“Nice boy,” Dundy said. “So, to keep his name out of the newspapers, he runs off and leaves you alone with your murdered father.”
She took her hands away from her face. “Oh, but he had to,” she cried. “His wife is so jealous, and if she knew he had been with me again she’d certainly divorce him, and he hasn’t a cent in the world of his own.”
Dundy looked at Spade. Spade looked at the goggling Filipinos and jerked a thumb at the outer door. “Scram,” he said. They went out quickly.
“And who is this gem?” Dundy asked the girl. “But he didn’t have any — ”
“Who is he?”
*
Her shoulders drooped a little and she lowered her eyes. “His name is Boris Smekalov,” she said wearily.
“Spell it.”
She spelled it.
“Where does he live?”
“At the St. Mark Hotel.”
“Does he do anything for a living except marry money?”
Anger came into her face as she raised it, but went away as quickly. “He doesn’t do anything,” she said.
Dundy wheeled to address the gray-faced man. “Get him.”
The gray-faced man grunted and went out.
Dundy faced the girl again. “You and this Smekalov in love with each other?”
Her face became scornful. She looked at him with scornful eyes and said nothing.
He said, “Now your father’s dead, will you have enough money for him to marry if his wife divorces him?”
She covered her face with her hands.
He said, “Now your father’s dead, will — ?”
Spade, leaning far over, caught her as she fell. He lifted
her easily and carried her into the bedroom. When he
came back he shut the door behind him and leaned against
it. “Whatever the rest of it was,” he said, “the faint’s
a phony.”
i
“Everything’s a. phony,” Dundy growled.
Spade grinned mockingly. “There ought to be a law making criminals give themselves up.”
Mr. Bliss smiled and sat down at his brother’s desk by the window.
Dundy’s voice was disagreeable. “You got nothing to worry about,” he said to Spade. “Even your client’s dead and can’t complain. But if I don’t come across I’ve got to stand for riding from the captain, the chief, the newspapers, and heaven knows who all.”
“Stay with it,” Spade said soothingly; “you’ll catch a murderer sooner or later yet.” His face became serious except for the lights in his yellow-gray eyes. “I don’t want to run this job up any more alleys than we have to, but don’t you think we ought to check up on the funeral the housekeeper said she went to? There’s something funny about that woman.”
After looking suspiciously at Spade for a moment, Dundy nodded, and said, “Tom’11 do it.”
Spade turned about and, shaking his ringer at Tom, said, “It’s a ten-to-one bet there wasn’t any funeral. Check on it … don’t miss a trick.”
Then he opened the bedroom door and called Mrs. Hooper. “Sergeant Polhaus wants some information from you,” he told her.
While Tom was writing down names and addresses that the woman gave him, Spade sat on the sofa and made and smoked a cigarette, and Dundy walked the floor slowly, scowling at the rug. With Spade’s approval, Theodore Bliss rose and rejoined his wife in the bedroom.
Presently Tom put his note book in his pocket, said, “Thank you,” to the housekeeper, “Be seeing you,” to Spade and Dundy, and left the apartment.
The housekeeper stood where he had left her, ugly, strong, serene, patient.
Spade twisted himself around on the sofa until he was looking into her deep-set, steady eyes. “Don’t worry about that,” he said, flirting a hand toward the door Tom had gone through. “Just routine.” He pursed his lips, asked, “What do you honestly think of this thing, Mrs. Hooper?” She replied calmly, in her strong, somewhat harsh voice, “I think it’s the judgment of God.” Dundy stopped pacing the floor. Spade said, “What?”
There was certainty and no excitement in her voice: “The wages of sin is death.”
Dundy began to advance towards Mrs. Hooper in the manner of one stalking game. Spade waved him back with a hand which the sofa hid from the woman. His face and voice showed interest, but were now as composed as the woman’s. “Sin?” he asked.