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Crime Stories Page 97

by Dashiell Hammett


  Downstairs they found the manager waiting in the lobby for them. She stood in front of them using a bright smile to invite speech.

  Guild said: “Thanks a lot. How far ahead is her rent paid?”

  “Up to the fifteenth of the month it’s paid.”

  “Then it won’t cost you anything to let nobody in there till then. Don’t, and if you go in don’t touch anything. There’ll be some policemen up. Sure you didn’t see a man in there early last night?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m sure I didn’t see anybody go in there or come out of there, though the Lord knows they could if they had a key without me—”

  “How many keys did she have?”

  “I only gave her one, but she could’ve had them made, all she wanted to, and likely enough did if she was—What’d she do, mister?”

  “I don’t know. She get much mail?”

  “Well, not so very much and most of that looked like ads and things.”

  “Remember where any of it was from?”

  The woman’s face colored. “That I don’t. I don’t look at my people’s mail like that. I was always one to mind my own business as long as they paid their rent and don’t make so much noise that other people—”

  “That’s right,” Guild said. “Thanks a lot.” He gave her one of his cards. “I’ll probably be back, but if anything happens—anything that looks like it might have anything to do with her—will you call me up? If I’m not there leave the message.”

  “Yes, sir, I certainly will,” she promised. “Is there—?”

  “Thanks a lot,” Guild said once more, and he and the district attorney went out.

  They were sitting in the district attorney’s automobile when Boyer asked: “What do you suppose Wynant left the key there for, if it was hers and he used it?”

  “Why not? He only went there to shave and maybe frisk the place. He wouldn’t take a chance on going there again and leaving it there was easier than throwing it away.”

  Boyer nodded dubiously and put the automobile in motion. Guild directed him to the vicinity of the Golden Gate Trust Company, where they parked the automobile. After a few minutes’ wait they were shown into the white-haired cashier’s office.

  He rose from his chair as they entered. Neither his smile nor his bantering “You are shadowing me” concealed his uneasy curiosity.

  Guild said: “Mr. Bliss, this is Mr. Boyer, district attorney of Whitfield County.”

  Boyer and Bliss shook hands. The cashier motioned his visitors into chairs.

  Guild said: “Our Laura Porter is the Columbia Forrest that was murdered up at Hell Bend yesterday.”

  Bliss’s face reddened. There was something akin to indignation in the voice with which he said: “That’s preposterous, Guild.”

  The dark man’s smile was small with malice. “You mean as soon as anybody becomes one of your depositors they’re sure of a long and happy life?”

  The cashier smiled then. “No, but—” He stopped smiling. “Did she have any part in the Seaman’s National swindle?”

  “She did,” Guild replied, and added, still with smiling malice, “unless you’re sure none of your clients could possibly touch anybody else’s nickels.”

  The cashier, paying no attention to the latter part of Guild’s speech, squirmed in his chair and looked uneasily at the door.

  The dark man said: “We’d like to get a transcript of her account and I want to send a handwriting man down for a look at her checks, but we’re in a hurry now. We’d like to know when she opened her account, what references she gave, and how much she’s got in it.”

  Bliss pressed one of the buttons on his desk, but before anyone came into the room he rose with a muttered, “Excuse me,” and went out.

  Guild smiled after him. “He’ll be ten pounds lighter before he learns whether he’s been gypped or not and twenty if he finds he has.”

  When the cashier returned he shut the door, leaned back against it, and spoke as if he had rehearsed the words. “Miss Porter’s account shows a balance of thirty-eight dollars and fifty cents. She drew out twelve thousand dollars in cash yesterday morning.”

  “Herself?”

  “Yes.”

  Guild addressed Boyer: “We’ll show the teller her photo on the way out just to be doubly sure.” He turned to the cashier again: “And about the date she opened it and the references she gave?”

  The white-haired man consulted a card in his hand. “She opened her account on November the eighth, last year,” he said. “The references she gave were Francis X. Kearny, proprietor of the Manchu Restaurant on Grant Avenue, and Walter Irving Wynant.”

