Nightmare Town

  “ ‘Philosophy, like science, cannot define, cannot limit, itself. Definitions of philosophy must be made from a viewpoint that will bear somewhat the same relation to philosophy that the philosophical viewpoint bears to science. These definitions may be—’ ”

  “That’ll be enough of that,” Guild said.

  Chris shut the book with a bang. “That’s the kind of stuff he writes,” he said cheerfully and went back to his chair and beer.

  “What do you know about him?” Guild asked. “I mean outside his writing. Don’t start that again. I want to know if he was only crazy with jealousy or has blown his top altogether—and how to catch up with him either way.”

  “I haven’t seen him for six or seven months or maybe longer,” Chris said. “He always was a little cracked and unsociable as hell. Maybe just erratic, maybe worse than that.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “What everybody knows,” Chris said depreciatively. “Born somewhere in Devonshire. Went to Oxford. Went native in India and came out with a book on economics—a pretty good book, but visionary. Married an actress named Hana Drix—or something like that—in Paris and lived with her there for three or four years and came out of it with his second book. I think they had a couple of children. After she divorced him he went to Africa and later, I believe, to South America. Anyway he did a lot of traveling and then settled down in Berlin long enough to write his Speculative Anthropology and to do some lecturing. I don’t know where he was during the war. He popped up over here a couple of years later with a two-volume piece of metaphysics called Consciousness Drifting. He’s been in America ever since—the last five or six years up in the mountains here doing that Knowledge and Belief.”

  “How about relatives, friends?”

  Chris shook his tousled head. “Maybe his publishers would know—Dale and Dale.”

  “And as a critic you think—”

  “I’m no critic,” Chris said. “I’m a reviewer.”

  “Well, as whatever you are, you think his stuff is sane?”

  Chris moved his thick shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Parts of his books I know are damned fine. Other parts—maybe they’re over my head. Even that’s possible. But the magazine stuff he’s been doing lately—since Knowledge and Belief—I know is tripe and worse. The paper sent a kid up to get an interview out of him a couple of weeks ago—when everybody was making the fuss over that Russian anthropologist—and he came back with something awful. We wouldn’t have run it if it hadn’t been for the weight Wynant’s name carries and the kid’s oaths that he had written it exactly as it was given to him. I’d say it was likely enough his mind’s cracked up.”

  “Thanks,” Guild said, and reached for his hat, but both the others began questioning him then, so they sat there and talked and smoked and drank beer until midnight was past.

  —

  IN HIS HOTEL ROOM Guild had his coat off when the telephone bell rang. He went to the telephone. “Hello…. Yes…. Yes…. ” He waited. “Yes?…Yes, Boyer…. He showed up at Fremont’s and took a shot at him…. No, no harm done except that he made a clean sneak…. Yes, but we found his car…. Where?…Yes, I know where it is…. What time?…Yes, I see…. To-morrow? What time?…Fine. Suppose you pick me up here at my hotel…. Right.

  He left the telephone, started to unbutton his vest, stopped, looked at the watch on his wrist, put his coat on again, picked up his hat, and went out.

  At California Street he boarded an eastbound cable car and rode over the top of the hill and down it to Chinatown, leaving the car at Grant Avenue. Rain nearly as fine as mist was beginning to blow down from the north. Guild went out beyond the curb to avoid a noisy drunken group coming out of a Chinese restaurant, walked a block, and halted across the street from another restaurant. This was a red-brick building that tried to seem oriental by means of much gilding and colored lighting, obviously pasted-on corbelled cornices and three-armed brackets marking its stories—some carrying posts above in the shape of half-pillars—and a tent-shaped terra-cotta roof surmounted by a mast bearing nine aluminumed rings. There was a huge electric sign—MANCHU.

  He stood looking at this gaudy building until he had a lit a cigarette. Then he went over to it. The girl in the cloakroom would not take his hat. “We close at one,” she said.

  He looked at the people getting into an elevator, at her again. “They’re coming in.”

  “That’s upstairs. Have you a card?”

  He smiled. “Of course I have. I left it in my other suit.”

  She looked severely blank.

  He said, “Oh, all right, sister,” gave her a silver dollar, took his hat-check, and squeezed himself into the crowded elevator.

  At the fourth floor he left the elevator with the others and went into a large, shabby, oblong room where, running out from a small stage, an oblong dance-floor was a peninsula among tables waited on by Chinese in dinner clothes. There were forty or fifty people in the place. Some of them were dancing to music furnished by a piano, a violin, and a French horn.

  Guild was given a small table near a shuttered window. He ordered a sandwich and coffee.

  The dance ended and a woman with a middle-aged harpy’s face and beautiful satin-skinned body sang a modified version of “Christopher Colombo.” There was another dance after that. Then Elsa Fremont came out to the center of the dance-floor and sang “Hollywood Papa.” Her low-cut green gown set off the red of her hair and brought out the greenness of her narrowly lanceolate eyes. Guild smoked, sipped coffee, and watched her. When she was through he applauded with the others.

  She came straight to his table, smiling, and said: “What are you doing here?” She sat down facing him.

