Chapter 11 Chapter Eleven

When Nora woke me up at noon the next day, the pain in my lower back was much better.She said to me, "I think it's pretty good, the policeman wants to see you, how do you feel now?" "It's not good. I must have slept for a while." I pushed Asda away and got out of bed. I walked into the living room, and Gilder stood up with a glass of wine in his hand, with a smile on his sandy face: "Well, well, Mr. Charles, you seem to be in good spirits today." I shook hands with him and said The recovery is not bad, so we sit down together.He frowned kindly, "But you shouldn't have played a trick behind my back."

"Trick?" "Of course, I originally postponed the inquiry because I wanted you to rest and rest, but you ran out to visit others. It is supposed that I should have a detailed talk with you first." "I didn't think about it that way, sorry," I said. "Have you seen the telegram that Weinant sent me?" "See you. We're going to Philadelphia." "As for the pistol," I said, "I—" He stopped me: "What gun? It's not a gun anymore. The trigger popped and the barrel was all rusted out. If anyone has shot it in the past six months, or if it still works, I'm not Man. Let's stop wasting time talking about that shitty gun."

I laughed: "That says a lot. I got that gun from a drunk guy who said he bought it from a tavern for 12 bucks. Now I believe what the guy said gone." "Sooner or later someone will sell him the town hall. Mr. Charles, we are both frank with each other. Are you investigating the Wolfe case?" "You have seen Weinant's telegram." "Yes. So you're not working for him. But I wanted to ask anyway." "I'm not a private eye anymore, not a detective at all." "I've heard about it, but I still want to ask." "Well, I'm not working for him."

He thought for a moment and said, "Then let me ask in another way: Are you interested in this job?" "I know those people, and I'm certainly interested in it." "Is that all?" "yes." "Then you don't intend to participate in the investigation of this case?" The phone rang and Nora went to answer it. "Honestly, I don't know. I don't know how deep I'd be in if someone just kept pushing me in." Gilder nodded: "I understand. To tell you the truth, I actually want you to participate in the investigation—to participate positively."

"You mean not on Weinant's side. But was he the one who did it?" "I don't know for sure, Mr. Charles, but you don't need me to tell you that he's not helping us find the murderer." Nora appeared at the door: "Nick, your phone." —It was Herbert Macaulay. "Hello, Charles, is the wound healed?" "It's okay, thank you." "Is there any news about Weinant?" "Have." "I've got a letter from him too, saying he's wired you. Can't you--" "It's all right, I've got up and run around. If you're in the office this afternoon, I'll come and see you."

"That's great," he said, "I'll be there until six o'clock." I go back to the living room.Nora was inviting Gilder to stay with us for breakfast and lunch.It was very kind of him to say Nora.I said I wanted a glass of wine before eating.Nora poured us wine and went to order food.Gilder shook his head and said, "Your Madam is a wonderful woman, Mr. Charles." I nodded gravely. He said: "If you're dragging yourself into this case, as you say, I'd very much like you to be on our side rather than against us." "I think so too."

"Then we'll settle," he said, moving his chair closer. "You may not remember me. I was a patrolman on Forty-second Street when you were working in this city." "Of course I do," I lied politely. "You look familiar to me—you look different without your patrol uniform." "I think so. I hope to think so: You're not hiding anything we don't know." "That's not the point. I don't know what you've got. I don't know much myself. I haven't seen Macaulay since the murder, not even in the newspaper reports. Look."

The phone rang again, and Nora poured us drinks before answering. "It's no secret what we know," Gilder said, "and I can tell you about it if you're patient enough to listen." He tasted the glass and nodded appreciatively. I want to ask you something first. Did you go to Mrs. Jorgenson's last night and tell her you had received that telegram?" "Tell her, and I told her that I had forwarded the telegram to you." "What did she say?" "Nothing, just questions. She wants to find Weinant, too." He tilted his head to one side and half-closed his eyes. "You don't think it's possible for the couple to conspire?" He held up a hand. "You know, if it was. I don't know why they should Colluding together, I can't figure out what's going on, I just want to ask you."

