by Unknown
“If you’d prefer not having the stenographer here we can dismiss him. It was simply as a matter of convenience that I brought him in.”
“I don’t mind him a damned bit,” Spade replied. “I’m willing to have anything I say put down, and I’m willing to sign it.”
“We’ve no intention of asking you to sign anything,” Bryan assured him. “I wish you wouldn’t regard this as a formal inquiry at all. And please don’t think that I’ve any confidence or even belief in those theories the police seem to have formed.”
“No?”
“Not a particle.”
Spade sighed and crossed his legs.
“I’m glad of that.” He felt in his pockets for tobacco and cigarette papers. “What’s your theory?”
Bryan leaned forward in his chair and his eyes were hard and shiny as the lenses over them.
“Tell me who Archer was shadowing Thursby for and I’ll tell you who killed Thursby.”
Spade’s laugh was brief and scornful.
“You’re as wrong as Dundy,” he said.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Spade.” Bryan knocked on the desk with his knuckles. “I don’t say your client killed Thursby, or had him killed, but I do say that, knowing who your client is, or was, I’ll mighty soon know who killed Thursby.”
Spade lighted his cigarette, removed it from his lips, blew his lungs empty of smoke, and spoke as if puzzled:
“I don’t exactly get that.”
“You don’t? Then suppose I put it this way: where is Dixie Monahan?”
Spade’s face retained its puzzled look.
“Putting it that way doesn’t help much,” he said. “I still don’t get it.”
The District Attorney took his glasses off and shook them a little for emphasis. He said:
“We know Thursby was Monahan’s bodyguard, and went with him when Monahan found it wise to vanish from Chicago. We know Monahan welshed on something like two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of bets when he vanished. We don’t know—not yet—who his creditors were.” He put his glasses on again and smiled grimly. “But we all know what’s likely to happen to a gambler who welshes, and to his bodyguard, when his creditors find him. It’s happened before.”
Spade ran his tongue over his lips and pulled his lips back over his teeth in an ugly grin. His eyes glittered under pulled-down brows. His reddening neck bulged over the rim of his collar. His voice was low and hoarse and passionate:
“Well, what do you think? Did I kill him for his creditors? Or just find him and let them do their own killing?”
“No, no,” the District Attorney protested. “You misunderstand me.”
“I hope to —— I do,” Spade said.
“He didn’t mean that,” Thomas said.
“Then what did he mean?” Spade asked.
Bryan waved a hand. “I only meant that you might have been involved in it without knowing what it was. That could—”
“I see.” Spade sneered. “You don’t think I’m naughty, you just think I’m dumb.”
“Nonsense,” Bryan insisted. “Suppose someone came to you and engaged you to find Monahan, telling you they had reason to think he was in the city. The someone might give you a completely false story—any one of a dozen or more would do—or might say he was a debtor who had run away, without giving you the details. How could you tell what was behind it? How would you know it wasn’t an ordinary piece of detective work? And under those circumstances you certainly couldn’t be held responsible for your part in it, unless”—his voice sank to a more impressive note, and his words came out spaced and distinct—“you made yourself an accomplice by concealing your knowledge of the murderer’s identity or any information that would lead to his capture.”
Anger was leaving Spade’s face. No anger remained in his voice when he asked:
“That’s what you meant?”
“Exactly.”
“All right. Then there’s no hard feelings. But you’re wrong.”
“Show me.”
Spade shook his head. “I can’t show you, now. I can tell you.”
“Tell me.”
“Nobody ever hired me to do anything about Dixie Monahan.”
Bryan and Thomas exchanged glances. Bryan’s eyes came back to Spade, and he said:
“But, by your own admission to the police, somebody did hire you to do something about Thursby, his bodyguard.”
“Yes, about Thursby, his ex-bodyguard.”
“Ex?”
“Yes, ex.”
“You know that Thursby was no longer associated with Monahan? You know that positively?”
