Dashiell Hammett the Thin Man Read Online

  Tabular array Of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Affiliate 3

Chapter iv

Affiliate 5

Chapter half dozen

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Affiliate ix

Chapter x

Affiliate xi

Chapter 12

Chapter xiii

Chapter xiv

Chapter 15

Chapter sixteen

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Affiliate nineteen

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Affiliate 28

Chapter 29

Chapter thirty

Chapter 31

About the Author

Other Books by This Author

Also by Dashiell Hammett

Copyright

TO

LILLIAN

1

I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on 50-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. She was modest and blonde, and whether you looked at her face or at her body in pulverisation-blue sports apparel, the result was satisfactory. "Aren't y'all Nick Charles?" she asked.

I said: "Yep."

She held out her hand. "I'm Dorothy Wynant. You don't remember me, simply you lot ought to remember my begetter, Clyde Wynant. You—"

"Certain," I said, "and I remember you now, but y'all were only a kid of eleven or twelve then, weren't yous?"

"Yes, that was eight years agone. Listen: call up those stories you told me? Were they truthful?"

"Probably not. How is your father?"

She laughed. "I was going to ask you. Mamma divorced him, you lot know, and we never hear from him—except when he gets in the newspapers now and then with some of his carryings on. Don't you ever encounter him?"

My glass was empty. I asked her what she would have to drink, she said Scotch and soda. I ordered ii of them and said: "No, I've been living in San Francisco."

She said slowly: "I'd like to run across him. Mamma would heighten hell if she found it out, only I'd like to see him."

"Well?"

"He's not where nosotros used to alive, on Riverside Drive, and he's not in the phone book or urban center directory."

"Attempt his lawyer," I suggested.

Her face up brightened. "Who is he?"

"It used to be a beau named Mac-something-or-other—Macaulay, that'south it, Herbert Macaulay. He was in the Vocalist Building."

"Lend me a nickel," she said, and went out to the phone. She came back smiling. "I found him. He's just circular the corner on Fifth Avenue."

"Your father?"

"The lawyer. He says my begetter's out of town. I'm going round to run across him." She raised her drinking glass to me. "Family reunions. Expect, why don't—"

Asta jumped upwards and punched me in the belly with her front anxiety. Nora, at the other stop of the leash, said: "She'southward had a dandy afternoon—knocked over a tabular array of toys at Lord & Taylor's, scared a fat woman dizzy by licking her leg in Saks'south, and's been patted by three policemen."

I made introductions. "My married woman, Dorothy Wynant. Her male parent was once a client of mine, when she was only so loftier. A proficient guy, but screwy."

"I was fascinated by him," Dorothy said, meaning me, "a real alive detective, and used to follow him around making him tell me nigh his experiences. He told me atrocious lies, merely I believed every word."

I said: "You look tired, Nora."

"I am. Let's sit down."

Dorothy Wynant said she had to get back to her table. She shook easily with Nora; we must driblet in for cocktails, they were living at the Courtland, her female parent's proper name was Jorgensen now. We would exist glad to and she must come up run across us some time, we were at the Normandie and would be in New York for another calendar week or two. Dorothy patted the dog's head and left u.s.a..

We found a table. Nora said: "She's pretty."

"If you like them like that."

She grinned at me. "You got types?"

"But you, darling—lanky brunettes with wicked jaws."

"And how well-nigh the ruby-red-head you wandered off with at the Quinns' terminal dark?"

"That'due south dizzy," I said. "She just wanted to prove me some French etchings."

2

The next mean solar day Herbert Macaulay telephoned me. "Howdy, I didn't know you were back in boondocks till Dorothy Wynant told me. How about tiffin?"

"What fourth dimension is information technology?"

"One-half by 11. Did I wake you up?"

"Yeah," I said, "but that'southward all correct. Suppose you come up upwards here for tiffin: I've got a hangover and don't feel similar running around much…. O.Yard., say one o'clock." I had a drink with Nora, who was going out to accept her hair done, then another subsequently a shower, and was feeling better by the time the telephone rang again. A female vocalisation asked: "Is Mr. Macaulay there?"

