mustache. His clothes were neat. He wore a black bowler perched on the back of his head.
Spade addressed this man over Tom’s shoulder: “Hello, Dundy.”
Dundy nodded briefly and came to the door. His blue eyes were hard and prying.
“What is it?” he asked Tom.
“B-1-i-s-s, M-a-x,” Spade spelled patiently. “I want to see him. He wants to see me. Catch on?”
Tom laughed. Dundy did not. Tom said, “Only one of you gets your wish.” Then he glanced sidewise at Dundy and abruptly stopped laughing. He seemed uncomfortable.
Spade scowled. “All right,” he demanded irritably; “is he dead or has he killed somebody?”
Dundy thrust his square face up at Spade and seemed to push his words out with his lower Up. “What makes you think either?”
Spade said, “Oh, sure! I come calling on Mr. Bliss and I’m stopped at the door by a couple of men from the police Homicide Detail, and I’m supposed to think I’m just interrupting a game of rummy.”
“Aw, stop it, Sam,” Tom grumbled, looking at neither Spade nor Dundy. “He’s dead.”
“Killed?”
Tom wagged his head slowly up and down. He looked at Spade now. “What’ve you got on it?”
Spade replied in a deliberate monotone, “He called me up this afternoon — say at five minutes to four — I looked at my watch after he hung up and there was still a minute
or so to go — and said somebody was after his scalp. He wanted me to come over. It seemed real enough to him — it was up in his neck all right.” He made a small gesture with one hand. “Well, here I am.”
“Didn’t say who or how?” Dundy asked.
Spade shook his head. “No. Just somebody had offered to kill him and he believed them, and would I come over right away.”
“Didn’t he — ?” Dundy began quickly.
“He didn’t say anything else,” Spade said. “Don’t you people tell me anything?”
Dundy said curtly, “Come in and take a look at him.”
Tom said, “It’s a sight.”
They went across the vestibule and through a door into a green and rose living-room.
A man near the door stopped sprinkling white powder on the end of a glass-covered small table to say, “Hello, Sam.”
Spade nodded, said, “How are you, Phels?” and then nodded at the two men who stood talking by a window.
The dead man lay with his mouth open. Some of his clothes had been taken off. His throat was puffy and dark. The end of his tongue showing in a corner of his mouth was bluish, swollen. On his bare chest, over the heart, a five-pointed star had been outlined in black ink and in the center of it a T.
Spade looked down at the dead man and stood for a moment silently studying him. Then he asked, “He was found like that?”
“About,” Tom said. “We moved him around a little.” He jerked a thumb at the shirt, undershirt, vest, and coat lying on a table. “They were spread over the floor.”
Spade rubbed his chin. His yellow-gray eyes were dreamy. “When?”
Tom said, “We got it at four-twenty. His daughter gave it to us.” He moved his head to indicate a closed door. “You’ll see her.”
“Know anything?”
“Heaven knows,” Tom said wearily. “She’s been kind of hard to get along with so far.” He turned to Dundy. “Want to try her again now?”
Dundy nodded, then spoke to one of the men at the window. “Start sifting his papers, Mack. He’s supposed to’ve been threatened.”
Mack said, “Right.” He pulled his hat down over his eyes and walked towards a green secretaire in the far end of the room.
A man came in from the corridor, a heavy man of fifty with a deeply lined, grayish face under a broad-brimmed black hat. He said, “Hello, Sam,” and then told Dundy, “He had company around half past two, stayed just about an hour. A big blond man in brown, maybe forty or forty-five. Didn’t send his name up. I got it from the Filipino in the elevator that rode him both ways.”
“Sure it was only an hour?” Dundy asked.