Guild seemed surprised. What makes you think of him?
I hear he had a yen for the girl.
And where'd you hear it?
I heard it.
He scowled. Would you say it was reliable?
Yes.
Well, he said slowly, he's one guy we can check up on. But look here, what do you care about these people? Don't you think Wynant done it?
I gave him the same odds I had given Studsy: Twenty-five'll get you fifty he didn't.
He scowled at me over that for a long silent moment, then said: That's an idea, anyways. Who's your candidate?
I haven't got that far yet. Understand, I don't know anything. I'm not saying Wynant didn't do it. I'm just saying everything doesn't point at him.
And saying it two to one. What don't point at him?
Call it a hunch, if you want, I said, but
I don't want to call it anything, he said. I think you're a smart detective. I want to listen to what you got to say.
Mostly I've got questions to say. For instance, how long was it from the time the elevator boy let Mrs. Jorgensen off at the Wolf girl's floor until she rang for him and said she heard groans?
Guild pursed his lips, opened them to ask, You think she might've? and left the rest of the question hanging in the air.
I think she might've. I'd like to know where Nunheim was. I'd like to know the answers to the questions in Wynant's letter. I'd like to know where the four-thousand-dollar difference between what Macaulay gave the girl and what she seems to have given Wynant went. I'd like to know where her engagement ring came from.
We're doing the best we can, Guild said. Mejust now I'd like to know why, if he didn't do it, Wynant don't come in and answer questions for us. One reason might be that Mrs. Jorgensen'd like to slam him in the squirrel cage again. I thought of something. Herbert Macaulay's working for Wynant: you didn't just take Macaulay's word for it that the man in Allentown wasn't him?
No. He was a younger man than Wynant, with damned little gray in his hair and no dye, and he didn't look like the pictures we got. He seemed positive. You got anything to do the next hour or so?
No.
That's fine. He stood up. I'll get some of the boys working on these things we been discussing and then maybe me and you will pay some visits.
Swell, I said, and he went out of the office.
There was a copy of the Times in his wastebasket. I fished it out and turned to the Public Notices columns. Macaulay's advertisement was there:
Abner. Yes. Bunny.
When Guild returned I asked: How about Wynant's help, whoever he had working in the shop? Have they been looked up?
Uh-huh, but they don't know anything. They was laid off at the end of the week that he went awaythere's two of themand haven't seen him since.
What were they working on when the shop was closed?
Some kind of paint or somethingsomething about a permanent green. I don't know. I'll find out if you want.
I don't suppose it matters. Is it much of a shop?
Looks like a pretty good lay-out, far as I can tell. You think the shop might have something to do with it?
Anything might.
Uh-huh. Well, let's run along.
16
First thing, Guild said as we left his office, we'll go see Mr. Nunheim. He ought to be home: I told him to stick around till I phoned him.
Mr. Nunheim's home was on the fourth floor of a dark, damp, and smelly building made noisy by the Sixth Avenue elevated. Guild knocked on the door.
There were sounds of hurried movement inside, then a voice asked: Who is it? The voice was a man's, nasal, somewhat irritable.
Guild said: John.
The door was hastily opened by a small sallow man of thirty-five or six whose visible clothes were an undershirt, blue pants, and black silk stockings. I wasn't expecting you, Lieutenant, he whined. You said you'd phone. He seemed frightened. His dark eyes were small and set close together; his mouth was wide, thin, and loose; and his nose was peculiarly limber, a long, drooping nose, apparently boneless.
Guild touched my elbow with his hand and we went in. Through an open door to the left an unmade bed could be seen. The room we entered was a living-room, shabby and dirty, with clothing, newspapers, and dirty dishes sitting around. In an alcove to the right there was a sink and a stove. A woman stood between them holding a sizzling skillet in her hand. She was a big-boned, full-fleshed, red-haired woman of perhaps twenty-eight, handsome in a rather brutal, sloppy way. She wore a rumpled pink kimono and frayed pink mules with lopsided bows on them. She stared sullenly at us.
Guild did not introduce me to Nunheim and he paid no attention to the woman. Sit down, he said, and pushed some clothing out of the way to make a place for himself on an end of the sofa.
I removed part of a newspaper from a rocking-chair and sat down. Since Guild kept his hat on I did the same with mine.
Nunheim went over to the table, where there was about two inches of whisky in a pint bottle and a couple of tumblers, and said: Have a shot?
Guild made a face. Not that vomit. What's the idea of telling me you just knew the Wolf girl by sight?
That's all I did, Lieutenant, that's the Christ's truth. Twice his eyes slid sidewise towards me and he jerked them back. Maybe I said hello to her or how are you or something like that when I saw her, but that's all I knew her. That's the Christ's truth.
The woman in the alcove laughed, once, derisively, and there was no merriment in her face.
Nunheim twisted himself around to face her. All right, he told her, his voice shrill with rage, put your mouth in and I'll pop a tooth out of it.
She swung her arm and let the skillet go at his head. It missed, crashing into the wall. Grease and egg-yolks made fresher stains on wall, floor, and furniture.
He started for her. I did not have to rise to put out a foot and trip him. He tumbled down on the floor. The woman had picked up a paring knife.
Cut it out, Guild growled. He had not stood up either. We come here to talk to you, not to watch this rough-house comedy. Get up and behave yourself.
Nunheim got slowly to his feet. She drives me nuts when she's drinking, he said. She been ragging me all day. He moved his right hand back and forth. I think I sprained my wrist.
The woman walked past us without looking at any of us, went into the bedroom, and shut the door.
Guild said: Maybe if you'd quit sucking around after other women you wouldn't have so much trouble with this one.
What do you mean, Lieutenant? Nunheim was surprised and innocent and perhaps pained.
Julia Wolf.
The little sallow man was indignant now. That's a lie, Lieutenant. Anybody that say I ever
Guild interrupted him by addressing me: If you want to take a poke at him, I wouldn't stop on account of his bum wrist: he couldn't ever hit hard anyhow.
Nunheim turned to me with both hands out. I didn't mean you were a liar. I meant maybe somebody made a mistake if they
Guild interrupted him again: You wouldn't've taken her if you could've gotten her?
Nunheim moistened his lower lip and looked warily at the bedroom door. Well, he said slowly in a cautiously low voice, of course she was a classy number. I guess I wouldn't've turned it down.
But you never tried to make her?
Nunheim hesitated, then moved his shoulders and said: You know how it is. A fellow knocking around tries most everything he runs into.
Guild looked sourly at him. You'd done better to tell me that in the beginning. Where were you the afternoon she was knocked off?
The little man jumped as if he had been stuck with a pin. For Christ's sake, Lieutenant, you don't think I had anything to do with that. What would I want to hurt her for?