and she don’t need my help, and even if we are pals in a way, there’s no sense in telling me anything I might want to go to her boss with. Understand, she wasn’t my girl or anything—we was just a couple old friends, been kids playing together. Well, I used to see her every once in a while—we used to come here a lot—till he kicked up too much of a fuss and then she said she was going to cut it out, she wasn’t going to lose a soft bed over a few drinks with me. So that was that. That was October, I guess, and she stuck to it. I haven’t seen her since.”

“Who else did she run around with?” I asked.

Morelli shook his head. “I don’t know. She don’t do much talking about people.”

“She was wearing a diamond engagement ring. Know anything about it?”

“Nothing except she didn’t get it from me. She wasn’t wearing it when I seen her.”

“Do you think she meant to throw in with Peppier again when he got out?”

“Maybe. She didn’t seem to worry much about him being in, but she liked to work with him all right and I guess they’d’ve teamed up again.”

“And how about the cousin of Dick O’Brien, the skinny dark-headed lush? What became of him?”

Morelli looked at me in surprise. “Search me.”

Studsy returned alone. “Maybe I’m wrong,” he said as he sat down, “but I think somebody could do something with that cluck if they took hold of her right.”

Morelli said: “By the throat.”

Studsy grinned good-naturedly. “No. She’s trying to get somewhere. She works hard at her singing lessons and—”

Morelli looked at his empty glass and said: “This tiger milk of yours must be doing her pipes a lot of good.” He turned his head to yell at Pete: “Hey, you with the knapsack, some more of the same. We got to sing in the choir tomorrow.”

Pete said: “Coming up, Sheppy.” His lined gray face lost its dull apathy when Morelli spoke to him.

An immensely fat blond man—so blond he was nearly albino—who had been sitting at Miriam’s table came over and said to me in a thin, tremulous, effeminate voice: “So you’re the party who put it to little Art Nunhei—”

Morelli hit the fat man in his fat belly, as hard as he could without getting up. Studsy, suddenly on his feet, leaned over Morelli and smashed a big fist into the fat man’s face. I noticed, foolishly, that he still led with his right. Hunchbacked Pete came up behind the fat man and banged his empty tray down with full force on the fat man’s head. The fat man fell back, upsetting three people and a table. Both bar-tenders were with us by then. One of them hit the fat man with a blackjack as he tried to get up, knocking him forward on hands and knees, the other put a hand down inside the fat man’s collar in back, twisting the collar to choke him. With Morelli’s help they got the fat man to his feet and hustled him out.

Pete looked after them and sucked a tooth. “That god-damned Sparrow,” he explained to me, “you can’t take no chances on him when he’s drinking.”

Studsy was at the next table, the one that had been upset, helping people pick up themselves and their possessions. “That’s bad,” he was saying, “bad for business, but where you going to draw the line? I ain’t running a dive, but I ain’t trying to run a young ladies’ seminary neither.”

Dorothy was pale, frightened; Nora wide-eyed and amazed. “It’s a madhouse,” she said. “What’d they do that for?”

“You know as much about it as I do,” I told her.

Morelli and the bar-tenders came in again, looking pretty pleased with themselves. Morelli and Studsy returned to their seats at our table. “You boys are impulsive,” I said.

Studsy repeated, “Impulsive,” and laughed, “Ha-ha-ha.”

Morelli was serious. “Any time that guy starts anything, you got to start it first. It’s too late when he gets going. We seen him like that before, ain’t we, Studsy?”

“Like what?” I asked. “He hadn’t done anything.”

“He hadn’t, all right,” Morelli said slowly, “but it’s a kind of feeling you get about him sometimes. Ain’t that right, Studsy?”

Studsy said: “Uh-huh, he’s hysterical.”

 

23

It was about two o’clock when we said goodnight to Studsy and Morelli and left the Pigiron Club. Dorothy slumped down in her corner of the taxicab and said: “I’m going to be sick. I know I am.” She sounded as if she was telling the truth.