"Not notwithstanding."

"Sad to trouble you, merely would you lot mind asking him to call his office as soon as he gets there? Information technology'south important." I promised to practise that.

Macaulay arrived most x minutes later. He was a big curly-haired, rosy-cheeked, rather practiced-looking chap of about my age—forty-one—though he looked younger. He was supposed to be a pretty good lawyer. I had worked on several jobs for him when I was living in New York and we had always got along nicely. Now we shook easily and patted each other's backs, and he asked me how the world was treating me, and I said, "Fine," and asked him and he said, "Fine," and I told him to telephone call his function.

He came away from the telephone frowning. "Wynant's back in town," he said, "and wants me to meet him."

I turned around with the drinks I had poured. "Well, the luncheon can—"

"Permit him look," he said, and took one of the glasses from me.

"Yet equally screwy equally always?"

"That's no joke," Macaulay said solemnly. "Yous heard they had him in a sanatorium for about a year back in '29?"

"No."

He nodded. He saturday downwardly, put his drinking glass on a table beside his chair, and leaned towards me a little. "What'south Mimi up to, Charles?"

"Mimi? Oh, the wife—the ex-wife. I don't know. Does she accept to be upward to something?"

"She usually is," he said dryly, and and so very slowly, "and I thought y'all'd know."

So that was it. I said: "Listen, Mac, I haven't been a detective for half-dozen years, since 1927." He stared at me. "On the level," I assured him, "a twelvemonth subsequently I got married, my wife'southward begetter died and left her a lumber mill and a narrow-guess railroad and some other things and I quit the Agency to await after them. Anyway I wouldn't be working for Mimi Wynant, or Jorgensen, or whatsoever her name is—she never liked me and I never liked her."

"Oh, I didn't recall you lot—" Macaulay broke off with a vague gesture and picked up his glass. When he took it away from his mouth, he said: "I was just wondering. Here Mimi phones me three days ago—Tuesday—trying to find Wynant; and then yesterday Dorothy phones, saying you told her to, and comes around, and—I thought you were however sleuthing, so I was wondering what it was all most."

"Didn't they tell yous?"

"Sure—they wanted to see him for old times' sake. That means a lot."

"You lawyers are a suspicious crew," I said. "Possibly they did—that and coin. But what's the fuss almost? Is he in hiding?"

Macaulay shrugged. "You thousand

now as much nigh it as I do. I haven't seen him since October." He drank again. "How long are you going to be in town?"

"Till after New Year's," I told him and went to the telephone to inquire room service for menus.

three

Nora and I went to the opening of Honeymoon at the Piddling Theatre that nighttime and then to a party given by some people named Freeman or Fielding or something. I felt pretty low when she called me the next morning time. She gave me a newspaper and a loving cup of coffee and said: "Read that."

I patiently read a paragraph or two, then put the paper down and took a sip of coffee. "Fun's fun," I said, "but right at present I'd swap y'all all the interviews with Mayor-elect O'Brien always printed—and throw in the Indian picture—for a slug of whis—"

"Not that, stupid." She put a finger on the newspaper. "That."

INVENTOR'S SECRETARY

MURDERED IN APARTMENT

JULIA WOLF'S BULLET-RIDDLED Body FOUND;

POLICE SEEK HER EMPLOYER, CLYDE WYNANT

The bullet-riddled trunk of Julia Wolf, thirty-2-year-quondam confidential secretary to Clyde Miller Wynant, well-known inventor, was discovered late yesterday afternoon in the dead woman's apartment at 411 East L-fourth St. by Mrs. Christian Jorgensen, divorced wife of the inventor, who had gone there in an endeavor to learn her former married man's nowadays address.

