The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  Spade thought for a moment. “That sounds all right. Now Jacobi.”

  Gutman looked with grave eyes at Spade and said: “Captain Jacobi’s death was entirely Miss O’Shaughnessy’s fault.”

  The girl gasped, “Oh!” and put a hand to her mouth.

  Spade’s voice was heavy and even. “Never mind that now. How did it happen?”

  After a shrewd look at Spade, Gutman smiled.

  “Just as you say, sir,” he said. “Well, Cairo, as you now know, got in touch with me—or rather I sent for him—after he left police headquarters the night—the morning—he was up here. We recognized the mutual advantage of pooling forces at that time.” He directed his smile at the Levantine. “Mr. Cairo is a man of nice judgment. The Paloma was his thought. He saw the notice of its arrival in the papers, and remembered that in Hongkong he had heard that Miss O’Shaughnessy and Jacobi had been seen together. That was when he was trying to find her there, and he thought at first that she had left on the Paloma, though later he learned that she hadn’t. Well, sir, when he saw that in the paper, he guessed just what had happened: she had given the bird to Jacobi to bring here for her. Jacobi did not know what it was, of course. Miss O’Shaughnessy is too discreet for that.”

  He beamed at the girl, rocked his chair twice, and went on: “Mr. Cairo and Wilmer and I went to call on Captain Jacobi, and were fortunate enough to arrive before Miss O’Shaughnessy had left. In many ways it was a difficult interview, but finally by midnight, we had persuaded Miss O’Shaughnessy to come to terms, or so we thought. We then left the boat and set out for my hotel, where we were to pay Miss O’Shaughnessy and receive the bird. Well, sir, we, mere men, should have known better than to suppose we were capable of coping with her. En route, she and Captain Jacobi and the falcon slipped completely through our fingers.” He laughed merrily. “By Gad, sir, it was neatly done.”

  Spade looked at the girl. Her eyes, large and dark with pleading, met his. He asked Gutman:

  “You touched off the boat before you left?”

  “Not intentionally, no, sir,” the fat man replied, “though I dare say we—or Wilmer at least—were responsible for the fire. He was out trying to find the falcon while the rest of us were talking in the cabin, and he may have been careless with matches.”

  “That’s fine,” Spade said. “If any slip-up makes it necessary for us to try him for Jacobi’s murder we can also hang an arson charge on him. All right. Now about the shooting?”

  “Well, sir, we dashed around town all day trying to find them, and we found them late this afternoon. We weren’t sure at first that we had found them. All we were sure of was that we had found Miss O’Shaughnessy’s apartment, on California Street. But when we listened at the door we heard them moving inside, so we were pretty confident we had them, and rang the bell. When she asked us who we were and we told her, we heard a window going up.

  “We knew what that meant, of course, so Wilmer hurried downstairs as fast as he could and around to the back of the building to cover the fire escape. And when he turned into the alley he ran right plumb smack into Jacobi running away with the falcon under his arm. That was a difficult situation to handle, but Wilmer did every bit as well as he could. He shot Jacobi, more than once, but Jacobi was too tough to either fall down or drop the falcon, and he was too close for Wilmer to keep out of his way. He knocked Wilmer down and ran. And this was in broad daylight, you understand, in the afternoon. And when Wilmer got up he could see a policeman coming up from the block below. So he had to give it up. He dodged into the open back door of the building next to the Coronet, into the street, and then in to join us, and very fortunate he was to make it safely.

  “Well, sir, there we were, stumped again. Miss O’Shaughnessy had opened the door for Cairo and me after she had seen Jacobi safely out the window, and she—” He smiled at a memory. “We persuaded—that is the word, sir—her to tell us that she had told Jacobi to take the falcon to you. It looked very unlikely that he’d live to get there, even if he wasn’t picked up by the police on his way, but that was the only chance we had, sir. And so, once more, we persuaded Miss O’Shaughnessy to give us a little assistance. We had her phone you in an attempt to draw you away from your office before Jacobi got there, and we sent Wilmer after him. Unfortunately, it had taken us too long to decide, and too long to persuade Miss O’Shaughnessy to—”

  The boy on the sofa groaned and rolled over on his side. His eyes opened and closed several times. The girl stood up and moved into the angle of table and wall again.

