“Thanks.”
“That’s all right. Can you give me some dope on an ex-guest, and then forget that I asked for it?”
“Surely.”
“A Miss Wonderly checked out this morning. I’d like to know the details .”
“Come along,” Freed said, “and we’ll see what we can learn.”
Spade stood still, shaking his head. “I don’t want to show in it.”
Freed nodded and went out of the alcove. In the lobby he halted suddenly and came back to Spade. “Harriman was the house-detective on duty last night,” he said. “He’s sure to have seen Archer. Shall I caution him not to mentiomi it?”
Spade looked at Freed from the corners of his eyes. “Better not. That won’t make any difference as long as there’s no connection shown with this Wonderly. Harriman’s all right, but he likes to talk, and I’d as lief not have him think there’s anything to be kept quiet.”
Freed nodded again and wemit away. Fifteen minutes later he returned. “She arrived last Tuesday, registering from New York. She hadn’t a trunk, only some bags. There were no phone-calls charged to her room, and she doesn’t seem to have received much, if any, mail. The only one any- body remembers having seen her with was a tall dark man of thirty-six or so. She went out at half-past nine this morning, came back an hour later, paid her bill, and had her bags carried out to a car. The boy who carried them says it was a Nash touring car, probably a hired one. She left a forwarding address–the Anibassador, Los Angeles.”
Spade said, “Thanks a lot, Freed,” and left the St. Mark.
When Spade returned to his office Effie Perine stopped typing a letter to tell him: “Your friend Dundy was in. He wanted to look at your guns.”
“And?”
“I told him to come back when you were here.”
“Good girl. If he comes back again let him look at them.”
“And Miss Wonderly called up.”
“It’s about time. What did she say?”
“She wants to see you.” The girl picked up a slip of paper from her desk amid read the memorandum penciled on it: “She’s at the Coronet, on California Street, apartment one thousand and one. You’re to ask for Miss Lcblanc.”
Spade said, “Give me,” and held out his hand. When she had given him the memorandum he took out his lighter, snapped on the flame, set it to the slip of paper, held the paper until all but one corner was curling black ash, dropped it on the linoleum floor, and mashed it under his shoesole. The girl watched him with disapproving eyes. He grinned at her, said, “That’s just the way it is, dear,” and went out again.
IV.
The Black Bird
Miss Wonderly, in a belted green crepe silk dress, opened the door of apartment 1001 at the Coronet. Her face was flushed. Her dark red hair, parted on the left side, swept back in loose waves over her right temple, was somewhat tousled. Spade took off his hat and said: “Good morning.”
His smile brought a fainter smile to her face. Her eyes, of blue that was almost violet, did not lose their troubled look. She lowered her head and said in a hushed, timid voice: “Come in, Mr. Spa de.”
She led him past open kitchen-, bathroom-, and bedroom-doors in a cream and red living-room, apologizing for its confusion: “Everything is upside-down. I haven’t even finished unpacking.”
She laid his hat on a table and sat down on a walnut settee. He sat on a brocaded oval-backed chair facing her. She looked at her fingers, working them together, and said: “Mr. Spade, I’ve a terrible, terrible confession to make.” Spade smiled a polite smile, which she did not lift her eyes to see, and said nothing.
“That–that story I told you yesterday was all–a story,” she stammered, and looked up at him now with miserable frightened eyes.
“Oh, that,” Spade said lightly. “We didn’t exactly believe your story.”
“Then–?” Perplexity was added to the misery and fright in her eyes.
“We believed your two hundred dollars.”
“You mean–?” She seemed to not know what he meant.
“I mean that you paid us more than if you’d been telling the truth,” he explained blandly, “and enough more to make it all right.”