Nightmare Town

by Dashiell Hammett

  She looked at the man’s picture and shook her head. “No,” she said, “and that ain’t a man I’d ever forget if I’d once seen him.” She looked at Columbia Forrest’s picture. “That!” she cried. “That is Miss Porter!”

  VI

  Boyer looked round-eyed at Guild.

  The dark man, after a little pause, spoke to the woman. “That’s Columbia Forrest,” he said, “the girl who was killed up in Hell Bend yesterday.”

  The woman’s eyes became round as the district attorney’s. “Well!” she exclaimed, looking at the photograph again, “I never would’ve thought she was a thief. Why, she was such a pleasant, mild-looking little thing—”

  “A thief?” Boyer asked incredulously.

  “Why, yes.” She raised puzzled eyes from the photograph. “At least that’s what the paper says, about her going—”

  “What paper?”

  “The afternoon paper.” Her face became bright, eager. “Didn’t you see it?”

  “No. Have you—?”

  “Yes. I’ll show you.” She turned quickly and went through the doorway open behind her.

  Guild, pursing his lips a little, raising his eyebrows, looked at Boyer.

  The district attorney whispered loudly: “She wasn’t blackmailing him? She was stealing from him?”

  Guild shook his head. “We don’t know anything yet,” he said.

  The woman hurried back to them carrying a newspaper. She turned the newspaper around and thrust it into Guild’s hand, leaning over it, tapping the paper with a forefinger. “There it is.” Her voice was metallic with excitement. “That’s it. You read that.”

  Boyer went around behind the dark man to his other side, where he stood close to him, almost hanging on his arm, craning for a better view of the paper.

  They read:

  MURDERED SECRETARY KNOWN TO

  N.Y. POLICE

  NEW YORK, Sept. 8 (A.P.)—Columbia Forrest, in connection with whose murder at Hell Bend, Calif., yesterday the police are now searching for Walter Irving Wynant, famous scientist, philosopher and author, was convicted of shoplifting in New York City three years ago, according to former police magistrate Erle Gardner.

  Ex-magistrate Gardner stated that the girl pleaded guilty to a charge brought against her by two department stores and was given a six-month sentence by him, but that the sentence was suspended due to the intervention of Walter Irving Wynant, who offered to reimburse the stores and to give her employment as his secretary. The girl had formerly been a typist in the employ of a Wall St. brokerage firm.

  Boyer began to speak, but Guild forestalled him by addressing the woman crisply: “That’s interesting. Thanks a lot. Now we’d like a look at her room.”

  The woman, chattering with the utmost animation, took them upstairs and unlocked the door of apartment 310. She went into the apartment ahead of them, but the dark man, holding the corridor door open, said pointedly: “We’ll see you again before we leave.” She went away reluctantly and Guild shut the door.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Boyer said.

  “Maybe we are,” Guild agreed.

  Words ran swiftly from the district attorney’s mouth. “Do you suppose she handled the details of his banking and forged those Laura Porter checks and juggled his books to cover them? The chances are he didn’t spend much and thought he had a fat balance. Then when she had his account drained she raised the last check, drew against it, and was running away?”

  “Maybe, but—” Guild stared thoughtfully at the district attorney’s feet.

  “But what?”

  Guild raised his eyes. “Why didn’t she run away while she was away instead of driving back there in another man’s car to tell him she was going away with another man?”

  Boyer had a ready answer. “Thieves are funny and women are funny and when you get a woman thief there’s no telling what she’ll do or why. She could’ve had a quarrel with him and wanted to rub it in that she was going. She could have forgotten something up there. She might’ve had some idea of throwing suspicion away from the bank-account juggling for a while. She could’ve had any number of reasons, they need not’ve been sensible ones. She could’ve—”

  Guild smiled politely. “Let’s see what the place’ll tell us.”

  On a table in the living-room they found a flat brass key that unlocked the corridor door. Nothing else they found anywhere except in the bathroom seemed to interest them. In the bathroom, on a table, they found an obviously new razor holding a blade freshly spotted with rust, an open tube of shaving-cream from which very little had been squeezed, a new shaving-brush that had been used and not rinsed, and a pair of scissors. Hanging over the edge of the tub beside the table was a face-towel on which smears of lather had dried.

  Guild blew cigarette smoke at these things and said: “Looks like our thin man came here to get rid of his whiskers.”

  Boyer, frowning in perplexity, asked: “But how would he know?”

  “Maybe he got it out of her before he killed her and let himself in with the key on the table—hers.” Guild pointed his cigarette at the scissors. “They make it look like him and not—well—Fremont for instance. He’d need them for the whiskers, and the things are new, as if he’d bought them on his way here.” He bent over to examine the table, the inside of the tub, the floor. “Though I don’t see any hairs.”

  “What does it mean, then—his coming here?” the district attorney asked anxiously.

  The dark man smiled a little. “Something or other, maybe,” he said. He straightened up from his examination of the floor. “He could’ve been careful not to drop any of his whiskers when he hacked them off, though God knows why he’d try.” He looked thoughtfully at the shaving-tools on the table. “We ought to do some more talking to her boyfriend.”

  —

  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 to-day 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 double-crossing 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,” Gui
ld 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?”