  VII

  “The Manchu’s only five or six blocks from here,” Guild told Boyer as they left the Golden Gate Trust Company. “We might as well stop in now and see what we can get out of Francis Xavier Kearny.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Uh-uh, except by rep. He’s in solid with the police here and is supposed to be plenty tough.”

  The district attorney nodded. He chewed his lips in frowning silence until they reached his automobile. Then he said: “What we’ve learned today seems to tie him, her, the Fremonts, and Wynant all up together.”

  “Yes,” Guild agreed, “it seems to.”

  “Or do you suppose she could have given Wynant’s name because she knew, being his secretary, she could catch the bank’s letter of inquiry and answer it without his knowing anything about it?”

  “That sounds reasonable enough,” the dark man said, “but there’s Wynant’s visit to the Manchu yesterday.”

  The district attorney’s frown deepened. “What do you suppose Wynant was up to—if he was in it with them?”

  “I don’t know. I know somebody’s got the twelve thousand she drew out yesterday. I know I want six of it for the Seaman’s National. Turn left at the next corner.”

  They went into the Manchu Restaurant together. A smiling Chinese waiter told them Mr. Kearny was not in, was not expected until nine o’clock that night. They could not learn where he might be found before nine o’clock. They left the restaurant and got into Boyer’s automobile again.

  “Guerrero Street,” Guild said, “though we ought to stop first at a booth where I can phone the police about the Leavenworth Street place and the office to pick up canceled checks from both banks, so we’ll know if any of them are forgeries.” He cupped his hands around the cigarette he was lighting. “This’ll do. Pull in here.”

  The district attorney turned the automobile in at the Mark Hopkins.

  Guild, saying, “I’ll hurry,” jumped out and went indoors. When he came out ten minutes later his face was thoughtful. “The police didn’t find any fingerprints on Wynant’s car,” he said. “I wonder why.”

  “He could’ve taken the trouble to—”

  “Uh-huh,” the dark man agreed, “but I’m wondering why he did. Well, on to Guerrero Street. If Fremont’s not back from Hell Bend we’ll see what we can shake the girl down for. She ought to know where Kearny hangs out in the daytime.”

  A Filipino maid opened the Fremonts’ door.

  “Is Mr. Charles Fremont in?” Guild asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Miss Fremont?”

  “I’ll see if she’s up yet.”

  The maid took them into the living-room and went upstairs.

  Guild pointed at the broken window-pane. “That’s where the shot was taken at him.” He pointed at the hole in the green wall. “That’s where it hit.” He took a misshapen bullet from his vest-pocket and showed it to Boyer. “It.”

  Boyer’s face had become animated. He moved close to Guild and began to talk in a low, excited voice. “Do you suppose they could all have been in some game together and Wynant discovered that his secretary was doublecrossing him besides getting ready to go off with—”

  Guild jerked his head at the hall-door. “Sh-h-h.”

  Light footsteps ran down the stairs and Elsa Fremont in a brightly figured blue haori
coat over light-green silk pajamas entered the room. “Good morning,” she said, holding a hand out to Guild. “It is for me anyway.” She used her other hand to partly cover a yawn. “We didn’t close the jernt till nearly eight this morning.”

  Guild introduced the district attorney to her, then asked: “Your brother go up to Hell Bend?”

  “Yes. He was leaving when I got home.” She dropped down on the sofa with a foot drawn up under her. Her feet were stockingless in blue embroidered slippers. “Do sit down.”

  The district attorney sat in a chair facing her. The dark man went over to the sofa to sit beside her. “We’ve just come from the Manchu,” he said.

  Her lanceolate eyes became a little narrower. “Have a nice lunch?” she asked.

  Guild smiled and said: “We didn’t go there for that.”

  She said: “Oh.” Her eyes were clear and unwary now.

  Guild said: “We went to see Frank Kearny.”

  “Did you?”

