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.”
Two
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 today?”
“Yes, sir. At about three o’clock, I guess it was, and she started packing.” She pointed at the travelling 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?”
“Mostly always.”
“You must have some idea of what she went to the city for,” Guild insisted.
“No, I haven’t,” the woman said earnestly. “We never did know, did we, Willie? Jealous like he was, I guess if she was going in to see some fellow she wouldn’t be likely to tell anybody that might tell him, though the Lord knows I can keep my mouth shut as tight as anybody. I’ve seen the -“
Guild stopped lighting a fresh cigarette to ask: “How about her mail? You must’ve seen that sometimes.”
“No, Mr. Gould, we never did, and that’s a funny thing, because all the time we’ve been here I never saw any mail for her except magazines and never knew her to write any.”
Guild frowned. “How long had she been here?”
“She was here when we came. I don’t know how long she’d been here, but it must’ve been a long time.”
Boyer said: “Three years. She came here in March three years ago.”
“How about her relatives, friends?”
The Hopkinses shook their heads. Boyer shook his head.
“His?”