  “—to co-operate with us,” Gutman concluded hurriedly, “and so you had the falcon before we could reach you.”

  The boy put one foot down on the floor, raised himself on an elbow, opened his eyes wide, put the other foot down, sat up, and looked around. When his eyes focused on Spade, bewilderment went out of them.

  Cairo left the armchair and went over to the boy; he put his arm on the boy’s shoulder and started to say something.

  The boy rose to his feet quickly, shaking the arm off his shoulder. He glanced around the room once and then fixed his eyes on Spade again. His face was set hard, and he held his body so tense that it seemed drawn in and shrunken.

  Spade, sitting on a corner of the table, swinging his legs carelessly, said:

  “Now listen, kid: if you come over here and start cutting up I’m going to kick you in the face. Sit down and shut up and behave, and you’ll last longer.”

  The boy looked at Gutman.

  Gutman smiled benignly at him and said: “Well, Wilmer, I’m sorry to lose you indeed, and I want you to know that I couldn’t be any fonder of you if you were my own son; but, well, by Gad, if you lose a son it’s possible to get another—and there’s only one Maltese falcon.”

  Spade laughed.

  Cairo leaned over and muttered in the boy’s ear. The boy, keeping his cold hazel eyes on Gutman’s face, sat down on the sofa again. The Levantine sat beside him.

  Gutman’s sigh did not affect the benignity of his smile. He said to Spade: “When you’re young you simply don’t understand things.”

  Cairo had an arm around the boy’s shoulder again, and was whispering to him.

  Spade grinned at Gutman and addressed Brigid O’Shaughnessy: “I think it’d be swell if you’d see what you can find us to eat in the kitchen, with plenty of coffee. Will you? I don’t like to leave my guests.”

  “Surely,” she said, and started toward the door.

  Gutman stopped rocking. “Just a moment, my dear.” He held up a thick hand. “Hadn’t you better leave the envelope in here? You don’t want to get grease spots on it.”

  The girl’s eyes questioned Spade, who said in an indifferent tone: “It’s still his.”

  She put a hand inside her coat, took out the envelope and gave it to Spade. Spade tossed it into Gutman’s lap, saying: “Sit on it if you’re afraid of losing it.”

  “You misunderstand me,” Gutman replied suavely. “It’s not that at all, but business should be transacted in a businesslike manner.” He opened the flap of the envelope, took out the thousand-dollar bills, counted them, and chuckled so that his belly bounced. “For instance, there are only nine bills here now.” He spread them out on his fat knees and thighs. “There were ten when I handed it to you, as you well know.” His smile was broad and jovial and triumphant.

  Spade, looking at Brigid O’Shaughnessy, asked: “Well?”

  She shook her head sidewise with emphasis. She did not say anything, though her lips moved slightly, as if she had tried to. Her face was frightened.

  Spade held his hand out to Gutman, and the fat man put the money into it. Spade counted the money, nine thousand-dollar bills, and returned it to Gutman. Then Spade stood up, and his face was dull and placid. He picked up the three pistols on the table. He spoke in a matter-of-fact voice.

  “I want to know about this. We”—he nodded slightly to indicate the girl—“are going in the bathroom. The door will be open, and I’ll b
e facing it. Unless you want a three-story drop from the windows there’s no way out of the room except past the bathroom door. Don’t try to make it.”

  “Really, sir,” Gutman protested, “it’s not necessary, and certainly not very polite of you to threaten us in this manner. You must know that we’ve not the least desire to leave.”

  “I’ll know when I’m through.” Spade was patient but resolute. “This trick upsets things. I’ve got to find the answer. It won’t take long.” He touched the girl’s elbow. “Come on.”

  In the bathroom Brigid O’Shaughnessy found words. She put her hands up flat on Spade’s chest and her face up close to his and whispered:

  “I did not take that bill, Sam.”

  “I don’t think you did,” Spade said, “but I’ve got to know. Take your clothes off.”

  “You won’t take my word for it?”

  “No. Take your clothes off.”

  “I won’t.”

