Macauhay said: “I think it was a damned good guess of Charles’s.” He turned to me. “How did you–”
Guild interrupted him. “1 don’t think you ought to say that. ‘When you call it just a guess, you ain’t giving Mr. Charles here the proper credit for being as smart as he is.”
Macaulay was puzzled by Guild’s tone. He looked questioningly at me.
“I’m being stood in the corner for not telling Lieutenant Guild about our conversation this morning,” I explained.
“There’s that,” Guild agreed calmly, “among other things.”
Mimi laughed, and smiled apologetically at Guild when he stared at her.
“How was Mr. D. W. Q. killed?” I asked.
Guild hesitated, as if making up his mind whether to reply, then moved his big shoulders slightly and said: “I don’t know yet, or how long ago. I haven’t seen the remains yet, what there is of them, and the Medical Examiner wasn’t through the last I heard.”
“What there is of them?” Macaulay repeated.
“Uh-huh. He’d been sawed up in pieces and buried in lime or something so there wasn’t much flesh left on him, according to the report I got, but his clothes had been stuck in with him rolled up in a bundle, and enough was left of the inside ones to tell us something. There was part of a cane, too, with a rubber tip. That’s why we thought he might be lame, and we–” He broke off as Andy came in. “Well?”
Andy shook his head gloomily. “Nobody sees him come, nobody sees him go. What was that joke about a guy being so thin he had to stand in the same place twice to throw a shadow?”
I laughed–not at the joke–and said: “Wynant’s not that thin, but he’s thin enough, say as thin as the paper in that check and in those letters people have been getting.”
“What’s that?” Guild demanded, his face reddening, his eyes angry and suspicious.
“He’s dead. He’s been dead a long time except on paper. I’ll give you even money they’re his bones in the grave with the fat lame man’s clothes.”
Macaulay leaned towards me. “Are you sure of that, Charles?”
Guild snarled at me: “What are you trying to pull?”
“There’s the bet if you want it. Who’d go to all that trouble with a corpse and then leave the easiest thing of all to get rid of–the clothes– untouched unless they–”
“But they weren’t untouched. They–”
“Of course not. That wouldn’t look right. They’d have to be partly destroyed, only enough left to tell you what they were supposed to tell. I bet the initials were plenty conspicuous.”
“I don’t know,” Guild said with less heat. “They were on a belt buckle.”
I laughed.
Mimi said angrily: “That’s ridiculous, Nick. How could that be Clyde? You know he was here this afternoon. You know he–”
“Sh-h-h. It’s very silly of you to play along with him,” I told her. “Wynant’s dead, your children are probably his heirs, that’s more money than you’ve got over there in the drawer. What do you want to take part of the loot for when you can get it all?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. She was very pale.
Macauhay said: “Charles thinks Wynant wasn’t here this afternoon and that you were given those securities and the check by somebody else, or perhaps stole them yourself. Is that it?” he asked me.
“Practically.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” she insisted.
“Be sensible, Mimi,” I said. “Suppose Wynant was killed three months ago and his corpse disguised as somebody else. He’s supposed to have gone away leaving powers of attorney with Macaulay. All right, then, the estate’s completely in Macaulay’s hands for ever and ever, or at least until he finishes plundering it, because you can’t even–”
Macaulay stood up saying: “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Charles, but I’m–”
“Take it easy,” Guild told him. “Let him have his say out.”
“He killed Wynant and he killed Julia and he killed Nunheim,” I assured Mimi. “What do you want to do? Be next on the list? YOu pught to know damned well that once you’ve come to his aid by saying you’ve seen Wynant alive–because that’s his weak spot, being the only person up to now who claims to have seen Wynant since October–he’s not going to take any chances on having you change your mind–not when it’s only a matter of knocking you off with the same gun and putting the blame on Wynant. And what are you doing it for? For those few crunimy bonds in the drawer, a fraction of what you get your hands on through your children if we prove Wynant’s dead.”