"Anything is possible," I said, "but I'm sure there's no conspiracy between them. Why do you ask?" "I think you're right," he mumbled again, "but there are a few doubts." He sighed. "It always will be. Well, Mr. Charles, we can only be sure of that for the time being." ; while we investigate the case. I would be very grateful if you could provide us with more information at any time." I said of course I would do my best. "Well, on or about October 3, Wenante told Macaulay that he was going away for a while. He didn't tell Macaulay where he was going or what he was going to do. Macaulay thought he was going to do what he needed A secret invention—Macauley later learned from Julia Wolfe that he guessed right—he guessed that Vinant was hiding somewhere in Adirondacks, but when he asked Julia later, She said she didn't know any more than he did."

"Does she know what invention project that is?" Gilder shook her head: "According to Macaulay, she didn't know, she only knew that the project he was working on required venues and machinery, and it would cost a lot of money, because he had an agreement with Macaulay. Macaulay can be in charge The stocks, bonds and other things he owns, if he needs money, he asks Macaulay to convert them into cash, which means that Macaulay can take care of his bank accounts and everything like Wei Nante himself. " "Lawyers do everything these days, hey, that's pretty cool, isn't it?"

"Indeed. And please note that when he needs money, it's all in cash." "His ideas are always queer," I said. "That's what everybody said. Looks like he either didn't want anyone to find him with a check, or anyone over there knew he was Weinant. So he didn't take the girl with him--not even let her know." Where has he been, if the girl is telling the truth—and besides, he's grown sideburns." Gilder gestured with his left hand to an imaginary long beard. "'Over there,'" I quoted him, "is he at Adirondacks, then?" Gilder shrugged one shoulder. "I just said that because there and Philadelphia are the only places we can think of. We try to find him. He may be in Australia." "How much cash does Weinant need for this?" "I can tell you the exact number." He took out a stack of rolled dirty paper from his pocket, picked out a dirtier envelope, and stuffed the rest back into his pocket, "He talked to Macaulay The next day, he went to the bank to withdraw 5,000 yuan in cash. On the 28th—you know, this is October—he asked Macaulay to withdraw another 5,000 yuan, and on November 6th, he took out 2,000 yuan. , take out one thousand on the 15th, take out seven thousand and five thousand on the 30th, take out one thousand and five thousand on the 6th—this is December, take out one thousand on the 18th, and take out five thousand on the 22nd. This last sum is in his The day before his female secretary was killed, he asked Macaulay to take it out for him." "Nearly thirty thousand dollars," I said. "He's got a lot of money in the bank." "To be precise, a total of 28,500 yuan has been withdrawn," Gilder stuffed the envelope back into his pocket, "but you know, it's more than that. After Macaulay received the first call, he began to sell money." Sell ​​some stocks to raise money for him." He touched his pocket again, "I still have a list of stocks he sold, do you want to have a look?" I couldn't see it: "How did Macaulay get the money into Wei Nante's hands?" "Winant wrote to the girl for money, and she took it from Macaulay. Macaulay has her receipt." "And how is she to be handed over to Weinant?" Gilder shook her head. "She told Macaulay that she usually went to meet Wenante at the place designated by him; Macaulay thought she knew where Wenante was, but she kept saying she didn't know." "Maybe she had the last five thousand dollars with her when she was killed, eh?" "That's a robbery, unless—"—Gilder narrowed his gray eyes that seemed to be tearful—"Wenant killed her when he went to get the money from her." I suggested: "Or unless someone else killed her for some other reason, and then found out about the money and took it away." "It's possible," he agreed, "it happens a lot. Sometimes the first person who finds out about something is going to snag something before calling the police." He held up a big hand. "Of course, Like Mrs. Jorgenson—such a respectable lady—I hope you don't think I'm—" I said, "Besides, she didn't go in alone, did she?" "But she was alone in that room for a little while, because the telephone in Miss Wolfe's room didn't work, and the elevatorman had to take the building superintendent downstairs to call from his office. Call the police. But you see, I don't mean Mrs. Jorgenson's doing anything. It's not likely that a lady like her would--" "What happened to the phone?" I asked. At this time, the doorbell rang. "Well," Gilder said, "I don't know what's going on. That telephone—" The waiter came in to set the table and cutlery, and Gilder paused.After we all sat down at the table, he went on to say, "That telephone, I just said I couldn't figure out what happened. A bullet shot through the telephone receiver." "Is it an accident, or—?" "I was going to ask you. Of course it