  “See him? No.”

  “There’s not much chance of finding him there during the day,” she said carelessly, “but he’s there every night.”

  “So we were told.” Guild took cigarettes from his pocket and held them out to her. “Where do you think we could find him now?”

  The girl shook her red head as she took a cigarette. “You can search me. He used to live in Sea Cliff, but I don’t know where he moved to.” She leaned forward as Guild held his lighter to her cigarette. “Won’t whatever you want to see him about wait till night?” she asked when her cigarette was burning.

  Guild offered his cigarettes to the district attorney, who shook his head and murmured: “No, thanks.”

  The dark man put a cigarette between his lips and set fire to it before he answered the girl’s question. Then he said: “We wanted to find out what he knows about Columbia Forrest.”

  Elsa Fremont said evenly: “I don’t think Frank knew her at all.”

  “Yes, he did, at least as Laura Porter.”

  Her surprise seemed genuine. She leaned toward Guild. “Say that again.”

  “Columbia Forrest,” Guild said in a deliberately monotonous voice, “had an apartment on Leavenworth Street where she was known as Laura Porter and Frank Kearny knew her.”

  The girl, frowning, said earnestly: “If you didn’t seem to know what you’re talking about I wouldn’t believe it.”

  “But you do believe it?”

  She hesitated, finally said: “Well, knowing Frank, I’ll say it’s possible.”

  “You didn’t know about the Leavenworth Street place?”

  She shook her head, meeting his gaze with candid eyes. “I didn’t.”

  “Did you know she’d ever gone as Laura Porter?”

  “No.”

  “Ever hear of Laura Porter?”

  “No.”

  Guild drew smoke in and breathed it out. “I think I believe you,” he said in a casual tone. “But your brother must have known about it.”

  She frowned at the cigarette in her hand, at the foot she was not sitting on, and then at Guild’s dark face. “You don’t have to believe me,” she said slowly, “but I honestly don’t think he did.”

  Guild smiled politely. “I can believe you and still think you’re wrong,” he said.

  “I wish,” she said naively, “you’d believe me and think I’m right.”

  Guild moved his cigarette in a vague gesture. “What does your brother do, Miss Fremont?” he asked. “For a living, I mean?”

  “He’s managing a couple of fighters now,” she said, “only one of them isn’t. The other’s Sammy Deep.”

  Guild nodded. “The Chinese bantam.”

  “Yes. Charley thinks he’s got a champ in him.”

  “He’s a good boy. Who’s the other?”

  “A stumble-bum named Terry Moore. If you go to fights much you’re sure to’ve seen him knocked out.”

  Boyer spoke for the first time since he had declined a cigarette. “Miss Fremont, where were you born?”

  “Right here in San Francisco, up on Pacific Avenue.”

  Boyer seemed disappointed. He asked: “And your brother?”

  “Here in San Francisco too.”

  Disappointment deepened in the district attorney’s young face and there was little hopefulness in his voice asking: “Was your mother also an actress, an entertainer?”

  The girl shook her head with emphasis. “She was a school-teacher. Why?”

  Boyer’s explanation was given more directly to Guild. “I was thinking of Wynant’s marriage in Paris.”

  The dark man nodded. “Fremont’s too old. He’s only ten or twelve years younger than Wynant.” He smiled guilelessly. “Want another idea to play with? Fremont and the dead girl have the same initials—C.F.”

  Elsa Fremont laughed. “More than that,” she said, “they had the same birthdays—May twenty-seventh—though of course Charley is older.”

  Guild smiled carelessly at this information while the district attorney’s eyes took on a troubled stare.

  The dark man looked at his watch. “Did your brother say how long he was going to stay in Hell Bend?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Guild spoke to Boyer. “Why don’t you call up and see if he’s there. If he is, ask him to wait for us. If he’s left, we’ll wait here for him.”

  The district attorney rose from his chair, but before he could speak the girl was asking anxiously: “Is there anything special you want to see Charley about? Anything I could tell you?”