Spade stretched out his hand and dropped the stub of his cigarette into a tray on the desk. He spoke carelessly:
“I don’t know anything positively except that my client wasn’t interested in Monahan, had never been interested in Monahan. But I heard that Thursby took Monahan out to the Orient and lost him.”
Again the District Attorney and his assistant exchanged glances.
Thomas, in a tone whose striving for matter-of-factness did not quite hide excitement, said:
“That opens another angle. Monahan’s friends could have knocked Thursby off for ditching Monahan.”
“Dead gamblers don’t have any friends,” Spade said.
“It opens up two new lines,” Bryan said. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling for several seconds, then sat upright quickly. His orator’s face was alight. “It narrows down to three things now. Number one: Thursby was killed by the gamblers Monahan had welshed on in Chicago. Not knowing Thursby had ditched Monahan—or not believing it—they killed him because he had been Monahan’s associate, or to get him out of the way so they could get at Monahan, or because he had refused to lead them to Monahan. Number two: he was killed by friends of Monahan. Or number three: he sold Monahan out to his enemies and then fell out with them and they killed him.”
“Or number four,” Spade suggested with a cheerful smile: “he died of old age. You folks aren’t serious, are you?”
The two men stared at Spade, but neither of them spoke. Spade turned his smile from one of them to the other, and shook his head in mock pity.
“You’ve got Arnold Rothstein on the brain,” he said.
Bryan smacked the back of his right hand down into the palm of his left.
“In one of those three categories lies the solution.” The power in his voice was no longer latent. His right hand, a fist except for the protruding forefinger, went up and then down to stop with a jerk when the finger was leveled at Spade’s chest. “And you can give us the information that will enable us to determine the category.”
Spade said, “Yes?” very slowly. His face was somber. He touched his lower lip with a finger, looked at the finger, and then scratched the back of his neck with it. Little irritable lines had appeared in his forehead. He blew his breath heavily out through his nose, and his voice was an ill-humored growl:
“You wouldn’t want the kind of information I could give you, Bryan. You couldn’t use it. It’d poop this gambler’s-revenge scenario for you.”
Bryan sat up straight and squared his shoulders. His voice was stern without bluster:
“You are not the judge of that. Right or wrong, I’m nevertheless the District Attorney.”
Spade’s lifted lip showed his eyetooth. “I thought this was an informal talk.”
“I am a sworn officer of the law twenty-four hours a day,” Bryan said, “and neither formality nor informality justifies your withholding evidence of crime from me, except of course”—he nodded meaningly—“on certain constitutional grounds.”
“You mean if the information might incriminate me?” Spade asked. His voice was placid, almost amused, but his face was not. “Well, I’ve got grounds that suit me better than those. My clients are entitled to have their affairs kept confidential. Maybe I can be made to talk to a Grand Jury or even a Coroner’s Jury, but I haven’t been called before either yet, and it’s a cinch I’m not going to publish
any of my clients’ secrets until I have to. Then again, you and the police have both accused me of being mixed up in the other night’s murders. I’ve had trouble with both of you before. So far as I can see, my best chance of clearing myself is by bringing in the murderers, all tied up. And my only chance of ever catching them, and tying them up, and bringing them in, is in keeping away from you and the police, because neither of you show any signs of knowing what the hell it’s all about.”
He got up and turned his head over his shoulder to address the stenographer:
“Getting this all right, son? Or am I going too fast for you?”
The stenographer looked up at him with startled eyes and replied:
“No, sir, I’m getting it all right.”
“Good work,” Spade said, and turned to Bryan again. “Now if you want to go to the Board and tell them I’m obstructing justice and ask them to revoke my license, hop to it. You’ve tried it before and it didn’t get you anything but a laugh.” He picked up his hat.