  He sat down again. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

  “No?” Her smile was merry, her eyes skeptical.

  “No,” he said, “but maybe I should have known it. A man named Lane, who lives near Wynant in Hell Bend, saw him coming in this place this evening.”

  “That would be downstairs,” the girl said. “We don’t open up here till midnight.”

  “Lane didn’t know about the murder till he got home late to-night. Then he phoned the district attorney and told him he’d seen Wynant and the D.A. phoned me. I thought I’d drop in just on the off-chance that I might pick up something.”

  Frowning a little, she asked: “Well?”

  “Well, I found you here.”

  “But I wasn’t downstairs earlier this evening,” she said. “What time was it?”

  “Half an hour before he took his shot at your brother.”

  “You see”—triumphantly—“you know I was home then talking to you.”

  “I know that one,” Guild said.

  V

  At ten o’clock next morning Guild went into the Seaman’s National Bank, to a desk marked MR. COLER, ASSISTANT CASHIER. The sunburned blond man who sat there greeted Guild eagerly.

  Guild sat down and said: “Saw the papers this morning, I suppose.”

  “Yes. Thank the Lord for insurance.”

  “We ought to get him in time to get some of it back,” Guild said. “I’d like to get a look at his account and whatever canceled checks are on hand.”

  “Surely.” Coler got up from his desk and went away. When he came back he was carrying a thin pack of checks in one hand, a sheet of typed paper in the other. Sitting down, he looked at the sheet and said: “This is what happened: on the second of the month Wynant deposited that ten-thousand-dollar check on—”

  “Bring it in himself?”

  “No. He always mailed his deposits. It was a Modern Publishing Company check on the Madison Trust Company of New York. He had a balance of eleven hundred sixty-two dollars and fifty-five cents: the check brought it up to eleven thousand and so on. On the fifth a check”—he took one from the thin pack—“for nine thousand dollars to the order of Laura Porter came through the clearing house.” He looked at the check. “Dated the third, the day after he deposited
his check.” He turned the check over. “It was deposited in the Golden Gate Trust Company.” He passed it across the desk to Guild. “Well, that left him with a balance of twenty-one hundred sixty-two dollars and fifty-five cents. Yesterday we received a wire telling us the New York check had been raised from one thousand to ten.”

  “Do you let your customers draw against out-of-town checks like that before they’ve had time to go through?”

  Coler raised his eyebrows. “Old accounts of the standing of Mr. Wynant—yes.”

  “He’s got a swell standing now,” Guild said. “What other checks are there in there?”

  Coler looked through them. His eyes brightened. He said: “There are two more Laura Porter ones—a thousand and a seven hundred and fifty. The rest seem to be simply salaries and household expenses.” He passed them to Guild.

  Guild examined the checks slowly one by one. Then he said: “See if you can find out how long this has been going on and how much of it.”

  Coler willingly rose and went away. He was gone half an hour. When he returned he said: “As near as I can learn, she’s been getting checks for several months at least and has been getting about all he deposited, with not much more than enough left over to cover his ordinary expenses.”

  Guild said, “Thanks,” softly through cigarette smoke.

  —

  FROM THE Seaman’s National Bank, Guild went to the Golden Gate Trust Company in Montgomery Street. A girl stopped typewriting to carry his card into the cashier’s office and presently ushered him into the office. There he shook hands with a round, white-haired man who said: “Glad to see you, Mr. Guild. Which of us criminals are you looking for now?”

  “I don’t know whether I’m looking for any this time. You’ve got a depositer named Laura Porter. I’d like to get her address.”

  The cashier’s smile set. “Now, now, I’m always willing to do all I can to help you chaps, but—”

  Guild said: “She may have had something to do with gypping the Seaman’s National out of eight thou.”

  Curiosity took some of the stiffness from the cashier’s smile.

  Guild said: “I don’t know that she had a finger in it, but it’s because I think she might that I’m here. All I want’s her address—now—and I won’t want anything else unless I’m sure.”

  The cashier rubbed his lips together, frowned, cleared his throat, finally said: “Well, if I give it to you you’ll understand it’s—”

  “Strictly confidential,” Guild said, “just like the information that the Seaman’s has been nicked.”

  Five minutes later he was leaving the Golden Gate Trust Company carrying, in a pocket, a slip of paper on which was written Laura Porter, 1157 Leavenworth.

  —

  HE CAUGHT a cable car and rode up California Street. When his car passed the Cathedral Apartments he stood up suddenly and he left the car at the next corner, walking back to the apartment building.

  At the desk he said: “Miss Helen Robier.”

  The man on the other side of the counter shook his head. “We’ve nobody by that name—unless she’s visiting someone.”

  “Can you tell me if she lived here—say—five months ago?”

  “I’ll try.” He went back and spoke to another man. The other man came over to Guild. “Yes,” he said, “Miss Robier did live here, but she’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “She was killed in an automobile accident the Fourth of July.”

  Guild pursed his lips. “Have you had a MacWilliams here?”

  “No.”

  “Ever have one?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll look it up.” When he came back he was positive. “No.”