  “All right. We’ll go back to the other room and I’ll have them taken off.”

  She stepped back with her hands to her mouth. Her eyes were round with horror. “You would?” she asked through her fingers.

  “I will,” he said. “I’ve got to know what happened to that bill, and I’m not going to be held up by anybody’s maidenly modesty.”

  “Oh, it isn’t that.” She came close to him and put her hands on his chest again. “Can’t you see that if you make me you’ll—you’ll be killing something?”

  He did not raise his voice. “I don’t know anything about that. I’ve got to know what happened to the bill. Take them off.”

  She looked at his unblinking yellow-gray eyes and her face became pink and then white again.

  “Very well,” she said.

  He sat on the side of the bath-tub watching the opened door. No sound came from the living-room. She removed her clothes swiftly. In her mien was pride without defiance or embarrassment.

  He picked up each piece and examined it with fingers as well as with eyes. He did not find the thousand-dollar bill. When he had finished, he stood up, holding her clothes out in his hands to her.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Now I know.”

  She took the clothing from him. She did not say anything. He picked up his pistols. He shut the bathroom door behind him and went into the living-room.

  Gutman smiled amiably from the rocking chair. “Find it?” he asked.

  Cairo, sitting beside the boy on the sofa, looked at Spade with questioning opaque eyes. The boy did not look up. He was leaning forward, head between hands, elbows on knees, staring at the floor between his feet.

  Spade told Gutman: “No, I didn’t find it. You palmed it.”

  The fat man chuckled. “I palmed it?”

  “Yes,” Spade said, jingling the pistols in his hand. “Do you want to say so, or do you want to stand for a frisk?”

  “Stand for—?”

  “You’re going to admit it,” Spade said, “or I’m going to search you. There’s no third way.”

  Gutman looked up at Spade’s hard face and laughed outright.

  “By Gad, sir, I believe you would. I really do. You’re a character, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “You palmed it,” Spade said.

  “Yes, sir, that I did.” The fat man took a crumpled bill from his vest pocket, smoothed it on a wide thigh, took the envelope holding the nine bills from his coat pocket and put the smoothed bill in with the others. “I must have my little joke every now and then, and I was curious to know what you’d do in a situation of that sort. I must say you passed the test with flying colors, sir. It never occurred to me that you’d hit on such a simple and direct way of getting at the truth.”

  Spade sneered at him without bitterness. “That’s the kind of thing I’d expect from somebody the punk’s age.”

  Gutman chuckled.

  Brigid O’Shaughnessy, dressed again except for coat and hat, came out of the bathroom, took a step toward the living-room, turned around, went back to the kitchen, and turned on the light.

  Cairo edged closer to the boy on the sofa and began whispering in his ear again. The boy shrugged irritably.

  Spade, looking at the pistols in his hand and then at Gutman, went out into the passageway to the closet there. He opened the door, put the pistols inside on the top of a trunk, shut the door, locked it, put the key in his pants pocket and went to the kitchen door.

  Brigid O’Shaughnessy was filling an aluminum percolator.

  “Find everything?” Spade asked.

  “Yes,” she replied in a cool voice, not raising her head. Then she set the percolator aside and came to the door. She blushed, and her eyes were large and moist and chiding. “You shouldn’t have done that, Sam,” she said softly.

  “I had to find out, angel.” He bent down, kissed her mouth lightly and returned to the living-room.

  Gutman smiled at Spade and offered him the white envelope, saying: “This will soon be yours; you might as well take it now.”

  Spade did not take it. He sat in the armchair and said: “There’s plenty of time for that. Besides, we haven’t done enough talking about the money end yet. I ought to have more than ten thousand.”

  Gutman said: “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money.”

  Spade said: “You’re quoting me, but it’s not all the money in the world.”

  “No, sir, it’s not. I grant you that. But it’s a lot of money to be picked up in as few days, and as easily, as you’re getting it.”

  “You think it’s been so damned easy?” Spade asked and shrugged. “Well, maybe, but that’s my business.”

  “It certainly is,” the fat man agreed. He screwed up his eyes, moved his head to indicate the kitchen, and lowered his voice. “Are you sharing with her?”

