Nightmare Town: Stories (42 page)

“That we met there?” Bliss looked inquiringly at his wife, who said, “It was quarter to four.” She laughed a little. “I got there first and I kept looking at my watch.”

Bliss said very deliberately, “It was a few minutes after four that we were married. We had to wait for Judge Whitefield – about ten minutes, and it was a few more before we got started – to get through with the case he was hearing. You can check it up – Superior Court, Part Two, I think.”

Spade whirled around and pointed at Tom. “Maybe you’d better check it up.”

Tom said, “Oke,” and went away from the door.

“If that’s so, you’re all right, Mr. Bliss,” Dundy said, “but I have to ask you these things. Now, did your brother say who he was expecting?”

“No.”

“Did he say anything about having been threatened?”

“No. He never talked much about his affairs to anybody, not even to me. Had he been threatened?”

Dundy’s lips tightened a little. “Were you and he on intimate terms?”

“Friendly, if that’s what you mean.”

“Are you sure?” Dundy asked. “Are you sure neither of you held any grudge against the other?”

Theodore Bliss took his arm free from around his niece. Increasing pallor made his sunburned face yellowish. He said, “Everybody here knows about my having been in San Quentin. You can speak out, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“It is,” Dundy said, and then, after a pause, “Well?”

Bliss stood up, “Well, what?” he asked impatiently. “Did I hold a grudge against him for that? No. Why should I? We were both in it. He could get out; I couldn’t. I was sure of being convicted whether he was or not. Having him sent over with me wasn’t going to make it any better for me. We talked it over and decided I’d go it alone, leaving him outside to pull things together. And he did. If you look up his bank account you’ll see he gave me a check for twenty-five thousand dollars two days after I was discharged from San Quentin, and the registrar of the National Steel Corporation can tell you a thousand shares of stock have been transferred from his name to mine since then.”

He smiled apologetically and sat down on the bed again. “I’m sorry. I know you have to ask things.”

Dundy ignored the apology. “Do you know Daniel Talbot?” he asked.

Bliss said, “No.”

His wife said, “I do; that is, I’ve seen him. He was in the office yesterday.”

Dundy looked her up and down carefully before asking, “What office?”

“I am – I was Mr. Bliss’s secretary, and -“

“Max Bliss’s?”

“Yes, and a Daniel Talbot came in to see him yesterday afternoon, if it’s the same one.”

“What happened?”

She looked at her husband, who said, “If you know anything, for heaven’s sake tell them.”

She said, “But nothing really happened. I thought they were angry with each other at first, but when they left together they were laughing and talking, and before they went Mr. Bliss rang for me and told me to have Trapper – he’s the bookkeeper – make out a check to Mr. Talbot’s order.”

“Did he?”

“Oh, yes. I took it in to him. It was for seventy-five hundred and some dollars.”

“What was it for?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“If you were Bliss’s secretary,” Dundy insisted, “you must have some idea of what his business with Talbot was.”

“But I haven’t,” she said. “I’d never even heard of him before.”

Dundy looked at Spade. Spade’s face was wooden. Dundy glowered at him, then put a question to the man on the bed: “What kind of necktie was your brother wearing when you saw him last?”

Bliss blinked, then stared distantly past Dundy, and finally shut his eyes. When he opened them he said, “It was green with – I’d know it if I saw it. Why?”

Mrs. Bliss said, “Narrow diagonal stripes of different shades of green. That’s the one he had on at the office this morning.”

“Where does he keep his neckties?” Dundy asked the housekeeper.

She rose, saying, “In a closet in his bedroom. I’ll show you.”

Dundy and the newly married Blisses followed her out.

Spade put his hat on the dressing table and asked Miriam Bliss, “What time did you go out?” He sat on the foot of her bed.

“Today? About one o’clock. I had a luncheon engagement for one and I was a little late, and then I went shopping, and then -“ She broke off with a shudder.

“And then you came home at what time?” His voice was friendly, matter-of-fact.

“Some time after four, I guess.”

“And what happened?”

“I f-found Father lying there and I phoned – I don’t know whether I phoned downstairs or the police, and then I don’t know what I did. I fainted or had hysterics or something, and the first thing I remember is coming to and finding those men here and Mrs. Hooper.” She looked him full in the face now.

“You didn’t phone a doctor?”

She lowered her eyes again. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, if you knew he was dead,” he said casually. She was silent.

“You knew he was dead?” he asked.

She raised her eyes and looked blankly at him. “But he was dead,” she said.

He smiled. “Of course; but what I’m getting at is, did you make sure before you phoned?”

She put her hand to her throat. “I don’t remember what I did,” she said earnestly. “I think I just knew he was dead.”

He nodded understandingly. “And if you phoned the police it was because you knew he had been murdered.”

She worked her hands together and looked at them and said, “I suppose so. It was awful. I don’t know what I thought or did.”

Spade leaned forward and made his voice low and persuasive. “I’m not a police detective, Miss Bliss. I was engaged by your father – a few minutes too late to save him. I am, in a way, working for you now, so if there is anything I can do – maybe something the police wouldn’t – “ He broke off as Dundy, followed by the Blisses and the housekeeper, returned to the room. “What luck?”

Dundy said, “The green tie’s not there.” His suspicious gaze darted from Spade to the girl. “Mrs. Hooper says the blue tie we found is one of half a dozen he just got from England.”

Bliss asked, “What’s the importance of the tie?”

Dundy scowled at him. “He was partly undressed when we found him. The tie with his clothes had never been worn.”

“Couldn’t he have been changing clothes when whoever killed him came, and was killed before he had finished dressing?”

Dundy’s scowl deepened. “Yes, but what did he do with the green tie? Eat it?”

