Dundy said, “Thanks.” He sent Kittredge away, the Blisses back to the bedroom, scowled with dissatisfaction at Spade, and said, “So what?”
Spade, sitting down again, replied, “So you couldn’t get from here to the Municipal Building in less than fifteen minutes on a bet, so he couldnt’ve ducked back here while he was waiting for the judge, and he couldn’t have hustled over here to do it after the wedding and before Miriam arrived.”
The dissatisfaction in Dundy’s face increased. He opened his mouth, but shut it in silence when the gray-faced man came in with a tall, slender, pale young man who fitted the description the Filipino had given of Miriam Bliss’s companion.
The gray-faced man said, “Lieutenant Dundy, Mr. Spade, Mr. Boris — uh — Smekalov.”
Dundy nodded curtly.
Smekalov began to speak immediately. His accent was
not heavy enough to trouble his hearers much, though his r’s sounded more like w’s. “Lieutenant, I must beg of you that you keep this confidential. If it should get out it will ruin me, Lieutenant, ruin me completely and most unjustly. I am most innocent, sir, I assure you, in heart, spirit, and deed, not only innocent, but in no way whatever connected with any part of the whole horrible matter. There is no —”
“Wait a minute.” Dundy prodded Smekalov’s chest with a blunt finger. “Nobody’s said anything about you being mixed up in anything —but it’d looked better if you’d stuck around.”
The young man spread his arms, his palms forward, in an expansive gesture. “But what can I do? I have a wife who — ” He shook his head violently. “It is impossible. I cannot do it.”
The gray-faced man said to Spade in an inadequately subdued voice, “Goofy, these Russians.”
Dundy screwed up his eyes at Smekalov and made his voice judicial. “You’ve probably,” he said, “put yourself in a pretty tough spot.”
Smekalov seemed about to cry. “But only put yourself in my place,” he begged, “and you — ”
“Wouldn’t want to.” Dundy seemed, in his callous way, sorry for the young man. “Murder’s nothing to play with in this country.”
“Murder! But I tell you, Lieutenant, I happen’ to enter into this situation by the merest mischance only. I am not-”
“You mean you came in here with Miss Bliss by accident?”
The young man looked as if he would like to say “Yes.” He said, “No,” slowly, then went on with increasing rapidity: “But that was nothing, sir, nothing at all. We had been to lunch. I escorted her home and she said, ‘Will you come in for a cocktail?’ and I would. That is all, I give you my word.” He held out his hands, palms up. “Could it not have happened so to you?” He moved his hands in Spade’s direction. “To you?”
Spade said, “A lot of things happen to me. Did Bliss know you were running around with his daughter?”
“He knew we were friends, yes.”
“Did he know you had a wife?”
Smekalov said cautiously, “I do not think so.”
Dundy said, “You know he didn’t.”
Smekalov moistened his lips and did not contradict the
lieutenant.
Dundy asked, “What do you think he’d’ve done if he
found out?”
“I do not know, sir.”
Dundy stepped close to the young man and spoke through his teeth in a harsh, deliberate voice: “What did he do when he found out?”
The young man retreated a step, his face white and
frightened.
The bedroom door opened and Miriam Bliss came into the room. “Why don’t you leave him alone?” she asked indignantly. “I told you he had nothing to do with it. I
told you he didn’t know anything about it.” She was beside Smekalov now and had one of his hands in hers. “You’re simply making trouble for him without doing a bit of good. I’m awfully sorry, Boris, I tried to keep them from bothering you.”
The young man mumbled unintelligibly.
“You tried, all right,” Dundy agreed. He addressed Spade: “Could it’ve been like this, Sam? Bliss found out about the wife, knew they had the lunch date, came home early to meet them when they came in, threatened to tell the wife, and was choked to stop him.” He looked sidewise at the girl. “Now, if you want to fake another faint, hop to it.”