“Power of attorney covering everything, huh?”
“Exactly. And listen, when he wanted money, he wanted it in cash.”
“He was always full of screwy notions,” I said.
“That’s what everybody says. The idea seems to be he don’t want to take any chances on anybody tracing him through checks, or anybody up there knowing he’s Wynant. That’s why he didn’t take the girl along with him—didn’t even let her know where he was, if she was telling the truth-and let his whiskers grow.” With his left hand he stroked an imaginary beard.
“ ‘Up there,’ ” I quoted. “So he was in the Adirondacks?”
Guild moved one shoulder. “I just said that because that and Philadelphia are the only ideas anybody’s give us. We’re trying the mountains, but we don’t know. Maybe Australia.”
“And how much of this money in cash did Wynant want?”
“I can tell you that exactly.” He took a wad of soiled, bent and dog-eared papers out of his pocket, selected an envelope that was a shade dirtier than most of the others, and stuffed the others back in his pocket. “The day after he talked to Macaulay he drew five thousand out of the bank himself, in cash. On the 28th—this is October, you understand—he had Macaulay get another five for him, and twenty-five hundred on the 6th of November, and a thousand on the 15th, and seventy-five hundred on the 30th, and fifteen hundred on the 6th—that would be December—and a thousand on the 18th, and five thousand on the 22nd, which was the day before she was killed.”
“Nearly thirty thou,” I said. “A nice bank balance he had.”
“Twenty-eight thousand five hundred, to be exact.” Guild returned the envelope to his pocket. “But you understand it wasn’t all in there. After the first call Macaulay would sell something every time to raise the dough.” He felt in his pocket again. “I got a list of the stuff he sold, if you want to see it.”
I said I didn’t. “How’d he turn the money over to Wynant?”
“Wynant would write the girl when he wanted it, and she’d get it from Macaulay. He’s got her receipts.”
“And how’d she get it to Wynant?”
Guild shook his head. “She told Macaulay she used to meet him places he told her, but he thinks she knew where he was, though she always said she didn’t.”
“And maybe she still had the last five thousand on her when she was killed, huh?”
“Which might make it robbery, unless”—Guild’s watery gray eyes were almost shut—“he killed her when he came there to get it.”
“Or unless,” I suggested, “somebody else who killed her for some other reason found the money there and thought they might as well take it along.”
“Sure,” he agreed. “Things like that happen all the time. It even happens sometimes that the first people that find a body like that pick up a little something before they turn in the alarm.” He held up a big hand. “Of course, with Mrs. Jorgensen—a lady like that—I hope you don’t think I’m—”
“Besides,” I said, “she wasn’t alone, was she?”
“For a little while. The phone in the apartment was out of whack, and the elevator boy rode the superintendent down to phone from the office. But get me right on this, I’m not saying Mrs. Jorgensen did anything funny. A lady like that wouldn’t be likely—”
“What was the matter with the phone?” I asked.
The doorbell rang. “Well,” Guild said, “I don’t know just what to make of it. The phone had—” He broke off as a waiter came in and began to set a table. “About the phone,” Guild said when we were sitting at the table, “I don’t know just what to make of it, as I said. It had a bullet right smack through the mouthpiece of it.”
“Accidental or—?”
“I’d just as lief ask you. It was from the same gun as the four that hit her, of course, but whether he missed her with that one or did it on purpose I don’t know. It seems like a kind of noisy way to put a phone on the bum.”
“That reminds me,” I said, “didn’t anybody hear all this shooting? A .32’s not a shotgun, but somebody ought to’ve heard it.”
“Sure,” he said disgustedly. “The place is lousy with people that think they heard things now, but nobody did anything about it then, and God knows they don’t get together much on what they think they heard.”
“It’s always like that,” I said sympathetically.
“Don’t I know it.” He put a forkful of food in his mouth. “Where was I? Oh, yes, about Wynant. He gave up his apartment when he went away, and put his stuff in storage. We been looking through it—the stuff—but ain’t found anything yet to show where he went or even what he was working on, which we thought maybe might help. We didn’t have any better luck in his shop on First Avenue. It’s been locked up too since he went away, except that she used to go down there for an hour or two once or twice a week to take care of his mail and things. There’s nothing to tell us anything in the mail that’s come since she got knocked off. We didn’t find anything in her place to help.” He smiled at Nora. “I guess this must be pretty dull to you, Mrs. Charles.”
“Dull?” She was surprised. “I’m sitting on the edge of my chair.”
“Ladies usually like more color,” he said, and coughed, “kind of glamour. Anyways, we got nothing to show where he’s been, only he phones Macaulay last Friday and says to meet him at two o’clock in the Plaza lobby Macaulay wasn’t in, so he just left the message.”
“Macaulay was here,” I said, “for lunch.”
“He told me. Well, Macaulay don’t get to the Plaza till nearly three and he don’t find any Wynant there and Wynant ain’t registered there. He tries describing him, with and without a beard, but nobody at the Plaza remembers seeing him. He phones his office, but Wynant ain’t called up again. And then he phones Julia Wolf and she tells him she don’t even know Wynant’s in town, which he figures is a lie, because he had just give her five thousand dollars for Wynant yesterday and figures Wynant’s come for it, but he just says all right and hangs up and goes on about his business.”
“His business such as what?” I asked.
Guild stopped chewing the piece of roll he had just bitten off. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to know, at that. I’ll find out. There didn’t seem to be anything pointing at him, so we didn’t bother with that, but it don’t ever hurt any to know who’s got an alibi and who ain’t.”
I shook my head no at the question he had decided not to ask. “I don’t see anything pointing at him, except that he’s Wynant’s lawyer and probably knows more than he’s telling.”
“Sure. I understand. Well, that’s what people have lawyers for, I guess. Now about the girclass="underline" maybe Julia Wolf wasn’t her real name at all. We ain’t been able to find out for sure yet, but we have found out she wasn’t the kind of dame you’d expect him to be trusting to handle all that dough—I mean if he knew about her.”
“Had a record?”
He wagged his head up and down. “This is elegant stew. A couple of years before she went to work for him she did six months on a badger-game charge out West, in Cleveland, under the name of Rhoda Stewart.”
“You suppose Wynant knew that?”
“Search me. Don’t look like he’d turn her loose with that dough if he did, but you can’t tell. They tell me he was kind of nuts about her, and you know how guys can go. She was running around off and on with this Shep Morelli and his boys too.”
“Have you really got anything on him?” I asked.
“Not on this,” he said regretfully, “but we wanted him for a couple of other things.” He drew his sandy brows together a little. “I wish I knew what sent him here to see you. Of course these junkies are likely to do anything, but I wish I knew.”
“I told you all I knew.”
“I’m not doubting that,” he assured me. He turned to Nora. “I hope you don’t think we were too rough with him, but you see you got to—” Nora smiled and said she understood perfectly and filled his cup with coffee. “Thank you, ma’am.”