or run off and hide. Nora, beside me, holding the empty glass in her hand, asked: “Think she's all right?”
“Sure.”
Presently Mimi opened her eyes, tried to blink the water out of them. I put a handkerchief in her hand. She wiped her face, gave a long shivering sigh, and sat up on the sofa. She looked around the room, still blinking a little. When she saw me she smiled feebly. There was guilt in her smile, but nothing you could call remorse. She touched her hair with an unsteady hand and said: “I've certainly been drowned.”
I said: “Some day you're going into one of those things and not come out of it.”
She looked past me at her son. “Gil. What's happened to you?” she asked.
He hastily took his hand off his leg and put his foot down on the floor. “I—uh—nothing,” he stammered. “I'm perfectly all right.” He smoothed his hair, straightened his necktie.
She began to laugh. “Oh, Gil, did you really try to protect me? And from Nick?” Her laughter increased. “It was awfully sweet of you, but awfully silly. Why, he's a monster, Gil. Nobody could—” She put my handkerchief over her mouth and rocked back and forth.
I looked sidewise at Nora. Her mouth was set and her eyes were almost black with anger. I touched her arm. “Let's blow. Give your mother a drink, Gilbert. She'll be all right in a minute or two.”
Dorothy, hat and coat in her hands, tiptoed to the outer door. Nora and I found our hats and coats and followed her out, leaving Mimi laughing into my handkerchief on the sofa.
None of the three of us had much to say in the taxicab that carried us over to the Normandie. Nora was brooding, Dorothy seemed still pretty frightened, and I was tired—it had been a full day.
It was nearly five o'clock when we got home. Asta greeted us boisterously. I lay down on the floor to play with her while Nora went into the pantry to make coffee. Dorothy wanted to tell me something that happened to her when she was a little child.
I said: “No. You tried that Monday. What is it? a gag? It's late. What was it you were afraid to tell me over there?”
“But you'd understand better if you'd let me—”
“You said that Monday. I'm not a psychoanalyst. I don't know anything about early influences. I don't give a damn about them. And I'm tired—I been ironing all day.”
She pouted at me. “You seem to be trying to make it as hard for me as you can.”
“Listen, Dorothy,” I said, “you either know something you were afraid to say in front of Mimi and Gilbert or you don't. If you do, spit it out. I'll ask you about any of it I find myself not understanding.”
She twisted a fold of her skirt and looked sulkily at it, but when she raised her eyes they became bright and excited. She spoke in a whisper loud enough for anybody in the room to hear: “Gil's been seeing my father and he saw him today and my father told him who killed Miss Wolf.”
“Who?”
She shook her head. “He wouldn't tell me. He'd just tell me that.”
“And that's what you were afraid to say in front of Gil and Mimi?”
“Yes. You'd understand that if you'd let me tell you—”
“Something that happened when you were a little child. Well, I won't. Stop it. What else did he tell you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing about Nunheim?”
“No, nothing.”
“Where is your father?”-“Gil didn't tell me.”
“When did he meet him?”
“He didn't tell me. Please don't be mad, Nick. I've told you everything he told me.”
“And a fat lot it is,” I growled. “When'd he tell you this?”
“Tonight. He was telling me when you came in my room, and, honest, that's all he told me.”
I said: “It'd be swell if just once one of you people would make a clear and complete statement about something—it wouldn't matter what.”
Nora came in with the coffee. “What's worrying you now, son?” she asked.
“Things,” I said, “riddles, lies, and I'm too old and too tired for them to be any fun. Let's go back to San Francisco.”
“Before New Year's?”
“Tomorrow, today.”
“I'm willing.” She gave me a cup. “We can fly back, if you want, and be there for New Year's Eve.”
Dorothy said tremulously: “I didn't lie to you, Nick. I told you everything 1— Please, please don't be mad with me. I'm so—” She stopped talking to sob.
I rubbed Asta's head and groaned.
Nora said: “We're all worn out and jumpy. Let's send the pup downstairs for the night and turn in and do our talking after we've had some rest. Come on, Dorothy, I'll bring your coffee into the bedroom and give you some night-clothes.”
Dorothy got up, said, “Good-night,” to me, “I'm sorry I'm so silly,” and followed Nora out.
When Nora returned she sat down on the floor beside me. “Our Dorry does her share of weeping and whining,” she said. “Admitting life's not too pleasant for her just now, still . . .” She yawned. “What was her fearsome secret?”
I told her what Dorothy had told me. “It sounds like a lot of hooey.”
“Why?”
“Why not? Everything else we've got from them has been hooey.”
Nora yawned again. “That may be good enough for a detective, but it's not convincing enough for me. Listen, why don't we make a list of all the suspects and all the motives and clues, and check them off against —”
“You do it. I'm going to bed. What's a clue, Mamma?”
“It's like when Gilbert tiptoed over to the phone tonight when I was alone in the living-room, and he thought I was asleep, and told the operator not to put through any in-coming calls until morning.”
“Well, well.”
“And,” she said, “it's like Dorothy discovering that she had Aunt Alice's key all the time.”
“Well, well.”
“And it's like Studsy nudging Morelli under the table when he started to tell you about the drunken cousin of—what was it?—Dick O'Brien's that Julia 'Wolf knew.”
I got up and put our cups on a table. “I don't see how any detective can hope to get along without being married to you, but, just the same, you're overdoing it. Studsy nudging Morelli is my idea of something to spend a lot of time not worrying about. I'd rather worry about whether they pushed Sparrow around to keep me from being hurt or to keep me from being told something. I'm sleepy.”
“So am I. Tell me something, Nick. Tell me the truth: when you were wrestling with Mimi, didn't you have an erection?”
“Oh, a little.”
She laughed and got up from the floor. “If you aren't a disgusting old lecher,” she said. “Look, it's daylight.”
26
Nora shook me awake at quarter past ten. “The telephone,” she said. “It's Herbert Macauhay and he says it's important.”
I went into the bedroom—I had slept in the living-room—to the telephone. Dorothy was sleeping soundly. I mumbled, “Hello,” into the telephone.
Macaulay said: “It's too early for that lunch, but I've got to see you right away. Can I come up now?”
“Sure. Come up for breakfast.”