  Outside the Cathedral, Guild looked at his watch. It was a quarter to twelve. He walked over to his hotel. Boyer rose from a chair in the lobby and came to meet him, saying: “Good morning. How are you? Anything new?”

  Guild shrugged. “Some things that might mean something. Let’s do our talking over a lunch-table.” He turned beside the district attorney and guided him into the hotel grill.

  When they were seated and had given their orders he told Boyer about his conversation with the Fremonts, the shot that had interrupted them, and their search for Wynant that had resulted in their finding his car; about his conversation with Chris—“Christopher Maxim,” he said, “book critic on the Dispatch”; about his visit to the Manchu and his meeting Elsa Fremont there; and about his visits that morning to the two banks and the apartment house. He spoke rapidly, wasting few words, missing no salient point.

  “Do you suppose Wynant went to that Chinese restaurant, knowing the girl worked there, to find out where she and her brother lived?” Boyer asked when Guild had finished.

  “Not if he’d been at Fremont’s house raising hell a couple of weeks ago.”

  Boyer’s face flushed. “That’s right. Well, do you—?”

  “Let me know what’s doing on your end,” Guild said, “and maybe we can do our supposing together. Wait till this waiter gets out of the way.”

  When their food had been put in front of them and they were alone again the district attorney said: “I told you about Lane seeing Wynant going in this Chinese place.”

  Guild said, “Yes. How about the fingerprints?” and put some food in his mouth.

  “I had the place gone over and we took the prints of everybody we knew had been there, but the matching-up hadn’t been done when I left early this morning.”

  “Didn’t forget to take the dead girl’s?”

  “Oh, no. And you were in there: you can send us yours.”

  “All right, though I made a point of not touching anything. Any reports from the general alarm?”

  “None.”

  “Anyway, we know he came to San Francisco. How about the circulars?”

  “They’re being printed now—photo, description, handwriting specimens. We’ll get out a new batch when we’ve got his fingerprints: I wanted to get something out quick.”

  “Fine. I asked the police here to get us some of his prints off the car. What else happened on your end?”

  “That’s about all.”

  “Didn’t get anything out of his papers?”

  “Nothing. Outside of what seemed to be notes for his work there wasn’t a handful of papers. You can look at them yourself when you come up.”

  Guild, eating, nodded as if he were thoroughly satisfied. “We’ll go up for a look at Miss Porter first thing this afternoon,” he said, “and maybe something’ll come of that.”

  “Do you suppose she was blackmailing him?”

  “People have blackmailed people,” Guild admitted.

  “I’m just talking at random,” the district attorney said a bit sheepishly, “letting whatever pops into my mind come out.”

  “Keep it up,” Guild said encouragingly.

  “Do you suppose she could be a daughter he had by that actress wife in Paris?”

  “We can try to find out what happened to her and the children. Maybe Columbia Forrest was his daughter.”

  “But you know what the situation was up there,” Boyer protested. “That would be incest.”

  “It’s happened before,” Guild said gravely. “That’s why they’ve got a name for it.”

  —

  GUILD PUSHED the button beside Laura Porter’s name in the vestibule of a small brownstone apartment building at 1157 Leavenworth Street. Boyer, breathing heavily, stood beside him. There was no response. There was no response the second and third times he pushed the button, but when he touched the one labeled MANAGER the door-lock buzzed.

  They opened the door and went into a dim lobby. A door straight ahead of them opened and a woman said: “Yes? What is it?” She was small and sharp-featured, gray-haired, hook-nosed, bright-eyed.

  Guild advanced toward her saying, “We wanted to see Miss Laura Porter—310—but she doesn’t answer the bell.”

  “I don’t think she’s in,” the gray-haired woman said. “
She’s not in much. Can I take a message?”

  “When do you expect her back?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure.”

  “Do you know when she went out?”

  “No, sir. Sometimes I see my people when they come in and go out and sometimes I don’t. I don’t watch them and Miss Porter I see less than any.”

  “Oh, she’s not here most of the time?”

  “I don’t know, mister. So long as they pay their rent and don’t make too much noise I don’t bother them.”

  “Them? Does she live with somebody?”

  “No. I meant them—all my people here.”

  Guild turned to the district attorney. “Here. One of your cards.”

  Boyer fumbled for his cards, got one of them out, and handed it to Guild, who gave it to the woman.

  “We want a little information about her,” the dark man said in a low, confidential voice while she was squinting at the card in the dim light. “She’s all right as far as we know, but—”

  The woman’s eyes, when she raised them, were wide and inquisitive. “What is it?” she asked.

  Guild leaned down toward her impressively. “How long has she been here?” he asked in a stage whisper.

  “Almost six months,” she replied. “It is six months.”

  “Does she have many visitors?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember ever seeing any, but I don’t pay much attention and when I see people coming in here I don’t know what apartment they’re going to.”

  Guild straightened, put his left hand out, and pressed an electric-light button, illuminating the lobby. He put his right hand to his inner coat-pocket and brought out pictures of Wynant and his dead secretary. He gave them to the woman. “Ever see either of these?”