Nightmare Town

by Dashiell Hammett

  The dark man went through the waiting-room and downstairs to the street. The half a dozen automobiles parked near the station were apparently private cars. A large red and white sign in the next block said TAXI. The dark man walked under the sign into a small, grimy office where a bald fat man was reading a newspaper.

  “Can I get a taxi?” the dark man asked.

  “All out now, brother, but I’m expecting one of them back any minute. In a hurry?”

  “A little bit.”

  The bald man brought his chair down on all its legs and lowered his newspaper. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Wynant’s.”

  The bald man dropped his newspaper and stood up, saying heartily: “Well, I’ll run you up there myself.” He covered his baldness with a sweat-stained brown hat.

  They left the office and—after the fat man had paused at the real-estate office next door to yell, “Take care of my phone if it rings, Toby”—got into a dark sedan, took the left turn at the first crossing, and rode uphill toward the west.

  When they had ridden some three hundred yards the fat man said in a tone whose casualness was belied by the shine in his eyes: “That must be a hell of a mess up there and no fooling.”

  The dark man was lighting a cigarette. “What happened?” he asked.

  The fat man looked sharply sidewise at him. “Didn’t you hear?”

  “Only what the ticket-agent told me just now”—the dark man leaned forward to return the lighter to its hole in the dashboard—“that Wynant had killed three people with an ax and then drowned himself.”

  The fat man laughed scornfully. “Christ, you can’t beat Lew,” he said. “If you sprained your ankle he could get a broken back out of it. Wynant didn’t kill but two of them—the Hopkins woman got away because it was her that phoned—and he choked them to death and then shot himself. I bet you if you’d go back there right now Lew’d tell you there was a cool half a dozen of them killed and likely as not with dynamite.”

  The dark man took his cigarette from his mouth. “Then he wasn’t right about Wynant being crazy?”

  “Yes,” the fat man said reluctantly, “but nobody could go wrong on that.”

  “No?”

  “Nope. Holy hell! Didn’t he used to come down to town in his pajamas last summer? And then when people didn’t like it and got Ray to say something to him about it didn’t he get mad and stop coming in at all? Don’t he make as much fuss about people trespassing on his place as if he had a gold mine there? Didn’t I see him with my own eyes heave a rock at a car that had gone past him raising dust once?”

  The dark man smiled meagerly. “I don’t know any of the answers,” he said. “I didn’t know him.”

  —

  BESIDE A PAINTED warning against trespass they left their graveled road for an uneven, narrow crooked one of dark earth running more steeply uphill to the right. Protruding undergrowth brushed the sedan’s sides and now and then an overhanging tree-branch its top. Their speed made their ride rougher than it need have been.

  “This is his place,” the fat man said. He sat stiffly at the wheel fighting the road’s unevenness. His eyes were shiny, expectant.

  The house they presently came to was a rambling structure of gray native stone and wood needing gray paint under low Dutch roofs. Five cars stood in the clearing in front of the house. The man who sat at the wheel of one of them, and the two men standing beside it, stopped talking and watched the sedan draw up.

  “Here we are,” the fat man said and got out. His manner had suddenly become important. He put importance in the nod he gave the three men.

  The dark man, leaving the other side of the sedan, went toward the house. The fat man hurried to walk beside him.

  A man came out of the house before they reached it. He was a middle-aged giant in baggy, worn clothes. His hair was gray, his eyes small, and he chewed gum. He said, “Howdy, Fern,” to the fat man and, looking steadily at the dark man, stood in the path confronting them squarely.

  Fern said, “Hello, Nick,” and then told the dark man: “This is Sheriff Petersen.” He narrowed one eye shrewdly and addressed the sheriff again: “He came up to see Wynant.”

  Sheriff Nick Petersen stopped chewing. “What’s the name?” he asked.

  The dark man said: “John Guild.”

  The sheriff said: “So. Now what were you wanting to see Wynant about?”

  The man who had said his name was John Guild smiled. “Does it make any difference now he’s dead?”

  The sheriff asked, “What?” with considerable force.

