“It could be Theodore’s first initial, too,” Dundy said.
Spade moved his shoulders, said carelessly, “Yes, but if he wanted to autograph the job it’d been just as easy for him to sign his name.”
He then went on more thoughtfully, “There are Rosicrucians at both San Jose and Point Loma. I don’t go much for this, but maybe we ought to look them up.”
Dundy nodded.
Spade looked at the dead man’s clothes o’n the table. “Anything in his pockets?”
“Only what you’d expect to find,” Dundy replied. “It’s on the table there.”
Spade went to the table and looked down at the little pile of watch and chain, keys, wallet, address book, money, gold pencil, handkerchief, and spectacle case beside the clothing. He did not touch them, but slowly picked up, one at a time, the dead man’s shirt, undershirt, vest, and coat. A blue necktie lay on the table beneath them. He scowled irritably at it. “It hasn’t been worn,” he complained.
Dundy, Tom, and the coroner’s deputy, who had stood silent all this while by the window — he was a small man with a slim, dark, intelligent face — came together to stare down at the unwrinkled blue silk.
Tom groaned miserably. Dundy cursed under his breath. Spade lifted the necktie to look at its back. The label was a London haberdasher’s.
Spade said cheerfully, “Swell. San Francisco, Point Loma, San Jose, Paris, London.”
Dundy glowered at him.
The gray-faced man came in. “The papers got here at three-thirty, all right,” he said. His eyes widened a little. “What’s up?” As he crossed the room towards them he said, “I can’t find anybody that saw Blondy sneak back in here again.” He looked uncomprehendingly at the necktie until Tom growled, “It’s brand-new”; then he whistled softly.
Dundy turned to Spade. “The deuce with all this,” he said bitterly. “He’s got a brother with reasons for not liking him. The brother just got out of stir. Somebody who looks like his brother left here at half past three. Twenty-five minutes later he phoned you he’d been threatened. Less than half an hour after that his daughter came in and found him dead — strangled.” He poked a finger at the small, dark-faced man’s chest. “Right?”
“Strangled,” the dark-faced man said precisely, “by a man. The hands were large.”
“O. K.” Dundy turned to Spade again. “We find a threatening letter. Maybe that’s what he was telling you about, maybe it was something his brother said to him. Don’t let’s guess. Let’s stick to what we know. We know he-”
The man at the secretaire turned around and said, “Got another one.” His mien was somewhat smug.
The eyes with which the five men at the table looked at him were identically cold, unsympathetic.
He, nowise disturbed by their hostility, read aloud:
“Dear Bliss:
“I am writing this to tell you for the last time that I want my money back, and I want it back by the first of the month, all of it. If I don’t get it I am going to do something about it, and you ought to be able to guess what I mean. And don’t think I am kidding.
“Yours truly,
Daniel Talbot.”
He grinned. “That’s another T for you.” He picked up an envelope. “Postmarked San Diego, the twenty-fifth of last month.” He grinned again. “And that’s another city for you.”
Spade shook his head. “Point Loma’s down that way,” he said.
He went over with Dundy to look at the letter. It was written in blue ink on white stationery of good quality, as was the address on the envelope, in a cramped, angular handwriting that seemed to have nothing in common with that of the penciled letter.
Spade said ironically, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Dundy made an impatient gesture. “Let’s stick to what we know,” he growled.
“Sure,” Spade agreed. “What is it?”
There was no reply.
Spade took tobacco and cigarette papers from his pocket. “Didn’t somebody say something about talking to a daughter?” he asked.
“We’ll talk to her.” Dundy turned on his heel, then suddenly frowned at the dead man on the floor. He jerked a thumb at the small, dark-faced man. “Through with it?”