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

to know all about it and about us. They called us by name, and taunted us with threats of the story they would tell if we had them arrested.
    â€œWe couldn’t do anything after they had gone. It was a ridiculously hopeless plight they had put us in. There wasn’t anything we could do—since we couldn’t possibly replace the money. Jeffrey couldn’t even pretend he had lost it or had been robbed of it while he was alone. His secret early return to San Francisco would have been sure to throw suspicion on him. Jeffrey lost his head. He wanted me to run away with him. Then he wanted to go to my husband and tell him the truth. I wouldn’t permit either course—they were equally foolish.
    â€œWe left the apartment, separating, a little after seven. We weren’t, the truth is, on the best of terms by then. He wasn’t—now that we were in trouble—as— No, I shouldn’t say that.”
    She stopped and stood looking at me with a placid doll’s face that seemed to have got rid of all its troubles by simply passing them to me.
    â€œThe pictures I showed you are the two men?” I asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThis maid of yours knew about you and Main? Knew about the apartment? Knew about his trip to Los Angeles and his plan to return early with the cash?”
    â€œI can’t say she did. But she certainly could have learned most of it by spying and eavesdropping and looking through my—I had a note from Jeffrey telling me about the Los Angeles trip, making the appointment for Sunday morning. Perhaps she could have seen it. I’m careless.”
    â€œI’m going now,” I said. “Sit tight till you hear from me. And don’t scare up the maid.”
    â€œRemember, I’ve told you nothing,” she reminded me as she followed me to the sitting-room door.
    From the Gungen house I went direct to the Mars Hotel. Mickey Linehan was sitting behind a newspaper in a corner of the lobby.
    â€œThey in?” I asked him.
    â€œYep.”
    â€œLet’s go up and see them.”
    Mickey rattled his knuckles on door number 410. A metallic voice asked: “Who’s there?”
    â€œPackage,” Mickey replied in what was meant for a boy’s voice.
    A slender man with a pointed chin opened the door. I gave him a card. He didn’t invite us into the room, but he didn’t try to keep us out when we walked in.
    â€œYou’re Weel?” I addressed him while Mickey closed the door behind us, and then, not waiting for him to say yes, I turned to the broad-faced man sitting on the bed. “And you’re Dahl?”
    Weel spoke to Dahl, in a casual, metallic voice:
    â€œA couple of gum-shoes.”
    The man on the bed looked at us and grinned.
    I was in a hurry.
    â€œI want the dough you took from Main,” I announced.
    They sneered together, as if they had been practicing.
    I brought out my gun.
    Weel laughed harshly.
    â€œGet your hat, Bunky,” he chuckled. “We’re being taken into custody.”
    â€œYou’ve got the wrong idea,” I explained. “This isn’t a pinch. It’s a stick-up. Up go the hands!”
    Dahl’s hands went up quick. Weel hesitated until Mickey prodded him in the ribs with the nose of a .38-special.
    â€œFrisk ’em,” I ordered Mickey.
    He went through Weel’s clothes, taking a gun, some papers, some loose money, and a money-belt that was fat. Then he did the same for Dahl.
    â€œCount it,” I told him.
    Mickey emptied the belts, spit on his fingers and went to work.
    â€œNineteen thousand, one hundred and twenty-six dollars and sixty-two cents,” he reported when he was through.
    With the hand that didn’t hold my gun, I felt in my pocket for the slip on which I had written the numbers of the hundred-dollar bills Main had got from Ogilvie. I held the slip out to Mickey.
    â€œSee if the hundreds check against this.”
    He took