THE THIN MAN by Dashiell Hammett

“I thought it was best not to take no chances.”

Guild stared at me with angry incredulous eyes. I did my best to keep my face blank. He said in a choking voice: “That’ll do, Flint. Wait outside.”

The red-haired man seemed puzzled. He said, “Yes, sir,” slowly. “Here’s his key.” He put the key on Guild’s desk and went to the door. There he twisted his head over a shoulder to say: “He claims he’s Clyde Wynant’s son.” He laughed merrily.

Guild, still having trouble with his voice, said: “Oh, he does, does he?”

“Yeah. I seen him somewhere before. I got an idea he used to belong to Big Shorty Dohan’s mob. Seems to me I used to see him around–”

“Get out!” Guild snarled, and Flint got out. Guild groaned from deep down in his big body. “That mugg gets me. Big Shorty Dolan’s mob. Christ.” He shook his head hopelessly and addressed Gilbert: “Well, son?”

Gilbert said: “I know I shouldn’t’ve done it.”

“That’s a fair start,” Guild said genially. His face was becoming normal again. “We all make mistakes. Pull yourself up a chair and let’s see what we can do about getting you out of the soup. Want anything for that eye?”

“No, thank you, it’s quite all right.” Gilbert moved a chain two or three inches towards Guild and sat down.

“Did that bum smack you just to be doing something?”

“No, no, it was my fault. I–I did resist.”

“Oh, well,” Guild said, “nobody likes to be arrested, I guess. Now what’s the trouble?”

Gilbert looked at me with his one good eye.

“You’re in as bad a hole as Lieutenant Guild wants to put you,” I told him. “You’ll make it easy for yourself by making it easy for him.”

Guild nodded earnestly. “And that’s a fact.” He settled himself comfortably in his chair and asked, in a friendly tone: “WThere’d you get the key?”

“My father sent it to me in his letter.” He took a white envelope from his pocket and gave it to Guild.

I went around behind Guild and looked at the envelope over his shoulder. The address was typewritten, Mr. Gilbert Wynant, The Courtland, and there was no postage stamp stuck on it.

“When’d you get it?” I asked.

“It was at the desk when I got in last night, around ten o’clock. I didn’t ask the clerk how long it had been there, but I don’t suppose it was there when I went out with you, or they’d have given it to me.”

Inside the envelope were two sheets of paper covered with the familiar unskillful typewriting. Guild and I read together:

Dear Gilbert:

If all these years have gone by without my having

communicated with you, it is only because your mother

wished it so and if now I break this silence with a

request for your assistance it is because only great

need could make me go against your mother’s wishes. Also

you are a man now and I feel that you yourself are the

one to decide whether or not we should go on being strangers

or whether we should act in accordance with our ties of

blood. That I am in an embarrassing situation now in

connection with Julia Wolf’s so-called murder I think you

know and I trust that you still have remaining enough

affection for me to at least hope that I am in all ways

guiltless of any complicity therein, which is indeed the

case. I turn to you now for help in demonstrating my innocence

once and for all to the police and to the world with every

confidence that even could I not count on your affection for

me I nevertheless could count on your natural desire to do

anything within your power to keeji unblemished the name that

is yours and your sister’s as well as your Father’s. I turn to

you also because while I have a lawyer who is able and who

believes in my innocence and who is leaving no stone unturned

to prove it and have hopes of engaging Mr. Nick Charles to

assist him I cannot ask either of them to undertake what is

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