  “Now that he’s dead,” Guild repeated patiently. He put a fresh cigarette between his lips.

  “How do you know he’s dead?” The sheriff emphasized “you.”

  Guild looked with curious blue eyes at the giant. “They told me in the village,” he said carelessly. He moved his cigarette an inch to indicate the fat man. “He told me.”

  The sheriff frowned skeptically, but when he spoke it was to utter a vague “Oh.” He chewed his gum. “Well, what was it you were wanting to see him about?”

  Guild said: “Look here: is he dead or isn’t he?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Fine,” Guild said, his eyes lighting up. “Where is he?”

  “I’d like to know,” the sheriff replied gloomily. “Now what is it you want with him?”

  “I’m from his bank. I want to see him on business.” Guild’s eyes became drowsy. “It’s confidential business.”

  “So?” Sheriff Petersen’s frown seemed to hold more discomfort than annoyance. “Well, none of his business is confidential from me any more. I got a right to know anything and everything that anybody knows about him.” Guild’s eyes narrowed a little. He blew smoke out.

  “I have,” the sheriff insisted in a tone of complaint. “Listen, Guild, you haven’t got any right to hide any of his business from me. He’s a murderer and I’m responsible for law and order in this county.”

  Guild pursed his lips. “Who’d he kill?”

  “This here Columbia Forrest,” Petersen said, jerking a thumb at the house, “shot her stone dead and lit out for God only knows where.”

  “Didn’t kill anybody else?”

  “My God,” the sheriff asked peevishly, “ain’t that enough?”

  “Enough for me, but down in the village they’ve got it all very plural.” Guild stared thoughtfully at the sheriff. “Got away clean?”

  “So far,” Petersen grumbled, “but we’re phoning descriptions of him and his car around.” He sighed, moved his big shoulders uncomfortably. “Well, come on now, let’s have it. What’s your business with him?” But when Guild would have replied the giant said: “Wait a minute. We might as well go in and get hold of Boyer and Ray and get it over with at one crack.”

  —

  LEAVING THE fat man, Guild and the sheriff went indoors, into a pleasantly furnished tan room in the front of the house, where they were soon joined by two more men. One of these was nearly as tall as the sheriff, a raw-boned blond man in his early thirties, hard of jaw and mouth, somber of eye. One was younger, shorter, with boyishly rosy cheeks, quick dark eyes, and smoothed dark hair. When the sheriff introduced them to Guild he said the taller one was Ray Callaghan, a deputy sheriff, the other District Attorney Bruce Boyer. He told them John Guild was a fellow who wanted to see Wynant.

  The youthful district attorney, standing close to Guild, smiled ingratiatingly and asked: “What business are you in, Mr. Guild?”

  “I came up to see Wynant about his bank account,” the dark man replied slowly.

  “What bank?”

  “Seaman’s National of San Francisco.”

  “I see. Now what did you want to see him about? I mean, what was there about his account that you had to come up here to see him about?”

  “Call it an overdraft,” Guild said with deliberate evasiveness.

  The district attorney’s eyes became anxious.

  Guild mad
e a small gesture with the brown hand holding his cigarette. “Look here, Boyer,” he said, “if you want me to go all the way with you you ought to go all the way with me.”

  Boyer looked at Petersen. The sheriff met his gaze with noncommittal eyes. Boyer turned back to Guild. “We’re not hiding anything from you,” he said earnestly. “We’ve nothing to hide.”

  Guild nodded. “Swell. What happened here?”

  “Wynant caught the Forrest girl getting ready to leave him and he shot her and jumped in his car and drove away,” he said quickly. “That’s all there is to it.”

  “Who’s the Forrest girl?”

  “His secretary.”

  Guild pursed his lips, asked: “Only that?”

  The raw-boned deputy sheriff said, “None of that, now!” in a strained croaking voice. His pale eyes were bloodshot and glaring.

  The sheriff growled, “Take it easy there, Ray,” avoiding his deputy’s eyes.

  The district attorney glanced impatiently at the deputy sheriff. Guild stared gravely, attentively at him.

