Yes.
What makes you think that?
Oh, you'd have to live with him to really know how mad he is, she replied airily.
Guild seemed dissatisfied. What kind of clothes was he wearing?
A brown suit and brown overcoat and hat and I think brown shoes and a white shirt and a grayish necktie with either red or reddish brown figures in it.
Guild jerked his head at Andy. Tell 'em.
Andy went out.
Guild scratched his jaw and frowned thoughtfully. The rest of us watched him. When he stopped scratching, he looked at Mimi and Macaulay, but not at me, and asked: Any of you know anybody that's got the initials of D. W. Q.?
Macauhay shook his head from side to side slowly. Mimi said: No. Why?
Guild looked at me now. Well?
I don't know them.
Why? Mimi repeated.
Guild said: Try to remember back. He'd most likely've had dealings with Wynant.
How far back? Macaulay asked.
That's hard to say right now. Maybe a few months, maybe a few years. He'd be a pretty large man, big bones, big belly, and maybe lame.
Macaulay shook his head again. I don't remember anybody like that.
Neither do I, Mimi said, but I'm bursting with curiosity. I wish you'd tell us what it's all about.
Sure, I'll tell you. Guild took a cigar from his vest pocket, looked at it, and returned it to the pocket. A dead man like that's buried under the floor of Wynant's shop.
I said: Ah .
Mimi put both hands to her mouth and said nothing. Her eyes were round and glassy.
Macaulay, frowning, asked: Are you sure?
Guild sighed. Now you know that ain't something anybody would guess at, he said wearily.
Macaulay's face flushed and he smiled sheepishly. That was a silly question. How did you happen to find himit?
Well, Mn. Charles here kept hinting that we ought to pay more attention to that shop, so, figuring that Mr. Charles here is a man that's liable to know a lot more things than he tells anybody right out, I sent sonic men around this morning to see what they could find. We'd give it the once over before and hadn't turned up nothing, but this time I told 'em to take the dump apart, because Mr. Charles here had said we ought to pay more attention to it. And Mr. Charles here was right. He looked at me with cool unfriendliness. By and by they found a corner of the cement floor looking a little newer maybe than the rest and they cracked it and there was the mortal remains of Mr. D. W. Q. What do you think of that?
Macauhay said: I think it was a damned good guess of Charles's. He turned to me. How did you
Guild interrupted him. 1 don't think you ought to say that. 'When you call it just a guess, you ain't giving Mr. Charles here the proper credit for being as smart as he is.
Macaulay was puzzled by Guild's tone. He looked questioningly at me.
I'm being stood in the corner for not telling Lieutenant Guild about our conversation this morning, I explained.
There's that, Guild agreed calmly, among other things.
Mimi laughed, and smiled apologetically at Guild when he stared at her.
How was Mr. D. W. Q. killed? I asked.
Guild hesitated, as if making up his mind whether to reply, then moved his big shoulders slightly and said: I don't know yet, or how long ago. I haven't seen the remains yet, what there is of them, and the Medical Examiner wasn't through the last I heard.
What there is of them? Macaulay repeated.
Uh-huh. He'd been sawed up in pieces and buried in lime or something so there wasn't much flesh left on him, according to the report I got, but his clothes had been stuck in with him rolled up in a bundle, and enough was left of the inside ones to tell us something. There was part of a cane, too, with a rubber tip. That's why we thought he might be lame, and we He broke off as Andy came in. Well?
Andy shook his head gloomily. Nobody sees him come, nobody sees him go. What was that joke about a guy being so thin he had to stand in the same place twice to throw a shadow?
I laughednot at the jokeand said: Wynant's not that thin, but he's thin enough, say as thin as the paper in that check and in those letters people have been getting.
What's that? Guild demanded, his face reddening, his eyes angry and suspicious.
He's dead. He's been dead a long time except on paper. I'll give you even money they're his bones in the grave with the fat lame man's clothes.
Macaulay leaned towards me. Are you sure of that, Charles?
Guild snarled at me: What are you trying to pull?
There's the bet if you want it. Who'd go to all that trouble with a corpse and then leave the easiest thing of all to get rid ofthe clothes untouched unless they
But they weren't untouched. They
Of course not. That wouldn't look right. They'd have to be partly destroyed, only enough left to tell you what they were supposed to tell. I bet the initials were plenty conspicuous.
I don't know, Guild said with less heat. They were on a belt buckle.
I laughed.
Mimi said angrily: That's ridiculous, Nick. How could that be Clyde? You know he was here this afternoon. You know he
Sh-h-h. It's very silly of you to play along with him, I told her. Wynant's dead, your children are probably his heirs, that's more money than you've got over there in the drawer. What do you want to take part of the loot for when you can get it all?
I don't know what you mean, she said. She was very pale.
Macauhay said: Charles thinks Wynant wasn't here this afternoon and that you were given those securities and the check by somebody else, or perhaps stole them yourself. Is that it? he asked me.
Practically.
But that's ridiculous, she insisted.
Be sensible, Mimi, I said. Suppose Wynant was killed three months ago and his corpse disguised as somebody else. He's supposed to have gone away leaving powers of attorney with Macaulay. All right, then, the estate's completely in Macaulay's hands for ever and ever, or at least until he finishes plundering it, because you can't even
Macaulay stood up saying: I don't know what you're getting at, Charles, but I'm
Take it easy, Guild told him. Let him have his say out.
He killed Wynant and he killed Julia and he killed Nunheim, I assured Mimi. What do you want to do? Be next on the list? YOu pught to know damned well that once you've come to his aid by saying you've seen Wynant alivebecause that's his weak spot, being the only person up to now who claims to have seen Wynant since Octoberhe's not going to take any chances on having you change your mindnot when it's only a matter of knocking you off with the same gun and putting the blame on Wynant. And what are you doing it for? For those few crunimy bonds in the drawer, a fraction of what you get your hands on through your children if we prove Wynant's dead.
Mimi turned to Macaulay and said: You son of a bitch.
Guild gaped at her, more surprised by that than by anything else that had been said.
Macaulay started to move. I did not wait to see what he meant to do, but slammed his chin with my left fist. The punch was all right, it landed solidly and dropped him, but I felt a burning sensation on my left side and knew I had torn the bullet-wound open.
What do you want me to do? I growled at Guild. Put him in Cellophane for you?
31
It was nearly three in the morning when I let myself into our apartment at the Normandie. Nora, Dorothy, and Larry Crowley were in the living-room, Nora and Larry playing backgammon, Dorothy reading a newspaper.
Did Macaulay really kihi them? Nora asked immediately.
Yes. Did the morning papers have anything about Wynant?
Dorothy said: No, just about Macaulay being arrested. Why?
Macaulay killed him too.
Nora said, Really? Larry said, I'll be damned. Dorothy began to cry. Nora looked at Dorothy in surprise.