Free It and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett Page B

that neither the typewriter, the jewel case, the two cartridges, or the newer wallet had belonged to Gantvoort.
    We couldn’t get him to put his opinion of the Dexters in words, but that he disapproved of them was easily seen. Miss Dexter, he said, had called up on the telephone three times this night at about eight o’clock, at nine, and at nine-thirty. She had asked for Mr. Leopold Gantvoort each time, but she had left no message. Whipple was of the opinion that she was expecting Gantvoort, and he had not arrived.
    He knew nothing, he said, of Emil Bonfils or of any threatening letters. Gantvoort had been out the previous night from eight until midnight. Whipple had not seen him closely enough when he came home to say whether he seemed excited or not. Gantvoort usually carried about a hundred dollars in his pockets.
    â€œIs there anything that you know of that Gantvoort had on his person tonight which isn’t among these things on the desk?” O’Gar asked.
    â€œNo, sir. Everything seems to be here—watch and chain, money, memorandum book, wallet, keys, handkerchiefs, fountain pen—everything that I know of.”
    â€œDid Charles Gantvoort go out tonight?”
    â€œNo, sir. He and Mrs. Gantvoort were at home all evening.”
    â€œPositive?”
    Whipple thought a moment.
    â€œYes, sir, I’m fairly certain. But I know Mrs. Gantvoort wasn’t out. To tell the truth, I didn’t see Mr. Charles from about eight o’clock until he came downstairs with this gentleman”—pointing to me—“at eleven. But I’m fairly certain he was home all evening. I think Mrs. Gantvoort said he was.”
    Then O’Gar put another question—one that puzzled me at the time.
    â€œWhat kind of collar buttons did Mr. Gantvoort wear?”
    â€œYou mean Mr. Leopold?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œPlain gold ones, made all in one piece. They had a London jeweler’s mark on them.”
    â€œWould you know them if you saw them?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    We let Whipple go home then.
    â€œDon’t you think,” I suggested when O’Gar and I were alone with this desk-load of evidence that didn’t mean anything at all to me yet, “it’s time you were loosening up and telling me what’s what?”
    â€œI guess so—listen! A man named Lagerquist, a grocer, was driving through Golden Gate Park tonight, and passed a machine standing on a dark road, with its lights out. He thought there was something funny about the way the man in it was sitting at the wheel, so he told the first patrolman he met about it.
    â€œThe patrolman investigated and found Gantvoort sitting at the wheel—dead—with his head smashed in and this dingus”—putting one hand on the bloody typewriter—“on the seat beside him. That was at a quarter of ten. The doc says Gantvoort was killed—his skull crushed—with this typewriter.
    â€œThe dead man’s pockets, we found, had all been turned inside out; and all this stuff on the desk, except this new wallet, was scattered about in the car—some of it on the floor and some on the seats. This money was there too—nearly a hundred dollars of it. Among the papers was this.”
    He handed me a sheet of white paper upon which the following had been typewritten:
    L. F. G.—
    I want what is mine. 6,000 miles and 21 years are not enough to hide you from the victim of your treachery. I mean to have what you stole.
    E. B.
    â€œL. F. G. could be Leopold F. Gantvoort,” I said. “And E. B. could be Emil Bonfils. Twenty-one years is the time from 1902 to 1923, and 6,000 miles is, roughly, the distance between Paris and San Francisco.”
    I laid the letter down and picked up the jewel case. It was a black imitation leather one, lined with white satin, and unmarked in any way.
    Then I examined the cartridges. There were two of them, S. W. .45-caliber, and deep crosses