Bryan began:
“Look here, you—”
Spade said:
“And I don’t want any more of these informal talks. I’ve got nothing to tell you, and I’m —— damned tired of being called things by every crackpot on the city payroll. If you want to see me, pinch me, or subpoena me, or something, and I’ll come down with my lawyer.” He put his hat on his head, said, “See you at the inquest, maybe,” and stalked out.
CHAPTER XVI
THE THIRD MURDER
pade went into the Hotel Sutter and telephoned the Alexandria. Gutman was not in. No member of Gutman’s party was in. Spade telephoned the Belvedere. Cairo was not in, had not been in that day.
Spade went to his office.
A swart greasy man in notable clothes was waiting in the outer room. Effie Perine, indicating the swart man, said:
“This gentleman wishes to see you, Mr. Spade.”
Spade smiled and bowed and opened the inner door. “Come in.” Before following the man in Spade asked Effie Perine: “Any news on that other matter?”
“No, sir.”
The swart man was the proprietor of a Market Street moving picture theater. He suspected one of his cashiers and a doorman of colluding to defraud him. Spade hurried him through the story, promised to “take care of it,” asked for and received fifty dollars, and got rid of him in less than half an hour.
When the corridor door had closed behind the showman, Effie Perine came into the inner office. Her sunburned face was worried and questioning.
“You haven’t found her?” she asked.
He shook his head and went on stroking his bruised temple lightly, in circles, with his fingertips.
“How is it?” she asked.
“All right, but I’ve got plenty of headache.”
She went around and stood behind him, putting his hand down, stroking his temple with her thin fingers. He leaned back until the back of his head, over the chair-top, rested against her breast, and said: “You’re an angel.”
She bent her head forward, over his, and looked down at his face.
“You’ve got to find her, Sam. It’s more than a day, and she—”
He stirred impatiently and interrupted her:
“I haven’t got to do anything, but if you’ll let me rest this damned head a minute or two I’ll go out and find her.”
She murmured, “Poor head,” and stroked it in silence for a little while. Then she asked:
“You know where she is?”
The telephone bell rang. Spade picked up the telephone and said:
“Hello … Yes, Sid, it came out all right.… No … Sure. He got snotty, but so did I.… He’s nursing a gamblers’ war pipe dream.… Well, we didn’t kiss when we parted. I declared my weight and walked out on him.… That’s something for you to worry about.… Right. Bye.”
He put the telephone down and leaned back in his chair again. Effie Perine came from behind him and stood at his side. She demanded:
“Do you think you know where she is, Sam?”
“I know where she went,” he replied in a grudging tone.
“Where?” She was excited.
“Down to the boat you saw burning.”
Her eyes opened until their brown was surrounded by white.
“You went down there.” It was not a question.
“I did not,” Spade said.
Effie Perine stamped her foot.
“Sam!” she cried angrily. “She may be—”
“She went down there,” he said in a surly voice. “She wasn’t taken. She went down there instead of to your house when she learned the boat had come in. Well, what the hell? Am I supposed to run around after my clients, begging them to let me help them?”
“But, Sam, when I told you the boat was on fire!”
“That was at noon, and I had a date with Polhaus and another with Bryan to keep.”
She glared at him between tightened lids.
“Sam Spade,” she said, “you’re the most contemptible man God ever made when you want to be. Because she did something without confiding in you, you’d sit here and do nothing when you know she’s in danger, when you know she might be—”
Spade’s face flushed. He said stubbornly:
“She’s pretty capable of taking care of herself. And she knows where to come when she thinks she needs help, and when it suits her.”
“That’s spite,” the girl cried, “and that’s all it is! You’re sore because she did something on her own hook, without telling you. Why shouldn’t she? You’re not so damned honest, and you haven’t been so much on the level with her that she could trust you implicitly.”
Spade said:
“That’s enough of that.”
His tone brought a brief uneasy glint into her hot eyes, but she tossed her head and the glint vanished. Her boyish mouth was drawn taut and small. She said:
“If you don’t go down there this very minute, I will, and I’ll take the police down there.” Her voice trembled on the last words, broke, and was thin and wailing: “Oh, Sam, go!”
