“Sure. Weren’t you?”
“Oh, yes, but people don’t always believe you. You won’t say any– thing to Mamma about this, will you?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“Thank you,” he said. “In your opinion, is there more opportunity for a young man out West than here in the East?”
I thought of him working on Guild’s fox farm while I replied: “Not now. Thinking of going west?”
“I don’t know. I want to do something.” He fidgeted with his necktie. “You’ll think it’s a funny question: is there much incest?”
“There’s some,” I told him; “that’s why they’ve got a name for it.”
His face flushed.
I said: “I’m not making fun of you. It’s one of the things nobody knows. There’s no way of finding out.”
We had a couple of blocks of silence after that. Then he said: “There’s another funny question I’d like to ask you: what do you think of me?” He was more self-conscious about it than Alice Quinn had been.
“You’re all right,” I told him, “and you’re all wrong.”
He looked away, out the window. “I’m so awfully young.”
We had some more silence. Then he coughed and a little blood trickled from one corner of his mouth.
“That guy did hurt you,” I said.
He nodded shamefacedly and put his handkerchief to his mouth. “I’m not very strong.”
At the Courtland he would not let me help him out of the taxicab and he insisted he could manage alone, but I went upstairs with him, suspecting that otherwise he would say nothing to anybody about his condition.
I rang the apartment bell before he could get his key out, and Mimi opened the door. She goggled at his black eye.
I said: “He’s hurt. Get him to bed and get him a doctor.”
“What happened?”
“Wynant sent him into something.”
“Into what?”
“Never mind that until we get him fixed up.”
“But Clyde was here,” she said. “That’s why I phoned you.”
“What?”
“He was.” She nodded vigorously. “And he asked where Gil was. He was here for an hour or more. He hasn’t been gone ten minutes.”
“All right, let’s get him to bed.”
Gilbert stubbornly insisted that he needed no help, so I left him in the bedroom with his mother and went out to the telephone.
“Any calls?” I asked Nora when I had her on the line.
“Yes, sir. Messrs. Macaulay and Guild want you to phone them, and Mesdames Jorgensen and Quinn want you to phone them. No childrep so far.”
“When did Guild call?”
“About five minutes ago. Mind eating alone? Larry asked me to go see the new Osgood Perkins show with him.”
“Go ahead. See you later.”
I called up Herbert Macaulay.
“The date’s off,” he told me. “I heard from our friend and he’s up to God knows what. Listen, Charles, I’m going to the police. I’ve had enough of it.”
“I guess there’s nothing else to do now,” I said. “I was thinking about telephoning some policemen myself. I’m at Mimi’s. He was here a few minutes ago. I just missed him.”
“What was he doing there?”
“I’m going to try to find out now.”
“Were you serious about phoning the police?”
“Sure.”
“Then suppose you do that and I’ll come on over.”
“Right. Be seeing you.”
I called up Guild.
“A little news came in right after you heft,” he said. “Are you where I can give it to you?”
“I’m at Mrs. Jorgensen’s. I had to bring the kid home. That red-head lad of yours has got him bleeding somewhere inside.”
“I’ll kill that mugg,” he snarled. “Then I better not talk.”
“I’ve got some news, too. Wynant was here for about an hour this afternoon, according to Mrs. Jorgensen, and left only a few minutes before I got here.”
There was a moment of silence, then he said: “HoId everything. I’ll be right up.”
Mimi came into the living-room while I was looking up the Quinns’ telephone number. “Do you think he’s seriously hurt?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but you ought to get your doctor right away.” I pushed the telephone towards her. When she was through with it, I said: “I told the police Wynant had been here.”