Nora said: “That booze.” She put her head on my shoulder. “Your wife is drunk, Nicky. Listen, you’ve got to tell me what happened—everything. Not now, tomorrow. I don’t understand a thing that was said or a thing that was done. They’re marvelous.”

Dorothy said: “Listen, I can’t go to Aunt Alice’s like this. She’d have a fit.”

Nora said: “They oughtn’t’ve hit that fat man like that, though it must’ve been funny in a cruel way.”

Dorothy said: “I suppose I’d better go to Mamma’s.”

Nora said: “Erysipelas hasn’t got anything to do with ears. What’s a lug, Nicky?”

“An ear.”

Dorothy said: “Aunt Alice would have to see me because I forgot the key and I’d have to wake her up.”

Nora said: “I love you, Nicky, because you smell nice and know such fascinating people.”

Dorothy said: “It’s not much out of your way to drop me at Mamma’s, is it?”

I said, “No,” and gave the driver Mimi’s address.

Nora said: “Come home with us.”

Dorothy said: “No—o, I’d better not.”

Nora asked, “Why not?” and Dorothy said, “Well, I don’t think I ought to,” and that kind of thing went on until the taxicab stopped at the Courtland.

I got out and helped Dorothy out. She leaned heavily on my arm. “Please come up, just for a minute.”

Nora said, “Just for a minute,” and got out of the taxicab.

I told the driver to wait. We went upstairs. Dorothy rang the bell. Gilbert, in pyjamas and bathrobe, opened the door. He raised one hand in a warning gesture and said in a low voice: “The police are here.”

Mimi’s voice came from the living-room: “Who is it, Gil?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Charles and Dorothy.”

Mimi came to meet us as we went in. “I never was so glad to see anybody. I just didn’t know which way to turn.” She had on a pinkish satin robe over a pinkish silk nightgown, and her face was pink, and by no means unhappy. She ignored Dorothy, squeezed one of Nora’s hands, one of mine. “Now I’m going to stop worrying and leave it all up to you, Nick. You’ll have to tell the foolish little woman what to do.”

Dorothy, behind me, said, “Balls!” under her breath, but with a lot of feeling.

Mimi did not show that she had heard her daughter. Still holding our hands, she drew us back towards the living-room, chattering: “You know Lieutenant Guild. He’s been very nice, but I’m sure I must have tried his patience. I’ve been so—well—I mean I’ve been so bewildered. But now you’re here and—” We went into the living-room.

Guild said, “Hello,” to me and, “Good evening, ma’am,” to Nora. The man with him, the one he had called Andy and who had helped him search our rooms the morning of Morelli’s visit, nodded and grunted at us.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Guild looked at Mimi out of the corners of his eyes, then at me, and said: “The Boston police found Jorgensen or Rosewater or whatever you want to call him at his first wife’s place and asked him some questions for us. The chief answer seems to be he don’t have anything to do with Julia Wolf getting killed or not getting killed and Mrs. Jorgensen can prove it because she’s been holding out what amounts to the goods on Wynant.” His eyes slid sidewise in their sockets to focus on Mimi again. “The lady kind of don’t want to say yes and kind of don’t want to say no. To tell you the truth, Mr. Charles, I don’t know what to make of her in a lot of ways.”

I could understand that. I said, “She’s probably frightened,” and Mimi tried to look frightened. “Has he been divorced from the first wife?”

“Not according to the first wife.”

Mimi said: “She’s lying, I bet.”

I said: “Sh-h-h. Is he coming back to New York?”

“It looks like he’s going to make us extradite him if we want him. Boston says he’s squawking his head off for a lawyer.”

“Do you want him that bad?”

Guild moved his big shoulders. “If bringing him back’ll help us on this murder. I don’t care much about any of the old charges or the bigamy. I never believe in hounding a man over things that are none of my business.”

I asked Mimi: “Well?”

“Can I talk to you alone?”

I looked at Guild, who said: “Anything that’ll help.”

Dorothy touched my arm. “Nick, listen to me first. I—” She broke off. Everybody was staring at her.