was the pistol that took four bullets in her, but I couldn't tell if it was off the mark or if it was on purpose. Looks like it broke a telephone and the sound Must be loud." "That reminds me," I asked, "did anyone hear the gunshot? A . "Of course," he said disgustedly, "there was a lot of voices in that apartment, some people said they heard it now, but no one answered it at the time; and God knows, they didn't get together to talk about what they heard. " "It's always been like this," I said understandingly. "Don't I know that?" He put a fork in his mouth and ate. "Oh, where did I go? By the way, about Weinant. When he left, he vacated the house and put everything in the warehouse." .we've checked all that stuff--can't find anything to say where he's been, or even what he's doing, and we thought we'd find something that might help. While searching his workshop on First Avenue , we had no luck either. It's been locked since he left and only his secretary goes there once or twice a week to spend an hour or two sorting out his mail or something. Since she was murdered We couldn't find anything in her email, and we didn't find any useful clues in her apartment." He smiled at Nora, "Mrs. Charles, this must sound annoying to you." "Annoying?" She showed a surprised expression, "I'm also anxious." "Ladies usually like to hear the brighter stuff," Gilder said, coughing, "the fancy stuff. We can't track him down anyway, except that he called Macaulay last Friday and asked him out." We met in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel at two o'clock. It happened that Macaulay was not in the office at the time, so he left a letter." "Macauley was having lunch with us here," I said. "He told me. He didn't arrive there until almost three o'clock, but he didn't see Wei Nante, and Wei Nante didn't register to live in that hotel. He asked the people in the hotel and described What Weinant looked like. He was described with a beard and without a beard, but no one there remembered seeing him. Macaulay called his office again, and Weinant never called again. Then he called Julia Wolf again, and she said she didn't even know Weinant was in town, and he guessed she was lying because he just gave her five thousand dollars yesterday to transfer to Weinant, Weinant Nantes will pick it up. Macaulay can just say that's all right and hang up and go about his business." "What is he going to do?" I asked. Gilder stopped chewing the bite of the burrito he just took: "Yeah, there's no harm in finding out about that, I'll ask. It seems that we had nothing to blame Macaulay at the time, so we didn't ask further, but It doesn't hurt to know who has an alibi and who doesn't." I shook my head, blaming him for not asking further questions: "I have nothing to blame Macaulay, but he is Weinant's lawyer after all, and he probably knows more than what he said." "Of course, I understand that. I suppose that's why people hire lawyers. Now about the girl: Julia Wolfe may not be her real name at all. We haven't found out yet, but We found out she wasn't the type of woman you could count on Weinant to pass all that money through her—I mean Weinant if he knew what she was going through." "Does she have a criminal record?" He shook his head up and down: "This stew tastes really good! A few years before she worked for Weinant, she was accused of playing a blackmail trap in the name of Rhoda Stewart in the west of Cleveland. He was imprisoned for six months." "Do you suppose Weinant knew about that?" "Unclear. If he knew, he probably wouldn't let her handle so much money, but it's hard to say. People tell me he is quite infatuated with her, and you know how confused men are sometimes. She also talks to Shep now and then." Morilli's gang of lads fooling around." "Have you got anything against Murray?" "Not in this one," he said regretfully, "but we're going to get him to confess in a few other things." His pale yellow eyebrows furrowed a little. "I wish I knew what He came here for you. Of course those dope guys can do anything, but I wish I could figure it out." "I told you everything I know." "I don't doubt that," he assured me, and turning to Nora, "I hope you don't think we've been too rough with Mr. Giles, but you know we have to—" Nora smiled. Said she understood perfectly, and poured him another cup of coffee, "Thank you, ma'am." "What's a dope guy like?" she asked. "Spooky." She looked at me: "Could Morelli be a—" "Down and out." "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she complained. "I didn't see anything." She left the table to answer the phone. Gilder asked, "Are you going to sue Morelli for shooting you?" "Unless you think it's necessary." He shook his head, and although there was a look of curiosity in his eyes, he said in a nonchalant tone: "The material we have is probably enough for him to endure for a while." "You were just talking about that girl." "Yes," he said, "we found that she often stayed away from her lodgings—sometimes two or three nights in a row. Perhaps that was when she met Weinant. I can't tell. Mo Riley says he hasn't seen her in three months, and we haven't been able