“Tell you much about what he’d been doing since then?”
“Just that he’d been knocking around, doing one thing
and another, taking the breaks as they came. He didn’t
complain much; I had to make him take the hundred and
fifty.”
Spade stood up. “Thanks ever so much, Mr. Ferris. I —” Ferris interrupted him: “Not at all, and if there’s anything I can do, call on me.”
Spade looked at his watch. “Can I phone my office to see if anything’s turned up?-”
“Certainly; there’s a phone in the next room, to the right.”
Spade said “Thanks” and went out. When he returned he was rolling a cigarette. His face was wooden.
“Any news?” Ferris asked.
“Yes. Colyer’s called the job off. He says Haven’s body’s been found in some bushes on the other side of San Jose, with three bullets in it.” He smiled, adding mildly, “He told me he might be able to find out something through his connections.” . . .
Morning sunshine, coming through the curtains that screened Spade’s office windows, put two fat, yellow rectangles on the floor and gave everything in the room a yellow tint.
He sat at his desk, staring meditatively at a newspaper. He did not look up when Effie Ferine came in from the outer office.
She said, “Mrs. Haven is here.”
He raised his head then and said, “That’s better. Push
her in.”
Mrs. Haven came in quickly. Her face was white and she was shivering in spite of her fur coat and the warmth of the day. She came straight to Spade and asked, “Did Gene kill him?” Spade said, “I don’t know.” “I’ve got to know,” she cried.
Spade took her hands. “Here, sit down.” He led her to a chair. He asked, “Colyer tell you he’d called the job off?” She stared at him in amazement. “He what?” “He left word here last night that your husband had been found and he wouldn’t need me any more.”
She hung her head and her words were barely audible. “Then he did.”
Spade shrugged. “Maybe only an innocent man could’ve afforded to call it off then, or maybe he was guilty, but had brains enough and nerve enough to—”
She was not listening to him. She was leaning towards him, speaking earnestly: “But, Mr. Spade, you’re not going to drop it like that? You’re not going to let him stop you?” While she was speaking his telephone bell rang. He said, “Excuse me,” and picked up the receiver. “Yes? . . . Uh-huh. . . . So?” He pursed his lips. “I’ll let you know.” He pushed the telephone aside slowly and faced Mrs. Haven again. “Colyer’s outside.” “Does he know I’m here?” she asked quickly. “Couldn’t say.” He stood up, pretending he was not watching her closely. “Do you care?”
She pinched her lower lip between her teeth, said “No” hesitantly.
“Fine. I’ll have him in.”
She raised a hand as if in protest, then let it drop, and her white face was composed. “Whatever you want,” she said.
Spade opened the door, said, “Hello, Colyer. Come on in. We were just talking about you.”
Colyer nodded and came into the office holding his stick ‘ in one hand, his hat in the other. “How are you this morning, Julia? You ought to’ve phoned me. I’d’ve driven you back to town.”
“I — I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Colyer looked at her for a moment longer, then shifted the focus of his expressionless green eyes to Spade’s face. “Well, have you been able to convince her I didn’t do it?”
“We hadn’t got around to that,” Spade said. “I was just trying to find out how much reason there was for suspecting you. Sit down.”
Colyer sat down somewhat carefully, asked, “And?”
“And then you arrived.”
Colyer nodded gravely. “All right, Spade,” he said; “you’re hired again to prove to Mrs. Haven that I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Gene!” she exclaimed in a choked voice and held her hands out toward him appealingly. “I don’t think you did — I don’t want to think you did — but I’m so afraid.” She put her hands to her face and began to cry.