  Spade said: “That’s my business, too.”

  “It certainly is,” the fat man agreed once more, “but”—he hesitated—“I’d like to give you a word of advice.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “If you don’t—I dare say you’ll give her some money, in any event; but if you don’t give her as much as she thinks she ought to have, my word of advice is—be careful.”

  Spade’s eyes held a mocking light. He asked: “Bad?”

  “Bad,” the fat man replied.

  Spade grinned and began to roll a cigarette.

  Cairo, still muttering in the boy’s ear, had put his arm around his shoulders again. Suddenly the boy pushed his arm away and twisted around on the sofa to face Cairo. The boy’s face held anger and disgust. He made a fist of a small hand and struck the Levantine’s mouth with it. Cairo cried out as a woman might have cried and drew back to the very end of the sofa. He took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and put it to his mouth. It came away daubed with blood. He put it to his mouth again and looked reproachfully at the boy. The boy snarled, “Keep away from me,” and put his face between his hands again. Cairo’s handkerchief released the fragrance of chypre in the room.

  Cairo’s cry had drawn Brigid O’Shaughnessy to the door.

  Spade, grinning, jerked a thumb at the sofa and told her: “The course of true love. How’s the food coming along?”

  “It’s coming,” she said, and returned to the kitchen.

  Spade lighted his cigarette and addressed Gutman: “Let’s talk about the money.”

  “Willingly, sir, with all my heart,” the fat man replied, “but I might as well tell you frankly right now that ten thousand is every cent I can raise.”

  Spade exhaled smoke. “I ought to have twenty.”

  “I wish you could. I’d give it to you gladly, if I had it, but ten thousand is every cent I can manage, on my word of honor.”

  “All right, then, call it fifteen thousand.”

  Gutman smiled and frowned and shook his head. “Mr. Spade, I’ve told you frankly and candidly and on my word of honor as a gentleman that ten thousand dollars is all the money I’ve got, all I can raise.”

  “Sure you told
me that. But you didn’t say positively.”

  Gutman laughed and said: “Positively.”

  Spade said gloomily: “That’s not any too good, but if it’s the best you can do, give it to me.”

  Gutman handed him the envelope. Spade counted the bills and was putting them in his pocket when Brigid O’Shaughnessy came in carrying a tray.

  The boy would not eat. Cairo took a cup of coffee. The girl, Gutman, and Spade ate the scrambled eggs and bacon and toast and marmalade she had prepared, and drank two cups of coffee apiece. Then they settled down to wait the rest of the night through.

  Gutman smoked a cigar and read Celebrated Criminal Cases of America, now and then chuckling over or commenting on the parts of its contents that he found interesting. Cairo nursed his bruised mouth and sulked on his end of the sofa. The boy sat with his head in his hands until a little after four o’clock. Then he lay down with his feet toward Cairo, turned his face to the window, and went to sleep. Brigid O’Shaughnessy, in the armchair, dozed, listened to the fat man’s comments, and carried on a wide-spaced, desultory conversation with Spade.

  Spade lolled and smoked cigarettes and moved, without fidgeting or nervousness, around the room. He sat sometimes on an arm of the girl’s chair, on the table corner, on the floor at her feet, on a straight-backed chair. He was wide awake, cheerful and full of vigor.

  At half past five he went into the kitchen and made more coffee. Half an hour later the boy stirred, awakened, and sat up yawning. Gutman looked at his watch and questioned Spade:

  “Can you get it now?”

  “Give me another hour.”

  Gutman nodded and returned his attention to his book.

  At seven o’clock Spade went to the telephone and called Effie Perine’s number.

  “Hello, Mrs. Perine? … This is Mr. Spade. Will you let me talk to Effie, please? … Yes, it is.… Thanks.” He whistled two lines of “En Cuba,” softly. “Hello, angel. Sorry to get you up … Yes, very. Here’s the plot: in our Holland box at the post office you’ll find an envelope addressed in my scribble. There’s a Pickwick Stage parcel-room check in it—for the bundle we got yesterday. Will you get the bundle and bring it to me, P.D.Q.? … Yes, I’m home.… That’s the girl—hustle.… Bye.”