  The deputy sheriffs face flushed a little and he shifted his feet. He spoke to the dark man again, in the same croaking voice: “She’s dead and you might just as well talk decently about her.”

  Guild moved his shoulders a little. “I didn’t know her,” he said coldly. “I’m trying to find out what happened.” He stared for a moment longer at the raw-boned man and then shifted his gaze to Boyer. “What was she leaving him for?”

  “To get married. She told him when he caught her packing after she came back from town and—and they had a fight and when she wouldn’t change her mind he shot her.”

  Guild’s blue eyes moved sidewise to focus on the raw-boned deputy sheriff’s face. “She was living with Wynant, wasn’t she?” he asked bluntly.

  “You son of a bitch!” the deputy sheriff cried hoarsely and struck with his right fist at Guild’s face.

  Guild avoided the fist by stepping back with no appearance of haste. He had begun to step back before the fist started toward his face. His eyes gravely watched the fist go past his face.

  Big Petersen lurched against his deputy, wrapping his arms around him. “Cut it out, Ray,” he grumbled. “Why don’t you behave yourself? This is no time to be losing your head.”

  The deputy sheriff did not struggle against him.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Guild asked the district attorney. There was no resentment in his manner. “In love with her or something?”

  Boyer nodded furtively, then frowned and shook his head in a warning gesture.

  “That’s all right,” Guild said. “Where’d you get your information about what happened?”

  “From the Hopkinses. They look after the place for Wynant. They were in the kitchen and heard the whole fight. They ran upstairs when they heard the shots and he stood them off with the gun and told them he’d come back and kill them if they told anybody before he’d an hour’s start, but they phoned Ray as soon as he’d gone.”

  Guild tossed the stub of his cigarette into the fireplace and lit a fresh one. Then he took a card from a brown case brought from an inner pocket and gave the card to Boyer.

  JOHN GUILD

  ASSOCIATED DETECTIVE BUREAUS, INC.

  FROST BUILDING, SAN FRANCISCO

  “Last week Wynant deposited a ten-thousand-dollar New York check in his account at the Seaman’s National Bank,” Guild said. “Yesterday the bank learned the check had been raised from one thousand to ten. The bank’s nicked for six thousand on the deal.”

  “But in the case of an altered check,” Boyer said, “I understand—”

  “I know,” Guild agreed, “the bank’s not responsible—theoretically—but there are usually loopholes and it’s—Well, we’re working for the insurance company that covers the Seaman’s and it’s good business to go after him and recover as much as we can.”

  “I’m glad that’s the way you feel about it,” the district attorney said with enthusiasm. “I’m mighty glad you’re going to work with us.” He held out his hand.

  “Thanks,” Guild said as he took the hand. “Let’s look at the Hopkinses and the body.”

  II

  Columbia Forrest had been a long-limbed, smoothly slender young woman. Her body, even as it lay dead in a blue sport suit, seemed supple. Her short hair was a faintly reddish brown. Her features were small and regular, appealing in their lack of strength. There were three bullet-holes in her left temple. Two of them touched. The third was down beside the eye.

  Guild put the tip of his dark forefinger lightly on the edge of the lower hole. “A thirty-two,” he said. “He made sure: any of the three would have done it.” He turned his back on the corpse. “Let’s see the Hopkinses.”

  “They’re in the dining-room, I think,” the district attorney said. He hesitated, cleared his throat. His young face was worried. He touched Guild’s elbow with the back of one hand and said: “Go easy with Ray, will you? He was a little bit—or a lot, I guess—in love with her and it’s tough on him.”

  “The deputy?”

  “Yes, Ray Callaghan.”

  “That’s all right if he doesn’t get in the way,” Guild said carelessly. “What sort of person is this sheriff?”

  “Oh, Petersen’s all right.”

  Guild seemed to consider this statement critically. Then he said: “But he’s not what you’d call a feverish manhunter?”

