The Main Death and This King Business by Dashiell Hammett

maid who opened the door told me Mr. Gungen was at home. She led me upstairs.
    Rose Rubury was coming down the stairs. She stopped on the landing to let us pass. I halted in front of her while my guide went on toward the library.
    â€œYou’re done, Rose,” I told the girl on the landing. “I’ll give you ten minutes to clear out. No word to anybody. If you don’t like that—you’ll get a chance to see if you like the inside of the can.”
    â€œWell—the idea!”
    â€œThe racket’s flopped.” I put a hand into a pocket and showed her one wad of the money I had got at the Mars Hotel. “I’ve just come from visiting Coughing Ben and Bunky.”
    That impressed her. She turned and scurried up the stairs.
    Bruno Gungen came to the library door, searching for me. He looked curiously from the girl—now running up the steps to the third story—to me. A question was twisting the little man’s lips, but I headed it off with a statement:
    â€œIt’s done.”
    â€œBravo!” he exclaimed as we went into the library. “You hear that, my darling? It is done!”
    His darling, sitting by the table, where she had sat the other night, smiled with no expression in her doll’s face, and murmured, “Oh, yes,” with no expression in her words.
    I went to the table and emptied my pockets of money.
    â€œNineteen thousand, one hundred and twenty-six dollars and seventy cents, including the stamps,” I announced. “The other eight hundred and seventy-three dollars and thirty cents is gone.”
    â€œAh!” Bruno Gungen stroked his spade-shaped black beard with a trembling pink hand and pried into my face with hard bright eyes. “And where did you find it? By all means sit down and tell us the tale. We are famished with eagerness for it, eh, my love?”
    His love yawned, “Oh, yes!”
    â€œThere isn’t much story,” I said. “To recover the money I had to make a bargain, promising silence. Main was robbed Sunday afternoon. But it happens that we couldn’t convict the robbers if we had them. The only person who could identify them—won’t.”
    â€œBut who killed Jeffrey?” The little man was pawing my chest with both pink hands. “Who killed him that night?”
    â€œSuicide. Despair at being robbed under circumstances he couldn’t explain.”
    â€œPreposterous!” My client didn’t like the suicide.
    â€œMrs. Main was awakened by the shot. Suicide would have canceled his insurance—would have left her penniless. She threw the gun and wallet out the window, hid the note he left, and framed the robber story.”
    â€œBut the handkerchief!” Gungen screamed. He was all worked up.
    â€œThat doesn’t mean anything,” I assured him solemnly, “except that Main—you said he was promiscuous—had probably been fooling with your wife’s maid, and that she—like a lot of maids—helped herself to your wife’s belongings.”
    He puffed up his rouged cheeks, and stamped his feet, fairly dancing. His indignation was as funny as the statement that caused it.
    â€œWe shall see!” He spun on his heel and ran out of the room, repeating over and over, “We shall see!”
    Enid Gungen held a hand out to me. Her doll face was all curves and dimples.
    â€œI thank you,” she whispered.
    â€œI don’t know what for,” I growled, not taking the hand. “I’ve got it jumbled so anything like proof is out of the question. But he can’t help knowing—didn’t I practically tell him?”
    â€œOh, that!” She put it behind her with a toss of her small head. “I’m quite able to look out for myself so long as he has no definite proof.”
    I believed her.
    Bruno Gungen came fluttering back into the library, frothing at the mouth, tearing his dyed goatee, raging that Rose Rubury