Mrs. Jorgensen, who returned Monday later on a six-yr stay in Europe, told constabulary that she heard feeble groans when she rang the murdered woman's doorbell, whereupon she notified an elevator boy, Mervin Holly, who called Walter Meany, apartment-house superintendent. Miss Wolf was lying on the bedroom floor with four .32-caliber bullet-wounds in her chest when they entered the apartment, and died without having recovered consciousness before police and medical assistance arrived.

Herbert Macaulay, Wynant'south attorney, told the police force that he had not seen the inventor since Oct. He stated that Wynant called him on the telephone yesterday and made an appointment, but failed to keep it; and disclaimed whatever cognition of his client's whereabouts. Miss Wolf, Macaulay stated, had been in the inventor's employ for the past 8 years. The attorney said he knew nada nigh the dead woman's family or private affairs and could throw no light on her murder.

The bullet-wounds could not have been cocky-inflicted, co-ordinate to …

The rest of it was the usual police department handout.

"Do yous suppose he killed her?" Nora asked when I put the paper down again.

"Wynant? I wouldn't be surprised. He's batty equally hell."

"Did you know her?"

"Yes. How virtually a drop of something to cut the phlegm?"

"What was she like?"

"Non bad," I said. "She wasn't bad-looking and she had a lot of sense and a lot of nerve—and it took both to live with that guy."

"She lived with him?"

"Yes. I want a drink, please. That is, it was similar that when I knew them."

"Why don't you have some breakfast kickoff? Was she in love with him or was it just business organisation?"

"I don't know. It's too early for breakfast."

When Nora opened the door to leave, the domestic dog came in and put her front feet on the bed, her face in my face. I rubbed her head and tried to retrieve something Wynant had in one case said to me, something near women and dogs. It was not the woman-spaniel-walnut-tree line. I could not retrieve what information technology was, only there seemed to exist some point in trying to call up. Nora returned with two drinks and another question: "What's he like?"

"Tall—over vi feet—and one of the thinnest men I've always seen. He must exist about fifty now, and his hair was almost white when I knew him. Ordinarily needs a haircut, ragged brindle mustache, bites his fingernails." I pushed the dog away to reach for my drink.

"Sounds lovely. What were y'all doing with him?"

"A fellow who'd worked for him defendant him of stealing some kind of invention from him. Rosewater was his name. He tried to shake Wynant down by threatening to shoot him, bomb his firm, kidnap his children, cut his wife'south throat—I don't know what all—if he didn't come across. We never caught him—must've scared him off. Anyway, the threats stopped and nothing happened."

Nora stopped drinking to ask: "Did Wynant really steal it?"

"Tch, tch, tch," I said. "This is Christmas Eve: try to think skilful of your fellow man."

4

That afternoon I took Asta for a walk, explained to two people that she was a Schnauzer and not a cross between a Scottie and an Irish terrier, stopped at Jim's for a couple of drinks, ran into Larry Crowley, and brought him back to the Normandie with me. Nora was pouring cocktails for the Quinns, Margot Innes, a man whose proper name I did not catch, and Dorothy Wynant. Dorothy said she wanted to talk to me, so we carried our cocktails into the bedchamber.

She came to the point right away. "Exercise you lot think my father killed her, Nick?"

"No," I said. "Why should I?"

"Well, the police have— Listen, she was his mistress, wasn't she?"

I nodded. "When I knew them."

She stared at her glass while saying, "He's my father. I never liked him. I never liked Mamma." She looked up at me. "I don't similar Gilbert." Gilbert was her blood brother.

"Don't let that worry you lot. Lots of people don't like their relatives."

"Practice you lot like them?"

"My relatives?"

"Mine." She scowled at me. "And stop talking to me as if I was withal twelve."

"It's not that," I explained. "I'm getting tight."

"Well, exercise you?"

I shook my head. "You were all correct, just a spoiled child. I could become along without the balance of them."

"What's the matter with us?" she asked, non argumentatively, merely as if she really wanted to know.

"Unlike things. Your—"

Harrison Quinn opened the door and said: "Come on over and play some Ping-Pong, Nick."

"In a little while."

"Bring Cute forth." He leered at Dorothy and went abroad.

