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41 " I don’t like crooks, and even if I did, I wouldn’t like crooks that are stool-pigeons, and if I liked crooks that are stool-pigeons, I still wouldn’t like you. "
― Dashiell Hammett , The Thin Man
42 " I said: "You don't want to pick a fight with me, Mimi."She looked at me as if she were going to say I love you, and asked: "Is that a threat? "
43 " My side felt a lot better when Nora called me at noon the next day. "My nice policeman wants to see you," she said. "How do you feel?""Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober." I pushed Asta out of the way and got up. "
44 " Are you asleep?” I said I was. She lit a cigarette for me, one for herself. “Don’t you ever think you’d like to go back to detecting once in a while just for the fun of it? "
45 " Nora was eating a piece of cold duck with one hand and working on a jig-saw puzzle with the other when I got home."I thought you'd gone to live with her," she said. "You used to be a detective: find me a brownish piece shaped something like a snail with a long neck.""Piece of duck or puzzle?... "
46 " Dorothy wants to talk to you. Don't ask her to eat with us."When Nora returned from the telephone she had a look in her eye. "Now what's up?" I asked."Nothing. Just 'how are you' and all that."I said: "if you're lying to the old man, God'll punish you. "
47 " Alice opened the door when I rang. She had on green pyjamas and held a hairbrush in one hand. She looked wearily at Quinn and spoke wearily: "Bring it in."I took it in and spread it on a bed. It mumbled something I could not make out and moved one hand feebly back and forth, but its eyes stayed shut. "
48 " Dorothy asked timidly: "Did his wife say anything?"She sent her love to you."Nora said: "Stop being nasty. "
49 " Do you think my father killed her, Nick?” “No,” I said. “Why should I?” “Well, the police have— Listen, she was his mistress, wasn’t she?” I nodded. “When I knew them.” She stared at her glass while saying, “He’s my father. I never liked him. I never liked Mamma.” She looked up at me. “I don’t like Gilbert.” Gilbert was her brother. “Don’t let that worry you. Lots of people don’t like their relatives. "
50 " Gilbert put down the magazine he was looking at and politely said he hoped I was recovering from my injury. I said I was."I've never been hurt, really hurt," he went on, "that I can remember. I've tried hurting myself, of course, but that's not the same thing. It just made me uncomfortable and irritable and sweat a lot.""That's pretty much the same thing," I said. "
51 " She tilted her head to the right. "You didn't even tell me you had taken the case.""I had done what? Oh, I see what you mean. Well, I hadn't and haven't. My getting shot ought to prove I was an innocent bystander.""Does it hurt much?""It itches. I forgot to have the dressing changed this afternoon.""Wasn't Nora utterly terrified?""So was I and so was the guy that shot me. There's Halsey. I haven't spoken to him yet. "
52 " A woman stood between them holding a sizzling skillet in her hand. She was a big-boned, full-fleshed, red-haired woman of perhaps twenty-eight, handsome in a rather brutal, sloppy way. "
53 " Gilbert said: “I read somewhere that when habitual criminals are accused of things they didn’t do—even little things—they’re much more upset by it than other people would be. Do you think that’s so, Mr. Charles?” “It’s likely. "
54 " Asta jumped up and punched me in the belly with her front feet. "
55 " The man whose name I had not caught was saying: “Comes the revolution and we’ll all be lined up against the wall—first thing.” He seemed to think it was a good idea. "
56 " Studsy returned alone. "Maybe I'm wrong," he said as he sat down, "but I think somebody could do something with that cluck if they took hold of her right."Morelli said: "By the throat."Studsy grinned good-naturedly. "No. She's trying to get somewhere. She works hard at her singing lessons and - "
57 " That’s what it was. He wasn’t any more Wynant than I am. You know how it is: we told the Philly police he’d sent a wire from there and broadcasted his description, and for the next week anybody that’s skinny and maybe got whiskers is Wynant to half of the State of Pennsylvania. "
58 " I told him about the letter Wynant had sent his sister. He said: “He writes a lot of people, don’t he? "
59 " Nora stopped drinking to ask: “Did Wynant really steal it?” “Tch, tch, tch,” I said. “This is Christmas Eve: try to think good of your fellow man. "
60 " Just one,” Nora said. “But this is just a theory, isn’t it?” “Call it any name you like. It’s good enough for me.” “But I thought everybody was supposed to be considered innocent until they were proved guilty and if there was any reasonable doubt, they—” “That’s for juries, not detectives. You find the guy you think did the murder and you slam him in the can and let everybody know you think he’s guilty and put his picture all over newspapers, and the District Attorney builds up the best theory he can on what information you’ve got and meanwhile you pick up additional details here and there, and people who recognize his picture in the paper—as well as people who’d think he was innocent if you hadn’t arrested him—come in and tell you things about him and presently you’ve got him sitting on the electric chair. "