Free It and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett

on and kept quiet.
    Half a dozen police detectives were waiting for us when we reached the detective bureau. O’Gar—a bullet-headed detective-sergeant who dresses like the village constable in a movie, wide-brimmed black hat and all, but who isn’t to be put out of the reckoning on that account—was in charge of the investigation. He and I had worked on two or three jobs together before, and hit it off excellently.
    He led us into one of the small offices below the assembly room. Spread out on the flat top of a desk there were a dozen or more objects.
    â€œI want you to look these things over carefully,” the detective-sergeant told Gantvoort, “and pick out the ones that belonged to your father.”
    â€œBut where is he?”
    â€œDo this first,” O’Gar insisted, “and then you can see him.”
    I looked at the things on the table while Charles Gantvoort made his selections. An empty jewel case; a memoranda book; three letters in slit envelopes that were addressed to the dead man; some other papers; a bunch of keys; a fountain pen; two white linen handkerchiefs; two pistol cartridges; a gold watch, with a gold knife and a gold pencil attached to it by a gold-and-platinum chain; two black leather wallets, one of them very new and the other worn; some money, both paper and silver; and a small portable typewriter, bent and twisted, and matted with hair and blood. Some of the other things were smeared with blood and some were clean.
    Gantvoort picked out the watch and its attachments, the keys, the fountain pen, the memoranda book, the handkerchiefs, the letters and other papers, and the older wallet.
    â€œThese were father’s,” he told us. “I’ve never seen any of the others before. I don’t know, of course, how much money he had with him tonight, so I can’t say how much of this is his.”
    â€œYou’re sure none of the rest of this stuff was his?” O’Gar asked.
    â€œI don’t think so, but I’m not sure. Whipple could tell you.” He turned to me. “He’s the man who let you in tonight. He looked after father, and he’d know positively whether any of these other things belonged to him or not.”
    One of the police detectives went to the telephone to tell Whipple to come down immediately.
    I resumed the questioning.
    â€œIs anything that your father usually carried with him missing? Anything of value?”
    â€œNot that I know of. All of the things that he might have been expected to have with him seem to be here.”
    â€œAt what time tonight did he leave the house?”
    â€œBefore seven-thirty. Possibly as early as seven.”
    â€œKnow where he was going?”
    â€œHe didn’t tell me, but I supposed he was going to call on Miss Dexter.”
    The faces of the police detectives brightened, and their eyes grew sharp. I suppose mine did, too. There are many, many murders with never a woman in them anywhere; but seldom a very conspicuous killing.
    â€œWho’s this Miss Dexter?” O’Gar took up the inquiry.
    â€œShe’s well—” Charles Gantvoort hesitated. “Well, father was on very friendly terms with her and her brother. He usually called on them—on her several evenings a week. In fact, I suspected that he intended marrying her.”
    â€œWho and what is she?”
    â€œFather became acquainted with them six or seven months ago. I’ve met them several times, but don’t know them very well. Miss Dexter—Creda is her given name—is about twenty-three years old, I should judge, and her brother Madden is four or five years older. He is in New York now, or on his way there, to transact some business for father.”
    â€œDid your father tell you he was going to marry her?” O’Gar hammered away at the woman angle.
    â€œNo; but it was pretty obvious that he was very much—ah—infatuated. We had some words over it a