  “Well, no, that’s not—you know—a sheriff has other things to do most of the time, but even if he’d just as lief have somebody else do the work he won’t interfere.” Boyer moistened his lips and leaned close to the dark man. His face was boyishly alight. “I wish you’d—I’m glad you’re going to work with me on this, Guild,” he said in a low, earnest voice. “I—this is my first murder and I’d like to—well—show them”—he blushed—“that I’m not as young as some of them said.”

  “Fair enough. Let’s see the Hopkinses—in here.”

  The district attorney studied Guild’s dark face uneasily for a moment, started to say something, changed his mind, and left the room.

  —

  A MAN and a woman came with him when he returned. The man was probably fifty years old, of medium stature, with thin, graying hair above a round, phlegmatic face. He wore tan trousers held up by new blue suspenders and a faded blue shirt open at the neck. The woman was of about the same age, rather short, plump, and dressed neatly in gray. She wore gold-rimmed spectacles. Her eyes were round and pale and bright.

  The district attorney shut the door and said: “This is Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins, Mr. Guild.” He addressed them: “Mr. Guild is working with me. Please give him all the assistance you can.”

  The Hopkinses nodded in unison.

  Guild asked: “How’d this happen?” He indicated with a small backward jerk of his head the dead young woman.

  Hopkins said, “I always knew he’d do something like that some time,” while his wife was saying: “It was right in this room and they were talking so loud you could hear it all over the place.”

  Guild shook his cigarette at them. “One at a time.” He spoke to the man: “How’d you know he was going to do it?”

  The woman replied quickly: “Oh, he was crazy-jealous of her all the time—if she got out of his sight for a minute—and when she came back from the city and told him she was going to leave to get married he—”

  Again Guild used his cigarette to interrupt her. “What do you think? Is he really crazy?”

  “He was then, sir,” she said. “Why, when we ran in here when we heard the shooting and he told us to keep our mouths shut he was—his eyes—you never saw anything like them in your life—nor his voice either and he was shaking and jerking like he was going to fall apart.”

  “I don’t mean that,” Guild explained. “I mean, is he crazy?” Before the woman could reply he put another question to her. “How long have you been with him?”

  “Going on about ten months, ain’t it, Willie?” she
asked her husband.

  “Yes,” he agreed, “since last fall.”

  “That’s right,” she told Guild. “It was last November.”

  “Then you ought to know whether he’s crazy. Is he?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” she said slowly, wrinkling her forehead. “He was certainly the most peculiar person you ever heard tell of, but I guess geniuses are like that and I wouldn’t want to say he was out and out crazy except about her.” She looked at her husband.

  He said tolerantly: “Sure, all geniuses are like that. It’s—it’s eccentric.”

  “So you think he was a genius,” Guild said. “Did you read the things he wrote?”

  “No, sir,” Mrs. Hopkins said, squirming, “though I did try sometimes, but it was too—I couldn’t make heads or tails of it—much—but I ain’t an educated woman and—”

  “Who was she going to marry?” Guild asked.

  Mrs. Hopkins shook her head vigorously. “I don’t know. I didn’t catch the name if she said it. It was him that was talking so loud.”

  “What’d she go to town for?”

  Mrs. Hopkins shook her head again. “I don’t know that either. She used to go in every couple of weeks and he always got mad about it.”

  “She drive in?”

  “Mostly she did, but she didn’t yesterday, but she drove out in that new blue car out there.”

  Guild looked questioningly at the district attorney, who said: “We’re trying to trace it now. It’s apparently a new one, but we ought to know whose it is soon.”

  Guild nodded and returned his attention to the Hopkinses. “She went to San Francisco by train yesterday and came back in this new car at what time to-day?”

  “Yes, sir. At about three o’clock, I guess it was, and she started packing.” She pointed at the traveling bags and clothing scattered around the room. “And he came in and the fuss started. I could hear them downstairs and I went to the window and beckoned at Willie—Mr. Hopkins, that is—and we stood at the foot of the stairs, there by the dining-room door and listened to them.”

  Guild turned aside to mash his cigarette in a bronze tray on a table. “She usually stay overnight when she went to the city?”