I did, very gingerly. Then I smelled it again. T’ smells. Tomato. Blood.
Blood and tomato catsur thought I could detect differences in appearance well. “You
see, son? If she’s going to have blood on I chest she won’t bother with catsup.
Aside from ti and the timer it’s a perfect, dramatic, female-style:
icicle. But it won’t wash. It’s murder, Eddie.” Feinstein stuck his head in.
“Lieutenant-” “What is it?”
“That musician punk. He had a date with her right.”
“Oh, he did, eh?”
“But he’s clear. The band was on the air at midnig in a number that features
him in a trumpet solo.’
“Damn! Get out of here.”
“That ain’t all. I called the Assistant Medical I aminer, like you said. The
motive you suggested wo go-she not only wasn’t expecting; she hadn’t e’ been had.
Virgo intacta,” he added in passable hi school Latin.
“Feinstein, you’ll be wanting to be a sergeant ne~ Spade answered placidly,
“using big words like th Get out.”
“Okay, Lieutenant.” I was more than a little s
prised at the news. I would have picked Estelle a
case of round heels. Evidently she was a tease in m~
ways than one.
Spade sat a while longer, then said, “When it’s 1i1 in here, it’s dark out
there; when it’s light out thc it s dark in here.
“That’s right. Ordinarily, that is. Right now we got both sides lighted with
the bypass.”
“Ordinarily is what I mean. Light, dark; dark, hg Eddie my boy-”
“Yes?”
“Are you sweet on that Hazel girl?”
“I’m leaning that way,” I admitted.
“Then keep an eye on her. The murderer was in K
for just a few seconds-the egg timer and the buzzer prove that. He wasn’t any of the
fei~~~ people who knew about the swap in the shows-not since the trumpetplaying boy
friend got knocked out of the running. And it was dark. He murdered the wrong party,
Eddie my boy. There’s another murder coming up.”
“Hazel,” I said slowly.
“Yes, Hazel.”
Spade Jones shooed us all home, me, Hazel, the two waiters, the other
barman, and Jack Joy. I think he was tempted to hold Jack simply because he wouldn’t
talk but he compromised by telling him that if he stuck his head outside his hotel,
he would find a nice policeman ready to take him down to a nice cell. He tipped me a
wink and put a finger on his lips as he said good night to me.
But I didn’t keep quiet. Hazel let me take her home readily enough. When I
saw that she lived alone in a single apartment in a building without a doorman, I
decided it called for an all night vigil and some explaining.
She stepped into the kitchenette and mixed me a drink. “One drink and out
you go, Ed,” she called to me. “You’ve been very sweet and I want to see you again
and thank you, but tonight this girl goes to bed. I’m whipped.”
“I’m staying all night,” I announced firmly.
She came out with a drink in her hand and looked at me, both annoyed and a
little puzzled. “Ed,” she said, “aren’t you working just a bit too fast? I didn’t
think you were that clumsy.”
“Calm yourself, beautiful,” I told her. “It’s not necessarily a proposition.
I’m going to watch over you. Somebody is trying to kill you.”
She dropped the drink.
I helped her clean it up and explained the situation. “Somebody stabbed a
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girl in a dark room,” I finished. “That somebody thought it was you. He knows better
by now and he will be looking for a chance to finish the
job. What you and I have got to figure out is: Wd wants to kill you?”
She sat down and started to manhandle a handk chief. “Nobody wants to kill
me, Eddie. It was I telle.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“But it couldn’t have been me. I know.”
“What do you know?”
“I- Oh, it’s impossible. Stay all night if you wa to. You can sleep on the
couch.” She got up and pull the bed down out of the wall, went in the bath, cbs the