“That’s a lie, Sam,” the girl said. “You know I think she’s a louse, but I’d be a louse too if it would give me a body like hers-”
Spade rubbed his face impatiently against her hip, but said nothing. Effie Perine bit her lip, wrinkled her forehead, and, bending over for a better view of his face, asked: “Do you suppose she could have killed him?”
Spade sat up straight and took his arm from her waist. He smiled at her. His smile held nothing but amusement. He took out his lighter, snapped on the flame, and applied it to the end of his cigarette. “You’re an angel,” he said tenderly through smoke, “a nice rattle-brained angel.”
She smiled a bit wryly. “Oh, am I? Suppose I told you that your Iva hadn’t been home many minutes when I arrived to break the news at three o’clock this morning?”
“Are you telling me?” he asked. His eyes had become alert though his mouth continued to smile.
“She kept me waiting at the door while she undressed or finished undressing. I saw her clothes where she had dumped them on a chair. Her hat and coat were underneath. Her singlette, on top, was still warm. She said she had been asleep, but she hadn’t. She had wrinkled up the bed, but the wrinkles weren’t mashed down.”
Spade took the girl’s hand and patted it. “You’re a detective, darling, but”–he shook his head–“she didn’t kill him.”
Effie Perine snatched her hand away. “That louse wants to marry you, Sam,” she said bitterly. He made an impatient gesture with his head and one hand. She frowned at him and demanded: “Did you see her last night?”
“No.”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly. Don’t act like Dundy, sweetheart. It ill becomes you.”
“Has Dundy been after you?”
“Uh-huh. He and Tom Polhaus dropped in for a drink at four o’clock.”
“Do they really think you shot this what’s-his-name?”
“Thursby.” He dropped what was left of his cigarette into the brass tray and began to roll another.
“Do they?” she insisted.
“God knows.” His eyes were on the cigarette he was making. “They did have some such notion. I don’t know how far I talked them out of it.”
“Look at me, Sam.” He looked at her and laughed so that for the moment merriment mingled with the anxiety in her face. “You worry me,” she said, seriousness returning to her face as she talked. “You always think you know what you’re doing, but you’re too slick for your own good, and some day you’re going to find it out.”
He sighed mockingly and rubbed his cheek against her arm. “That’s what Dundy says, but you keep Iva away from me, sweet, and I’ll manage to survive the rest of my troubles.” I-Ic stood up and put on his hat. “Have the _Spade & Archer_ taken off the door and _Samuel Spade_ put on. I’ll be back in an hour, or phone you.”
Spade went through the St. Mark’s long purplish lobby to the desk and asked a red-haired dandy whether Miss Wonderly was in. The redhaired dandy turned away, and then back shaking his head. “She checked out this morning, Mr. Spade.”
“Thanks.”
Spade walked past the desk to an alcove off the lobby where a plump young-middle-aged man in dark clothes sat at a flat-topped mahogany desk. On the edge of the desk facing the lobby was a triangular prism of mahogany and brass inscribed Mr. Freed.
The plump man got up and came around the desk holding out his hand. “I was awfully sorry to hear about Archer, Spade,” he said in the tone of one trained to sympathize readily without intrusiveness. “I’ve just seen it in the _Call_. He was in here last night, you know.”
“Thanks, Freed. Were you talking to him?”
“No. He was sitting in the lobby when I came in early in the evening. I didn’t stop. I thought he was probably working and I know you fellows like to be left alone when you’re busy. Did that have anything to do with his–?”
“I don’t think so, but we don’t know yet. Anyway, we won’t mix the house up in it if it can be helped.”