to find anything wrong with that. What do you think of that?" "Like you," I replied, "they haven't seen each other for only three months since Weinant left. Maybe there's a lot to it, maybe not." At this point Nora came back and said Quinn had called.I went to pick it up, and he told me that he had sold some of the stocks I had locked up on my behalf, and said the selling price.I asked, "Have you seen Dorothy Weinant?" "Haven't seen her since I got out of y'all, but I'll see her this afternoon at a cocktail party at the Palma Club. Oh, I remembered, and she told me not to tell you. Gold deal, you're interested huh, Nick? You'll regret it if you don't. Those crazy westerns--there's going to be a wave of price hikes when Congress meets, that's for sure, and even if they don't mean it, everybody expects them Will do that. As I told you last week, there's been rumors that a joint stock-manipulating fund is--" "Okay," I said, and let him buy some Doom Minerals for me at twelve and a half dollars a share. Then Quinn remembered seeing in the papers that I had been shot.He couldn't quite figure out what it was all about, but I told him it wasn't a serious injury, and he didn't care too much. "Then I guess you won't be able to play ping-pong for a few days," he said, seeming a little sorry. "Listen, you have tickets for the concert hall opening tonight, if you don't go , I'd rather—" "We're going. Thank you for your concern." He said goodbye with a smile and hung up the phone. I went back to the living room and a waiter was clearing away the dishes.Gilder was comfortably seated on the sofa, and Nora was saying to him: "...We have to get out of there every Christmas holiday because the relatives are busy and if we stay at home, they will come to visit, Either we have to visit them, Nick doesn't like that." Asda licked his paw in a corner. Gilder looked at his watch: "I've taken up a lot of time for both of you. I don't mean to impose—" I sat down and said, "We're talking about the murder, aren't we?" "Beginning." He sat down comfortably on the sofa again. "The murder happened just before 3:20 p.m. Found. It's hard to say how long she lay there dying slowly before she was found. We only know that Miss Wolfe was fine and answered the phone about half-past two - the phone was fine at the time Mrs. Jorgenson called her, and Macaulay called her about three o'clock, and she's all right." "I didn't know Mrs. Jorgenson called her." "It's true, that's right," Gilder cleared his throat, "you know, we didn't suspect it, we just went to the Cortlandt telephone switchboard to check on business, and the female operator said Put Mrs. Jorgenson on the phone at two-thirty." "What does Mrs. Joe say?" "She said she called and asked if she could find Weinant, but Miss Julia Wolfe said she didn't know. So Mrs. Jo thought she was lying, and thought that seeing her in person might make her tell the truth. , I asked if I could go to her place, and she said of course." Gilder frowned and glanced at my right knee, "So she went and found Miss Wolfe killed. No one in the apartment I remember seeing people walk in and out of Miss Wolfe's unit. But that was easy. A dozen people could come in and out without being seen. No pistols at the scene. No signs of forced entry. Inside The stuff, as I told you, hasn't been tampered with. I mean it doesn't look pickpocketed. She still has a diamond ring worth a few hundred dollars on her hand, and a lot of money in her handbag The people there knew Weinant and Morelli--the two were in and out--but admitted they hadn't seen them for some time. The fire escape window was locked and looked Nobody's been on a fire escape lately." He rolled his hands, palms up, "that's all we know." "No fingerprints?" "Some of her own, and some left by the cleaners. Nothing in our favor." "Has no friend of hers?" "She doesn't seem to have any—no close friends." "That man—what's his name?—Norhayne, recognized her as Murray's girlfriend. How was that man?" "He'd only seen her in the company of Morelli, and then he'd seen her picture in the newspapers and recognized her. He hadn't seen her." "What does he do?" "He's fine. We know all about him." "You won't hide anything from me, will you?" I asked, "You just asked me to promise not to hide anything." "Well, to tell you the truth, he's a guy who does something for the police now and then," Gilder said. "Oh." He stood up. "I have to say that's all we know. Do you have anything to raise?" "No." He stared at me for a moment: "Then what do you think?" "Is that diamond ring an engagement tease?" "She wore it on that finger." He paused and asked, "So what?" "It might be useful to know who bought it for her. I'm going to see Macaulay this afternoon. I'll call you if there's anything new. It looks like Weinant is all right, but—" Gilder snorted kindly, "Yeah, but—" He shook hands with me and Nora, thanked us for our hospitality, drank whiskey and lunched, and went away. I said to Nora, "Not that I'm saying your charms won't turn any man's head, but don't get too convinced that guy isn't lying to us." "After all the fuss," she said, "you're jealous of the police."