“Yes. Was he here when you got home?”
“Yes. I – I think he was.”
“Do you know?”
“Well, it” – she looked appealingly at her husband – “he was here when we heard them fighting not much after that, so he must’ve been -“
“Or did he come in after you got back?”
“No – we didn’t see him come in.”
“Hear him?”
She shook her head certainly. “No, sir.”
“Was his car here when you got back?”
The woman started to say yes, stopped midway, and looked questioningly at her husband. His round face was uncomfortably confused. “We -we didn’t notice,” she stammered.
“Would you have heard him if he’d driven up while you were here?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Gould. I think – I don’t know. If I was in the kitchen with the water running and Willie – Mr. Hopkins that is – don’t hear any too good anyway. Maybe we -“
Guild turned his back to her and addressed the district attorney. “There’s no sense to their story. If I were you I’d throw them in the can and charge them with the murder.”
Boyer gaped. Hopkins’s face went yellow. His wife leaned over her sewing and began to cry. King stared at the dark man as at some curio seen for the first time.
The district attorney was the first to speak. “But – but why?”
“You don’t believe them, do you?” Guild asked in an amused tone.
“I don’t know. I -“
“If it was up to me I’d do it,” Guild said good-naturedly, “but if you want to wait till we locate Wynant, all right. I want to get some more specimens of Wynant’s and the girl’s handwriting.” He turned back to the Hopkinses and asked casually: “Who was Laura Porter?”
The name seemed to mean nothing to them. Hopkins shook his head dumbly. His wife did not stop crying.
“I didn’t think you knew,” Guild said. “Let’s go up and get those scratch samples, Boyer.”
The district attorney’s face, as he went upstairs with Guild, was a theatre where anxiety played. He stared at the dark man with troubled, pleading eyes. “I – I wish you’d tell me why you think Wynant didn’t do it,” he said in a wheedling voice, “and why you think Ray and the Hopkinses are mixed up in it.” He made a despairing gesture with his hands. “What do you really think, Guild? Do you really suspect these people or are you -?” His face flushed under the dark man’s steady, unreadable gaze and he lowered his eyes.
“I suspect everybody,” Guild said in a voice that was devoid of feeling. “Where were you between two and three o’clock yesterday afternoon?”
Boyer jumped and a look of fear came into his young face. Then he laughed sheepishly and said: “Well, I suppose you’re right. I want you to understand, Guild, that I keep asking you things not because I think you’re off on the wrong track, but because I think you know so much more about this kind of thing than I do.”
Guild was in San Francisco by two o’clock in the morning. He went straight to the Manchu.
Elsa Fremont was singing when he stepped out of the elevator. She was wearing a taffeta gown – snug of bodice, billowy of skirt – whereon great red roses were printed against a chalky blue background, with two rhinestone buckles holding a puffy sash in place. The song she sang had a recurring line, ‘Boom, chisel, chisel!’
When she finished her second encore she started toward Guild’s table, but two men and a woman at an intervening table stopped her, and it was then ten minutes or more before she joined him. Her eyes were dark, her face and voice nervous. “Did you find Charley?”
Guild, on his feet, said: “No. He didn’t go up to Hell Bend.”
She sat down twisting her wrist-scarf, nibbling her lip, frowning.
The dark man sat down, asking: “Did you think he’d gone there?”
She jerked her head up indignantly. “I told you I did. Don’t you ever believe anything that anybody tells you?”
“Sometimes I do and am wrong,” Guild said. He tapped a cigarette on the table. “Wherever he’s gone, he’s got a new car and an all-day start.”
She put her hands on the table suddenly, palms up in a suppliant gesture. “But why should he want to go anywhere else?”
Guild was looking at her hands. “I don’t know, but he did.” He bent his head further over her hands as if studying their lines. “Is Frank Kearny here now and can I talk to him?”
She uttered a brief throaty laugh. “Yes.” Letting her hands lie as they were on the table, she turned her head and caught a passing waiter’s attention. “Lee, ask Frank to come here.” She looked at the dark man again, somewhat curiously. “I told him you wanted to see him. Was that all right?”
He was still studying her palms. “Oh, yes, sure,” he said good-naturedly. “That would give him time to think.”
She laughed again and took her hands off the table.
A man came to the table. He was a full six feet tall, but the width of his shoulders made him seem less than that. His face was broad and flat, his eyes small, his lips wide and thick, and when he smiled he displayed crooked teeth set apart. His age could have been anything between thirty-five and forty-five.
“Frank, this is Mr. Guild,” Elsa Fremont said.
Kearny threw his right hand out with practiced heartiness. “Glad to know you, Guild.”
They shook hands and Kearny sat down with them. The orchestra was playing
“Do you know Laura Porter?” Guild asked Kearny.
The proprietor shook his ugly head. “Never heard of her. Elsa asked me.”
“Did you know Columbia Forrest?”
“No. All I know is she’s the girl that got clipped up there in Whitfield County and I only know that from the papers and from Elsa.”
“Know Wynant?”
“No, and if somebody saw him coming in here all I got to say is that if lots of people I don’t know didn’t come in here I couldn’t stay in business.”
“That’s all right,” Guild said pleasantly, “but here’s the thing: when Columbia Forrest opened a bank-account seven months ago under the name of Laura Porter you were one of the references she gave the bank.”
Kearny’s grin was undisturbed. “That might be, right enough,” he said, “but that still don’t mean I know her.” He put out a long arm and stopped a waiter. “Tell Sing to give you that bottle and bring ginger ale set-ups.” He turned his attention to Guild again. “Look it, Guild. I’m running a joint. Suppose some guy from the Hall or the Municipal Building that can do me good or bad, or some guy that spends with me, comes to me and says he’s got a friend – or a broad – that’s hunting a job or wants to open some kind of account or get a bond, and can they use my name? Well, what the hell! It happens all the time.”
Guild nodded. “Sure. Well, who asked you to O.K. Laura Porter?”
“Seven months ago?” Kearny scoffed. “A swell chance I got of remembering! Maybe I didn’t even hear her name then.”
“Maybe you did. Try to remember.”
“No good,” Kearny insisted. “I tried when Elsa first told me about you wanting to see me.”
Guild said: “The other name she gave was Wynant’s. Does that help?”
“No. I don’t know him, don’t know anybody that knows him.”
“Charley Fremont knows him.”
Kearny moved his wide shoulders carelessly. “I didn’t know that,” he said.
The waiter came, gave the proprietor a dark quart bottle, put glasses of cracked ice on the table, and began to open bottles of ginger ale.
Elsa Fremont said: “I told you I didn’t think Frank knew anything about any of them.”
“You did,” the dark man said, “and now he’s told me.” He made his face solemnly thoughtful. “I’m glad he didn’t contradict you.”
