The Thin Man Goes Home Page #10

...leaving the housemaid

in a very tough spot.

It seems a baby was on the way.

Now, the dead playboy had a big brother.

But brother wanted no part of it.

So the housemaid had to go to a county

hospital in Boston to have her baby.

And the records show that later she placed

him in the children's home there...

...under the name of Peter Berton.

Shall I go on, Mr. Ronson?

No. No, you win, Nick.

Perhaps you'd rather tell us

about it yourself.

I tried to help her. But she was so...

So irrational.

The boy grew up in the orphanage.

When he was of age, I sent for him

and got him a job here in the plant.

He didn't seem

quite well-balanced to me.

Crazy Mary kept hounding me.

I didn't want any scandal

for my daughter's sake.

Well, everything went on all right

until Crazy Mary discovered...

...that her boy was

mixed up in a racket...

...to copy some propeller designs.

She wanted to stop him.

But she was helpless without revealing

to him that she was his mother.

However...

...when the boy up and got himself killed,

there was something she could do.

She could protect his good name.

So she blackmailed Mr. Ronson into

removing the evidence against her boy.

This painting.

He took it to her last night after

he removed it from Mrs. Draque's room.

- Is that true, Mr. Ronson?

- Yes. But I didn't kill Crazy Mary.

No, but you slugged me.

- Why, you small-town thug!

- Here!

Now, now, Mrs. Draque!

Keep on doing what you've been doing.

I'll have the cocoa in a few minutes.

Well...

Now, we know the technique that was

used to deliver the paintings.

Berton copied the plans,

painted over them...

...and placed the paintings for sale

with Willie Crump.

Mrs. Draque bought them...

...and, through her husband, they were

delivered at Tony Croner's in New York.

A nice, safe arrangement.

Very little danger...

...and lots of money in it

for everybody. Thousands.

What?

- Does that surprise you, Mrs. Draque?

- Tell him nothing, honey.

You mean you haven't told your honey

how many thousands...

...Croner gave you every time

you delivered one of these?

- That's a lie.

- Well, I just don't think...

...you should have been cheated,

Mrs. Draque. After all, you took a big risk.

And now you're involved in a murder.

Oh, no.

I didn't have anything to do with that.

I only bought the paintings...

...and turned them over to Edgar...

- Shut up.

- You're blabbing like he wants you to.

- I'm not getting mixed up in any murder.

You didn't tell me it was

gonna be anything...

Someone's always hitting

that poor Mrs. Draque.

Draque, you arranged the scheme

to steal these plans...

...through someone here

in Sycamore Springs.

Someone who lives here and is

well-regarded in the community.

- When we find who that individual was...

- Nick! Look out!

Gracious me!

Here you are, Nick. It was exactly where

you said. There's one cartridge missing.

Ladies and gentlemen,

this is a rifle called the Nambu.

It's used by Japanese snipers

in the Southwest Pacific.

It has long range and great accuracy.

And this one's equipped with a silencer.

Many of them were brought back

by our boys as souvenirs.

- My brother Tom brought that gun back.

- Right.

- You're not trying to imply he...?

- I'm not implying anything.

- I agree that it was his gun.

- I think that's as good as implying it.

I agree with Bruce, Nick.

These people are my friends.

A little while ago, you had us believing

Sam Ronson was guilty.

- Ronson's just a red herring.

- I don't care if he is a red herring.

I'll never believe Sam Ronson

killed anybody.

He didn't kill Mary, Dad. When he arrived

at her shack, she was already dead.

How do you know that?

He took the painting to her.

That was the evidence she wanted.

Had she been alive, she would have

destroyed it immediately.

- She never got her hands on it.

- Let go of me.

You got no right to bring me here.

I haven't done anything.

Tom, I tried to get away.

They wouldn't let me.

- What's the big idea?

- Come in, Tom, and join the party.

We're trying to catch a murderer.

Bruce, according to your autopsy report...

...Peter Berton was shot

with a.45 revolver.

The bullet entering the large left rhomboid,

puncturing the posterior lobe...

...of the left lung and the lower lobe

of the right, lacerating the parenchyma...

...grazing the aorta and lodging

against the 12th right costal rib.

- That's your boy.

- In other words...

...it entered about here, passed

all the way through his body...

...and ended up down there. Is that right?

- That's right.

Well, that's very strange.

Because for a.45 revolver to get

that amount of penetration...

...it would have to be

fired almost point-blank.

And for a bullet to have traveled

downward at such an angle...

...the revolver would have to have

been fired...

...by some little gremlin hanging

from our porch roof.

Well, there was no little gremlin.

So he couldn't have been shot

with a revolver. No.

The bullet that killed Peter Berton

was fired from a rifle.

From a distance and at an elevation.

A rifle equipped with a silencer.

A rifle like yours, Tom.

Which has one bullet missing.

- What are you driving at, Nick?

- Simply this.

Bruce, you switched bullets on us

at the autopsy.

It was a Japanese rifle bullet

you removed from Berton's body...

...but it was a.45 revolver bullet

you handed MacGregor.

What's the answer?

Well, I did that to protect Tom.

Because everybody knew how jealous

he was of Berton on account of Laurabelle.

- You thought Tom might've killed Berton?

- No. But what was I to think?

He had been raving

around the house that night.

Oh, indeed.

Mrs. Hobby, on the night of the murder...

...when I phoned Dr. Clayworth

to come over, where was he?

- He was upstairs, sir.

- You're quite sure of that?

Yes, sir. I remember distinctly

of going to the stairs to call him.

How long before that

had Mr. Berton left the house?

- Well, just a few minutes, sir.

- That's all. Thank you.

So I was right, Bruce.

- Berton was at your house.

- Well, I told you I had a patient, Nick.

But you withheld the fact

that the patient was Berton.

It seems that you were not downstairs

in your study as you said.

Well, I might have, for a minute...

Are you trying to blame this on me?

Bruce, when we went out

to visit Crazy Mary the first time...

...you stood outside and called to her.

- What's the matter with that?

- That's the only way you can get in.

- But last night you didn't call.

- You just barged right in. Why was that?

- I didn't just barge in. I...

Well, I was excited, I guess.

I don't know why I didn't.

I'll tell you why. Because it would

have been silly to call to a dead woman.

You knew she was dead.

Because you'd killed her.

- I think you're crazy.

- What was your business with Draque?

- I never had any business with Draque.

- You called on him at his hotel.

- I checked on that.

- Well, that is professional.

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