It and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett Page A

detectives all I knew, and they didn’t seem to find it of much value.”
    â€œWell, the situation has changed some since you left New York.” I watched his face closely as I spoke. “What we thought of no value then may be just what we want now.”
    I paused while he moistened his lips and avoided my eyes. He may not know anything, I thought, but he’s certainly jumpy. I let him wait a few minutes while I pretended deep thoughtfulness. If I played him right, I was confident I could turn him inside out. He didn’t seem to be made of very tough material.
    We were sitting with our heads close together, so that the four or five other passengers in the car wouldn’t overhear our talk; and that position was in my favor. One of the things that every detective knows is that it’s often easy to get information—even a confession—out of a feeble nature simply by putting your face close to his and talking in a loud tone. I couldn’t talk loud here, but the closeness of our faces was by itself an advantage.
    â€œOf the men with whom your sister was acquainted,” I came out with it at last, “who, outside of Mr. Gantvoort, was the most attentive?”
    He swallowed audibly, looked out of the window, fleetingly at me, and then out of the window again.
    â€œReally, I couldn’t say.”
    â€œAll right. Let’s get at it this way. Suppose we check off one by one all the men who were interested in her and in whom she was interested.”
    He continued to stare out of the window.
    â€œWho’s first?” I pressed him.
    His gaze flickered around to meet mine for a second, with a sort of timid desperation in his eyes.
    â€œI know it sounds foolish, but I, her brother, couldn’t give you the name of even one man in whom Creda was interested before she met Gantvoort. She never, so far as I know, had the slightest feeling for any man before she met him. Of course it is possible that there may have been someone that I didn’t know anything about, but—”
    It did sound foolish, right enough! The Creda Dexter I had talked to—a sleek kitten, as O’Gar had put it—didn’t impress me as being at all likely to go very long without having at least one man in tow. This pretty little guy in front of me was lying. There couldn’t be any other explanation.
    I went at him tooth and nail. But when he reached Oakland early that night he was still sticking to his original statement—that Gantvoort was the only one of his sister’s suitors that he knew anything about. And I knew that I had blundered, had underrated Madden Dexter, had played my hand wrong in trying to shake him down too quickly—in driving too directly at the point I was interested in. He was either a lot stronger than I had figured him, or his interest in concealing Gantvoort’s murderer was much greater than I had thought it would be.
    But I had this much: if Dexter was lying—and there couldn’t be much doubt of that—then Gantvoort had had a rival, and Madden Dexter believed or knew that this rival had killed Gantvoort.
    When we left the train at Oakland I knew I was licked, that he wasn’t going to tell me what I wanted to know—not this night, anyway. But I clung to him, stuck at his side when we boarded the ferry for San Francisco, in spite of the obviousness of his desire to get away from me. There’s always a chance of something unexpected happening; so I continued to ply him with questions as our boat left the slip.
    Presently a man came toward where we were sitting—a big burly man in a light overcoat, carrying a black bag.
    â€œHello, Madden!” he greeted my companion, striding over to him with outstretched hand. “Just got in and was trying to remember your phone number,” he said, setting down his bag, as they shook hands warmly.
    Madden Dexter turned to me.
    â€œI want you to meet Mr. Smith,” he told me,