“Another one of those screwy letters?” I asked.
“No, he phoned. I made a date with him for tonight–for you and me. I told him you wouldn’t do anything for him unless you could see him, so he promised to meet us tonight. I’m going to take the police, of course. I can’t go on justifying my shielding him like this. I can get him an acquittal on grounds of insanity and have him put away. That’s all I can do, all I want to do.”
“Have you told the police yet?”
“No. He didn’t phone till just after they’d left. Anyway, I wanted to see you first. I wanted to tell you I hadn’t forgotten what I owed you and–”
“Nonsense,” I said.
“It’s not.” He turned to Nora. “I don’t suppose he ever told you he saved my life once in a shell-hole in–”
“He’s nuts,” I told her. “He fired at a fellow and missed and I fired at him and didn’t and that’s all there was to it.” I addressed him again: “Why don’t you let the police wait awhile? Suppose you and I keep this date tonight and hear what he’s got to say. We can sit on him and blow whistles when the meeting’s about to break up if we’re convinced he’s the murderer.”
Macaulay smiled wearily. “You’re still doubtful, aren’t you? Well, I’m willing to do it that way if you want, though it seems like a– But perhaps you’ll change your mind when I tell you about our telephone conversation.”
Dorothy, wearing a nightgown and a robe of Nora’s, both much too long for her, came in yawning. “Oh!” she exclaimed when she saw Macaulay, and then, when she had recognized him, “Oh, hello, Mr. Macaulay. I didn’t know you were here. Is there any news of my father?”
He looked at me. I shook my head. He told her: “Not yet, but perhaps we’ll have some today.”
I said: “Dorothy’s had some, indirectly. Tell Macaulay about Gilbert.”
“You mean about–about my father?” she asked hesitantly, staring at the floor.
“Oh, dear me, no,” I said.
Her face flushed and she glanced reproachfully at me; then, hastily, she told Macaulay: “Gil saw my father yesterday and he told Gil who killed Miss Wolf.”
“What?”
She nodded four or five times, earnestly.
Macaulay looked at me with puzzled eyes.
“This doesn’t have to’ve happened,” I reminded him. “It’s what Gil says happened.”
“I see. Then you think he might be–?”
“You haven’t done much talking to that family since hell broke loose, have you?” I asked.
“No.”
“It’s an experience. They’re all sex-crazy, I think, and it backs up into their heads. They start off–”
Dorothy said angrily: “I think you’re horrid. I’ve done my best to–”
“What are you kicking about?” I demanded. “I’m giving you the break this time: I’m willing to believe Gil did tell you that. Don’t expect too much of me.”
Macaulay asked: “And who killed her?”
“I don’t know. Gil wouldn’t tell me.”
“Had your brother seen him often?”
“I don’t know how often. He said he had been seeing him.”
“And was anything said–well–about the man Nunheim?”
“No. Nick asked me that. He didn’t tell me anything else at all.”
I caught Nora’s eye and made signals. She stood up saying: “Let’s go in the other room, Dorothy, and give these lads a chance to do whatever it is they think they’re doing.”
Dorothy went reluctantly, but she went out with Nora.
Macaulay said: “She’s grown up to be something to look at.” He cleared his throat. “I hope your wife won’t–”
“Forget it. Nora’s all right. You started to tell me about your conversation with Wynant.”
“He phoned right after the police left and said he’d seen the ad in the Times and wanted to know what I wanted. I told him you weren’t anxious to get yourself mixed up in his troubles and had said you wouldn’t touch it at all without talking it over with him first, and we made the date for tonight. Then he asked if I’d seen Mimi and I told him I’d seen her once or twice since her return from Europe and had also seen his daughter. And then he said this: ‘If my wife should ask for money, give her any sum in reason.'”