The Main Death and This King Business by Dashiell Hammett Read Free Book Online

evening, when I was here?”
    â€œI can’t imagine.”
    â€œPlease try.”
    â€œDoubtless”—she smiled faintly—“you got the impression that my husband thought I had been Jeffrey’s mistress.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œAre you”—her dimples showed; she seemed amused—“asking me if I really was his mistress?”
    â€œNo—though of course I’d like to know.”
    â€œNaturally you would,” she said pleasantly.
    â€œWhat impression did you get that evening?” I asked.
    â€œI?” She wrinkled her forehead. “Oh, that my husband had hired you to prove that I had been Jeffrey’s mistress.” She repeated the word mistress as if she liked the shape of it in her mouth.
    â€œYou were wrong.”
    â€œKnowing my husband, I find that hard to believe.”
    â€œKnowing myself, I’m sure of it,” I insisted. “There’s no uncertainty about it between your husband and me, Mrs. Gungen. It is understood that my job is to find who stole and killed—nothing else.”
    â€œReally?” It was a polite ending of an argument of which she had grown tired.
    â€œYou’re tying my hands,” I complained, standing up, pretending I wasn’t watching her carefully. “I can’t do anything now but grab this Rose Rubury and the two men and see what I can squeeze out of them. You said the girl would be back in half an hour?”
    She looked at me steadily with her round brown eyes.
    â€œShe should be back in a few minutes. You’re going to question her?”
    â€œBut not here,” I informed her. “I’ll take her down to the Hall of Justice and have the men picked up. Can I use your phone?”
    â€œCertainly. It’s in the next room.” She crossed to open the door for me.
    I called Davenport 20 and asked for the detective bureau.
    Mrs. Gungen, standing in the sitting room, said, so softly I could barely hear it:
    â€œWait.”
    Holding the phone, I turned to look through the door at her. She was pinching her red mouth between thumb and finger, frowning. I didn’t put down the phone until she took the hand from her mouth and held it out toward me. Then I went back into the sitting-room.
    I was on top. I kept my mouth shut. It was up to her to make the plunge. She studied my face for a minute or more before she began:
    â€œI won’t pretend I trust you.” She spoke hesitantly, half as if to herself. “You’re working for my husband, and even the money would not interest him so much as whatever I had done. It’s a choice of evils—certain on the one hand, more than probable on the other.”
    She stopped talking and rubbed her hands together. Her round eyes were becoming indecisive. If she wasn’t helped along she was going to balk.
    â€œThere’s only the two of us,” I urged her. “You can deny everything afterward. It’s my word against yours. If you don’t tell me—I know now I can get it from the others. Your calling me from the phone lets me know that. You think I’ll tell your husband everything. Well, if I have to fry it out of the others, he’ll probably read it all in the papers. Your one chance is to trust me. It’s not as slim a chance as you think. Anyway, it’s up to you.”
    A half-minute of silence.
    â€œSuppose,” she whispered, “I should pay you to—”
    â€œWhat for? If I’m going to tell your husband, I could take your money and still tell him, couldn’t I?”
    Her red mouth curved, her dimples appeared and her eyes brightened.
    â€œThat is reassuring,” she said. “I shall tell you. Jeffrey came back from Los Angeles early so we could have the day together in a little apartment we kept. In the afternoon two men came in—with a key. They had revolvers. They robbed Jeffrey of the money. That was what they had come for. They seemed