Spade said, “He wasn’t changing clothes. If you’ll look at the shirt collar you’ll see he must’ve had it on when he was choked.”

Tom came to the door. “Checks all right,” he told Dundy. “The judge and a bailiff named Kittredge say they were there from about a quarter to four till five or ten minutes after. I told Kittredge to come over and take a look at them to make sure they’re the same ones.”

Dundy said, “Right,” without turning his head and took the pencilled threat signed with the T in a star from his pocket. He folded it so only the signature was visible. Then he asked, “Anybody know what this is?”

Miriam Bliss left the bed to join the others in looking at it. From it they looked at one another blankly.

“Anybody know anything about it?” Dundy asked.

Mrs. Hooper said, “It’s like what was on poor Mr. Bliss’s chest, but – “ The others said, “No.”

“Anybody ever seen anything like it before?”

They said they had not.

Dundy said, “All right. Wait here. Maybe I’ll have something else to ask you after a while.”

Spade said, “Just a minute. Mr. Bliss, how long have you known Mrs. Bliss?”

Bliss looked curiously at Spade. “Since I got out of prison,” he replied somewhat cautiously. “Why?”

“Just since last month,” Spade said as if to himself. “Meet her through your brother?”

“Of course – in his office. Why?”

“And at the Municipal Building this afternoon, were you together all the time?”

“Yes, certainly.” Bliss spoke sharply. “What are you getting at?”

Spade smiled at him, a friendly smile. “I have to ask things,” he said.

Bliss smiled too. “It’s all right.” His smile broadened. “As a matter of fact, I’m a liar. We weren’t actually together all the time. I went out into the corridor to smoke a cigarette, but I assure you every time I looked through the glass of the door I could see her still sitting in the courtroom where I had left her.”

Spade’s smile was as light as Bliss’s. Nevertheless, he asked, “And when you weren’t looking through the glass you were in sight of the door? She couldn’t’ve left the courtroom without your seeing her?”

Bliss’s smile went away. “Of course she couldn’t,” he said, “and I wasn’t out there more than five minutes.”

Spade said, “Thanks,” and followed Dundy into the living-room, shutting the door behind him.

Dundy looked sidewise at Spade. “Anything to it?”

Spade shrugged.

Max Bliss’s body had been removed. Besides the man at the secretaire and the gray-faced man, two Filipino boys in plum-coloured uniforms were in the room. They sat close together on the sofa.

Dundy said, “Mack, I want to find a green necktie. I want this house taken apart, this block taken apart, and the whole neighbourhood taken apart till you find it. Get what men you need.”

The man at the secretaire rose, said, “Right,” pulled his hat down over his eyes, and went out.

Dundy scowled at the Filipinos. “Which of you saw the man in brown?”: The smaller stood up. “Me, sir.”

Dundy opened the bedroom door and said, “Bliss.”

Bliss came to the door.

The Filipino’s face lighted up. “Yes, sir, him.”

Dundy shut the door in Bliss’s face. “Sit down.” The boy sat down hastily.

Dundy stared gloomily at the boys until they began to fidget. Then, “Who else did you bring up to this apartment this afternoon?”

They shook their heads in unison from side to side. “Nobody else, sir,” the smaller one said. A desperately ingratiating smile stretched his mouth wide across his face.

Dundy took a threatening step toward them. “Nuts!” he snarled. “You brought up Miss Bliss.”

The larger boy’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I bring them up. I think you mean other people.” He too tried a smile.

‘Dundy was glaring at him. “Never mind what you think I mean. Tell me what I ask. Now, what do you mean by ‘them’?”

The boy’s smile died under the glare. He looked at the floor between his feet and said, “Miss Bliss and the gentleman.”

“What gentleman? The gentleman in there?” He jerked his head toward the door he had shut on Bliss.

“No, sir. Another gentleman, not an American gentleman.” He had raised his head again and now brightness came back into his face. “I think he is Armenian.”

“Why?”

“Because he not like us Americans, not talk like us.”

Spade laughed, asked, “Ever seen an Armenian?”

“No, sir. That is why I think -“ He shut his mouth with a click as Dundy made a growling noise in his throat.

“What’d he look like?” Dundy asked.

The boy lifted his shoulders, spread his hands. “He tall, like this gentleman.” He indicated Spade. “Got dark hair, dark moustache. Very” – he frowned earnestly – “very nice clothes. Very nice-looking man. Cane, gloves, spats even, and -“

“Young?” Dundy asked.

The head went up and down again. “Young, yes, sir.”

“When did he leave?”

“Five minutes,” the boy replied.

Dundy made a chewing motion with his jaws, then asked, “What time did they come in?”

The boy spread his hands, lifted his shoulders again. “Four o’clock – maybe ten minutes after.”

“Did you bring anybody else up before we got here?”

The Filipinos shook their heads in unison once more.

Dundy spoke out the side of his mouth to Spade: “Get her.”

Spade opened the bedroom door, bowed slightly, said, “Will you come out a moment, Miss Bliss?”

“What is it?” she asked wearily.

“Just for a moment,” he said, holding the door open. Then he suddenly added, “And you’d better come along, too, Mr. Bliss.”

Miriam Bliss came slowly into the living-room followed by her uncle, and Spade shut the door behind them. Miss Bliss’s lower lip twitched a little when she saw the elevator boys. She looked apprehensively at Dundy.

He asked, “What’s this fiddlededee about the man that came in with you?”

Her lower lip twitched again. “Wh – what?” She tried to put bewilderment on her face. Theodore Bliss hastily crossed the room, stood for a moment before her as if he intended to say something, and then, apparently changing his mind, took up a position behind her, his arms crossed over the back of a chair.

“The man who came in with you,” Dundy said harshly, rapidly. “Who is he? Where is he? Why’d he leave? Why didn’t you say anything about him?”