“What?” I asked.

“I—I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Go ahead.”

“I mean alone,” she said.

I patted her hand. “Afterwards.”

Mimi led me into her bedroom and carefully shut the door. I sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. Mimi leaned back against the door and smiled at me very gently and trustingly. Half a minute passed that way.

Then she said, “You do like me, Nick,” and when I said nothing she asked, “Don’t you?”

“No.”

She laughed and came away from the door. “You mean you don’t approve of me.” She sat on the bed beside me. “But you do like me well enough to help me?”

“That depends.”

“Depends on wha—”

The door opened and Dorothy came in: “Nick, I’ve got to—”

Mimi jumped up and confronted her daughter. “Get out of here,” she said through her teeth.

Dorothy flinched, but she said: “I won’t. You’re not going to make a—”

Mimi slashed Dorothy across the mouth with the back of her right hand. “Get out of here.”

Dorothy screamed and put a hand to her mouth. Holding it there, holding her wide frightened eyes on Mimi’s face, she backed out of the room. Mimi shut the door again.

I said: “You must come over to our place some time and bring your little white whips.”

She did not seem to hear me. Her eyes were heavy, brooding, and her lips were thrust out a little in a half-smile, and when she spoke, her voice seemed heavier, throatier, than usual. “My daughter’s in love with you.”

“Nonsense.”

“She is and she’s jealous of me. She had absolute spasms whenever I get within ten feet of you.” She spoke as if thinking of something else.

“Nonsense. Maybe she’s got a little hangover from that crush she had on me when she was twelve, but that’s all it is.”

Mimi shook her head. “You’re wrong, but never mind.” She sat down on the bed beside me again. “You’ve got to help me out of this. I—”

“Sure,” I said. “You’re a delicate fleur that needs a great big man’s protection.”

“Oh, that?” She waved a hand at the door through which Dorothy had gone. “You’re surely not getting—Why, it’s nothing you haven’t heard about before—and seen and done, for that matter. It’s nothing to worry you.” She smiled as before with heavy, brooding eyes, and lips thrust out a little. “If you want Dorry, take her, but don’t get sentimental about it. But never mind that. Of course I’m not a delicate fleur. You never thought I was.”

“No,” I agreed.

“Well, then,” she said with an air of finality.

“Well then what?”

“Stop being so damned coquettish,” she said. “You know what I mean. You understand me as well as I understand you.”

“Just about, but you’ve been doing the coquetting ever since—”

“I know. That was a game. I’m not playing now. That son of a bitch made a fool of me, Nick, an out and out fool, and now he’s in trouble and expects me to help him. I’ll help him.” She put a hand on my knee and her pointed nails dug into my flesh. “The police, they don’t believe me. How can I make them believe that he’s lying, that I know nothing more than I’ve told them about the murder?”

“You probably can’t,” I said slowly, “especially since Jorgensen’s only repeating what you told me a few hours ago.”

She caught her breath, and her nails dug into me again. “Did you tell them that?”

“Not yet.” I took her hand off my knee.

She sighed with relief. “And of course you won’t tell them now, will you?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a lie. He lied and I lied. I didn’t find anything, anything at all.”

I said: “We’re back where we were earlier, and I believe you just as much now as I did then. What happened to those new terms we were on? You understanding me, me understanding you, no coquetting, no games, no playing.”

She slapped my hand lightly. “All right. I did find something—not much, but something—and I’m not going to give it up to help that son of a bitch. You can understand how I feel about it, Nick. You’d feel the same–”

“Maybe,” I said, “but the way it stands, I’ve got no reason for putting in with you. Your Chris is no enemy of mine. I’ve got nothing to gain by helping you frame him.”

She sighed. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I don’t suppose what money I could give you would mean much to you now”—she smiled crookedly—“nor my beautiful white body. But aren’t you interested in saving Clyde?”

“Not necessarily.”

She laughed at that. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It might mean I don’t think he needs saving. The police haven’t got much on him. He’s screwy, he was in town the day Julia was killed, and she had been gypping him. That’s not enough to arrest him on.”