She said: "I don't suppose y'all know Jorgensen."

"I know a Nels Jorgensen."

"Some people have all the luck. This i's named Christian. He's a dear. That's Mamma—divorces a lunatic and marries a gigolo." Her optics became wet. She caught her jiff in a sob and asked: "What am I going to exercise, Nick?" Her vocalism was a frightened child'south.

I put an arm effectually her and made what I hoped were comforting sounds. She cried on my lapel. The telephone abreast the bed began to ring. In the next room "Rising and Shine" was coming through the radio. My drinking glass was empty. I said: "Walk out on them."

She sobbed again. "Yous tin can't walk out on yourself."

"Maybe I don't know what you're talking most."

"Please don't tease me," she said humbly.

Nora, coming in to answer the phone, looked questioningly at me. I fabricated a face up at her over the girl's head. When Nora said "How-do-you-do" into the telephone, the daughter stepped chop-chop back away from me and blushed. "I—I'm sorry," she stammered, "I didn't—"

Nora smiled sympathetically at her. I said: "Don't be a dope." The girl found her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes with it.

Nora spoke into the telephone. "Aye … I'll see if he's in. Who'southward calling, delight?" She put a hand over the mouthpiece and addressed me: "It's a homo named Norman. Exercise you want to talk to him?"

I said I didn't know and took the telephone. "Hello."

A somewhat harsh vox said: "Mr. Charles? … Mr. Charles, I sympathize that yous were formerly connected with the Trans-American Detective Agency."

"Who is this?" I asked.

"My name is Albert Norman, Mr. Charles, which probably means nothing to you lot, but I would similar to lay a proffer earlier you. I am sure you lot volition—"

"What kind of a pro

position?"

"I can't discuss it over the phone, Mr. Charles, but if yous volition give me one-half an hour of your time, I can promise—"

"Sorry," I said. "I'm pretty busy and—"

"Only, Mr. Charles, this is—" Then there was a loud dissonance: information technology could have been a shot or something falling or anything else that would make a loud noise. I said, "Hello," a couple of times, got no respond, and hung up.

Nora had Dorothy over in front of a looking-glass soothing her with pulverisation and rouge. I said, "A guy selling insurance," and nosotros went into the living-room for a drink. Some more people had come in. I spoke to them. Harrison Quinn left the sofa where he had been sitting with Margot Innes and said: "At present Ping-Pong." Asta jumped upward and punched me in the belly with her front feet. I close off the radio and poured myself a cocktail. The man whose proper name I had not defenseless was saying: "Comes the revolution and we'll all be lined upward confronting the wall—first thing." He seemed to call back information technology was a practiced idea.

Quinn came over to refill his drinking glass. He looked towards the bedroom door. "Where'd you observe the trivial blonde?"

"Used to bounce it on my knee."

"Which articulatio genus?" he asked. "Could I touch it?"

Nora and Dorothy came out of the bedroom. I saw an afternoon paper on the radio and picked it upwardly. Headlines said:

JULIA WOLF ONCE RACKETEER'S Girl;

ARTHUR NUNHEIM IDENTIFIES BODY;

WYNANT STILL MISSING

Nora, at my elbow, spoke in a depression voice: "I asked her to have dinner with u.s.. Be nice to the child"—Nora was twenty-six—"she'due south all upset."

"Any you say." I turned around. Dorothy, beyond the room, was laughing at something Quinn was telling her. "But if you get mixed up in people'southward troubles, don't expect me to osculation y'all where you're hurt."

"I won't. You're a sweet sometime fool. Don't read that here now." She took the paper away from me and stuck it out of sight behind the radio.

5

Nora could not sleep that nighttime. She read Chaliapin's memoirs until I began to doze and and then woke me up by request: "Are you asleep?" I said I was. She lit a cigarette for me, one for herself. "Don't you ever recollect y'all'd like to get dorsum to detecting in one case in a while simply for the fun of it? You know, when something special comes up, like the Lindb—"

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