THE THIN MAN by Dashiell Hammett

“Power of attorney covering everything, huh?”

“Exactly. And listen, when he wanted money, he wanted it in cash.”

“He was always full of screwy notions,” I said.

“That’s what everybody says. The idea seems to be he don’t want to take any chances on anybody tracing him through checks, or anybody up there knowing he’s Wynant. That’s why he didn’t take the girl along with him–didn’t even let her know where he was, if she was telling the truth–and let his whiskers grow.’ With his left hand he stroked an imagi ary beard.

“‘Up there,’ ” I quoted. “So he was in the Adirondacks?”

Guild moved one shoulder. “I just aaid that because that and Philadelphia are the only ideas anybody’s given us. We’re trying the mountains, but we don’t know. Maybe Australia.”

“And how much of this money in cash did Wynant want?”

“I can tell you that exactly.” He took a wad of soiled, bent and dogeared papers out of his pocket, selected an envelope that was a shade dirtier than most of the others, and stuffed the others back in his pocket. “The day after he talked to Macaulay he drew five thousand out of the bank himself, in cash. On the 28th–this iS October, you understand– he had Macaulay get another five for him, and twenty-five hundred on the 6th of November, and a thousand on the 15th, and seventy-five hundred on the 3oth, and fifteen hundred on the 6th–that would be December– and a thousand on the 18th, and five thousand on the 22nd, which was the day before she was killed.”

“Nearly thirty thou,” I said. “A nice bank balance he had.”

“Twenty-eight thousand five hundred, to be exact.” Guild returned the envelope to his pocket. “But you understand it wasn’t all in there. After the first call Macaulay would sell something every time to raise the dough.” He felt in his pocket again. “I got a list of the stuff he sold, if you want to see it.”

I said I didn’t. “How’d he turn the money over to Wynant?”

“Wynant would write the girl when he wanted it, and she’d get it ftom Macaulay. He’s got her receipts.”

“And how’d she get it to Wynant?”

Guild shook his head. “She told Macaulay she used to meet him places he told her, but he thinks she knew where he was, though she always said she didn’t.”

“And maybe she still had that last five thousand on her when she was killed, huh?”

“Which might make it robbery, unless”–Guild’s watery gray eyes were almost shut–“he killed her when he came there to get it.”

“Or unless,” I suggested, “somebody else who killed her for some other reason found the money there and thought they might as well take it along.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “Things like that happen all the time. It even happens sometimes that the first people that find a body like that pick up a little something before they turn in the alarm.” He held up a big hand. “Of course, with Mrs. Jorgensen–a lady like that–I hope you don’t think I’m–”

“Besides,” I said, “she wasn’t alone, was she?”

“For a little while. The phone in the apartment was out of whack, and the elevator boy rode the superintendent down to phone from the office. But get me right on this, I’m not saying Mrs. Jorgensen did anything funny. A lady like that wouldn’t be likely–”

“What was the matter with the phone?” I asked.

The doorbell rang.

“Well,” Guild said, “I don’t know just what to make of it. The phone had–”

He broke off as a waiter came in and began to set a table.

“About the phone,” Guild said when we were sitting at the table, “I don’t know just what to make of it, as I said. It had a bullet right smack through the mouthpiece of it.”

“Accidental or–?”

“I’d just as lief ask you. It was from the same gun as the four that hit her, of course, but whether he missed her with that one or did it on purpose I don’t know. It seems like a kind of noisy way to put a phone on the bum.”

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