  “You said you didn’t know,” Guild said. “It’s the Laura Porter angle we want to find out about.”

  “Oh.” Some of her anxiety went away.

  “Your brother knows Frank Kearny, doesn’t he?” Guild asked.

  “Oh, yes. That’s how I happened to go to work here.”

  “Is there a phone here we can use?”

  “Certainly.” She jumped up and, saying, “Back here,” opened a door into an adjoining room. When the district attorney had passed through she shut the door behind him and returned to her place on the sofa beside Guild. “Have you learned anything else?” she asked. “Anything besides about her being known as Laura Porter and having the apartment?”

  “Some odds and ends,” he said, “but it’s too early to say what they’ll add up to when they’re sorted. I didn’t ask you whether Kearny and Wynant know each other, did I?”

  She shook her head from side to side. “If they do I don’t know it. I don’t. I’m telling you the truth, Mr. Guild.”

  “All right, but Wynant was seen going into the Manchu.”

  “I know, but—” She finished the sentence with a jerk of her shoulders. She moved closer to Guild on the sofa. “You don’t think Charley has done anything he oughtn’t’ve done, do you?”

  Guild’s face was placid. “I won’t lie to you,” he said. “I think everybody connected with the job has done things they oughtn’t’ve done.”

  She made an impatient grimace. “I believe you’re just trying to make things confusing, to make work for yourself,” she said, “so you’ll be looking like you’re doing something even if you can’t find Wynant. Why don’t you find him?” Her voice was rising. “That’s all you’ve got to do. Why don’t you find him instead of trying to make trouble for everybody else? He’s the only one that did anything. He killed her and tried to kill Charley and he’s the one you want—not Charley, not me, not Frank. Wynant’s the one you want.” Guild laughed indulgently. “You make it sound simple as hell,” he told her. “I wish you were right.”

  Her indignation faded. She put a hand on his hand. Her eyes held a frightened gleam. “There isn’t anything else, is there?” she asked, “something we don’t know about?”

  Guild put his other hand over to pat the back of hers. “There is,” he assured her pleasantly. “There’s a lot none of us knows and what we do know don’t make sense.”

  “Then—”

  The district attorney opened the d
oor and stood in the doorway. He was pale and he was sweating. “Fremont isn’t up there,” he said blankly. “He didn’t go up there.”

  Elsa Fremont said, “Jesus Christ!” under her breath.

  VIII

  Night was settling between the mountains when Guild and Boyer arrived at Hell Bend. The district attorney drove into the village, saying: “We’ll go to Ray’s. We can come back to Wynant’s later if you want to.”

  “All right,” Guild said, “unless Fremont might be there.”

  “He won’t if he came up to see the body. She’s at Schumach’s funeral parlor.”

  “Inquest to-morrow?”

  “Yes, unless there’s some reason for putting it off.”

  “There’s none that I know of,” Guild said. He looked sidewise at Boyer. “You’ll see that as little as possible comes out at the inquest?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  They were in Hell Bend now, running between irregularly spaced cottages toward lights that glittered up along the railroad, but before they reached the railroad they turned off to the right and stopped before a small square house where softer lights burned behind yellow blinds.

  Callaghan, the raw-boned blond deputy sheriff, opened the door for them. He said, “Hello, Bruce,” to the district attorney and nodded politely if without warmth at Guild.

  They went indoors, into an inexpensively furnished room where three men sat at a table playing stud poker and a huge German sheep dog lay attentive in a corner. Boyer spoke to the three men and introduced Guild while the deputy sheriff sat down at the table and picked up his cards.

  One of the men—thin, bent, old, white-haired, white-mustached—was Callaghan’s father. Another—stocky, broad-browed over wide-spaced clear eyes, sunburned almost as dark as Guild—was Ross Lane. The third-small, pale, painfully neat—was Schumach, the undertaker.

  Boyer turned from the introductions to Callaghan. “You’re sure Fremont didn’t show up?”

 

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