Free It and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett Page A

few days ago—last week. Not a quarrel, you understand, but words. From the way he talked I feared that he meant to marry her.”
    â€œWhat do you mean ‘feared’?” O’Gar snapped at that word.
    Charles Gantvoort’s pale face flushed a little, and he cleared his throat embarrassedly.
    â€œI don’t want to put the Dexters in a bad light to you. I don’t think—I’m sure they had nothing to do with father’s—with this. But I didn’t care especially for them—didn’t like them. I thought they were—well—fortune hunters, perhaps. Father wasn’t fabulously wealthy, but he had considerable means. And, while he wasn’t feeble, still he was past fifty-seven, old enough for me to feel that Creda Dexter was more interested in his money than in him.”
    â€œHow about your father’s will?”
    â€œThe last one of which I have any knowledge—drawn up two or three years ago—left everything to my wife and me jointly. Father’s attorney, Mr. Murray Abernathy, could tell you if there was a later will, but I hardly think there was.”
    â€œYour father had retired from business, hadn’t he?”
    â€œYes; he turned his import and export business over to me about a year ago. He had quite a few investments scattered around, but he wasn’t actively engaged in the management of any concern.”
    O’Gar tilted his village constable hat back and scratched his bullet head reflectively for a moment. Then he looked at me.
    â€œAnything else you want to ask?”
    â€œYes. Mr. Gantvoort, do you know, or did you ever hear your father or anyone else speak of an Emil Bonfils?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid your father ever tell you that he had received a threatening letter? Or that he had been shot at on the street?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWas your father in Paris in 1902?”
    â€œVery likely. He used to go abroad every year up until the time of his retirement from business.”
    II
    â€œThat’s Something!”
    O’Gar and I took Gantvoort around to the morgue to see his father, then. The dead man wasn’t pleasant to look at, even to O’Gar and me, who hadn’t known him except by sight. I remembered him as a small wiry man, always smartly tailored, and with a brisk springiness that was far younger than his years.
    He lay now with the top of his head beaten into a red and pulpy mess.
    We left Gantvoort at the morgue and set out afoot for the Hall of Justice.
    â€œWhat’s this deep stuff you’re pulling about Emil Bonfils and Paris in 1902?” the detective-sergeant asked as soon as we were out in the street.
    â€œThis: the dead man phoned the Agency this afternoon and said he had received a threatening letter from an Emil Bonfils with whom he had had trouble in Paris in 1902. He also said that Bonfils had shot at him the previous evening, in the street. He wanted somebody to come around and see him about it tonight. And he said that under no circumstances were the police to be let in on it—that he’d rather have Bonfils get him than have the trouble made public. That’s all he would say over the phone; and that’s how I happened to be on hand when Charles Gantvoort was notified of his father’s death.”
    O’Gar stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and whistled softly.
    â€œThat’s something!” he exclaimed. “Wait till we get back to headquarters—I’ll show you something.”
    Whipple was waiting in the assembly room when we arrived at headquarters. His face at first glance was as smooth and mask-like as when he had admitted me to the house on Russian Hill earlier in the evening. But beneath his perfect servant’s manner he was twitching and trembling.
    We took him into the little office where we had questioned Charles Gantvoort.
    Whipple verified all that the dead man’s son had told us. He was positive