She laughed again. “But with my contribution?”

“I don’t know. What is it?” I asked, and went on without waiting for the answer I did not expect. “Whatever it is, you’re being a sap, Mimi. You’ve got Chris cold on bigamy. Sock that to him. There’s no—”

She smiled sweetly and said: “But I am holding that in reserve to use after this if he—”

“If he gets past the murder charge, huh? Well, it won’t work out that way, lady. You can get him about three days in jail. By that time the District Attorney will have questioned him and checked up on him enough to know that he didn’t kill Julia and that you’ve been making a chump of the D. A., and when you spring your little bigamy charge the D. A. will tell you to go jump in the lake, and he’ll refuse to prosecute.”

“But he can’t do that, Nick.”

“Can and will,” I assured her, “and if he can dig up proof that you’re holding out something he’ll make it as tough for you as he can.”

She chewed her lower lip, asked: “You’re being honest with me?”

“I’m telling you exactly what’ll happen, unless district attorneys have changed a lot since my day.”

She chewed her lip some more. “I don’t want him to get off,” she said presently, “and I don’t want to get into any trouble myself.” She looked up at me. “If you’re lying to me, Nick …”

“There’s nothing you can do about it except believe me or disbelieve me.”

She smiled and put a hand on my cheek and kissed me on the mouth and stood up. “You’re such a bastard. Well, I’m going to believe you.” She walked down to the other end of the room and back again. Her eyes were shiny, her face pleasantly excited.

“I’ll call Guild,” I said.

“No, wait. I’d rather—I’d rather see what you think of it first.”

“All right, but no clowning.”

“You’re certainly afraid of your shadow,” she said, “but don’t worry, I’m not going to play any tricks on you.”

I said that would be swell and how about showing me whatever she had to show me. “The others will be getting restless.”

She went around the bed to a closet, opened the door, pushed some clothes aside, and put a hand among other clothes behind them. “That’s funny,” she said.

“Funny?” I stood up. “It’s a panic. It’ll have Guild rolling on the floor.” I started towards the door.

“Don’t be so bad-tempered,” she said. “I’ve got it.” She turned to me holding a wadded handkerchief in her hand. As I approached, she opened the handkerchief to show me a three-inch length of watch-chain, broken at one end, attached at the other to a small gold knife. The handkerchief was a woman’s and there were brown stains on it.

“Well?” I asked.

“It was in her hand and I saw it when they left me with her and I knew it was Clyde’s, so I took it.”

“You’re sure it’s his?”

“Yes,” she said impatiently. “See, they’re gold, silver, and copper links. He had it made out of the first batches of metal that came through that smelting process he invented. Anybody who knows him at all well can identify it—there can’t be another like it.” She turned the knife over to let me see the C M W engraved in it. “They’re his initials. I never saw the knife before, but I’d know the chain anywhere. Clyde’s worn it for years.”

“Did you remember it well enough that you could’ve described it without seeing it again?”

“Of course.”

“Is that your handkerchief?”

“Yes.”

“And the stain on it’s blood?”

“Yes. The chain was in her hand—I told you—and there was some blood on them.” She frowned at me. “Don’t you– You act as if you don’t believe me.”

“Not exactly,” I said, “but I think you ought to be sure you’re telling your story straight this time.”

She stamped her foot. “You’re—” She laughed and anger went out of her face. “You can be the most annoying man. I’m telling the truth now, Nick. I’ve told you everything that happened exactly as it happened.”

“I hope so. It’s about time. You’re sure Julia didn’t come to enough to say anything while you were alone with her?”

“You’re trying to make me mad again. Of course I’m sure.”

“All right,” I said. “Wait here. I’ll get Guild, but if you tell him the chain was in Julia’s hand and she wasn’t dead yet he’s going to wonder whether you didn’t have to rough her up a little to get it away from her.”

She opened her eyes wide. “What should I tell him?”

I went out and shut the door.