He stood up cursing her. Then he said:
“——! It’ll be easier on my head than sitting here listening to you squawk.” He looked at his watch. “You might as well lock up and go home.”
She said:
“I won’t. I’m going to wait until you come back.”
He said, “Do as you damned please,” put his hat on, flinched, took it off, and went out carrying it in his hand.
An hour and a half later, at twenty minutes past five, Spade returned. He was cheerful. He came in asking:
“What makes you so hard to get along with, sweetheart?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” He put a finger on the tip of Effie Perine’s nose and flattened it. He put his hands under her elbows, lifted her straight up, and kissed her chin. He set her down on the floor again and asked: “Anything happen while I was gone?”
“Luke—what’s his name?—at the Belvedere called up to tell you Cairo has returned. That was about half an hour ago.”
Spade snapped his mouth shut, turned with a long step, and started for the door.
“Did you find her?” the girl called.
“Tell you about it when I’m back,” he replied without pausing, and hurried out.
A taxicab deposited Spade at the Belvedere within ten minutes of his departure from his office. He found Luke in the lobby. The hotel detective came grinning and shaking his head to meet him.
“Fifteen minutes late,” he said. “Your bird has fluttered.”
Spade cursed.
“Checked out—gone, bag and baggage,” Luke said. He took a battered memorandum book from a vest pocket, licked his thumb, thumbed pages, and held the book out open to Spade. “There’s the number of the taxi that hauled him. I got that much for you.”
“Thanks.” Spade copied the number on the back of an envelope. “Any forwarding address?”
“No. He just come in car
rying a big suitcase, and went upstairs and packed, and come down with his stuff, and paid his bill, and got a taxi and went without anybody hearing what he told the driver.”
“How about his trunk?”
Luke’s lower lip sagged.
“By God,” he said, “I forgot that. Come on.”
They went up to Cairo’s room.
The trunk was there. It was closed, but not locked. They raised the lid. The trunk was empty.
Luke said: “What do you know about that!”
Spade did not say anything.
Spade went back to his office. Effie Perine’s eyes questioned him.
“Missed him,” he grumbled, and passed into his private room.
She followed him in. He sat in his chair and began to roll a cigarette. She sat on the desk in front of him and put her toes on a corner of his chair-seat.
“What about Miss O’Shaughnessy?” she demanded.
“I missed her, too,” he replied, “but she had been there.”
“On the La Paloma?”
“The La is a lousy combination,” he said.
“Stop it. Be nice, Sam. Tell me.”
He set fire to his cigarette, pocketed the lighter, patted her shins, and said:
“Yes, La Paloma. She got down there at a little after noon yesterday.” He drew his brows down. “That means she went straight there after leaving the cab at the Ferry Building. It’s only a few piers away. The Captain wasn’t there. His name’s Jacobi, and she asked for him by name. He was uptown on business. That would mean he didn’t expect her, or not at that time, anyhow. She waited there till he came back at four o’clock. They spent the time from then till meal time in his cabin, and she ate with him.”
He inhaled and exhaled smoke, turned his head aside to spit a yellow tobacco flake off his lip, and went on:
“After the meal Captain Jacobi had three more visitors. One of them was Cairo, and one was Gutman, and one was the kid who delivered Gutman’s message to you yesterday. Those three came together, while Brigid was there, and the five of them did a lot of talking in the Captain’s cabin. It’s hard to get anything out of the crew, but they had a row, and somewhere around eleven that night a gun went off there, in the Captain’s cabin. The watchman beat it down there, but the Captain met him outside and told him there was nothing the matter. There’s a fresh bullet hole in one corner of the cabin, up high enough to make it likely that the bullet didn’t go through anybody to get there. As far as I could learn, there was only that one shot fired. But as far as I could learn wasn’t very far.”
