Spade rose and put his hands in his trousers-pockets. He stood erect so he might hook that much farther down at the Lieutenant. His grin was a taunt and self-certainty spoke in every line of his posture.
“I dare you to take us in, Dundy,” he said. “We’ll laugh at you in every newspaper in San Francisco. You don’t think any of us is going to swear to any complaints against tIme others, do you? Wake up. You’ve been kidded. When the bell rang I said to Miss O’Shaughnessy and Cairo: ‘It’s those damned bulls again. They’re getting to be nuisances. Let’s play a joke on them. When you hear them going one of you scream, and then we’ll see how far we can string them along before they tumble.’ And–”
Brigid O’Shaughnessy bent forward in her chair and began to laugh hysterically.
Cairo started and smiled. There was no vitality in his smile, but he held it fixed on his face.
Tom, glowering, grumbled: “Cut it out, Sam.”
Spade chuckled and said: “But that’s the way it was. ‘We–”
“And the cut on his head and mouth?” Dundy asked scornfully. “Where’d they come from?”
“Ask him,” Spade suggested. “Maybe he cut himself shaving.”
Cairo spoke quickly, before he could be questioned, and the muscles of his face quivered under the strain of holding his smile in place while he spoke. “I fell. We intended to be struggling for the pistol when you came in, but I fell. I tripped on the end of the rug and fell while we were pretending to struggle.”
Dundy said: “Horse feathers.”
Spade said: “That’s all right, Dundy, believe it or not. The point is that that’s our story and we’ll stick to it. The newspapers will print it whether they believe it or not, and it’ll be just as funny one way as the other, or more so. What are you going to do about it? It’s no crime to kid a copper, is it? You haven’t got anything on anybody here. Everything we told you was part of the joke. What are you going to do about it?”
Dundy put his back to Spade and gripped Cairo by the shoulders. “You can’t get away with that,” he snarled, shaking the Levantine. “You belched for help and you’ve got to take it.”
“No, sir,” Cairo sputtered. “It was a joke. He said you were friends of his and w’ould understand.”
Spade laughed.
Dundy pulled Cairo roughly around, holding him now by one wrist and the nape of his neck. “I’ll take you along for packing the gun, anyway,” he said. “And I’ll take the rest of you along to see who laughs at the joke.”
Cairo’s alarmed eyes jerked sidewise to focus on Spade’s face.
Spade said: “Don’t be a sap, Dundy. The gun was part of the plant. It’s one of mine.” He laughed. “Too bad it’s only a thirty-two, or maybe you could find it was the one Thursby and Miles were shot with.”
Dundy released Cairo, spun on his heel, and his right fist clicked on Spade’s chin.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy uttered a short cry.
Spade’s smile flickered out at the instant of the impact, but returned immediately with a dreamy quality added. He steadied himself with a short backward step and his thick sloping shoulders writhed under his coat. Before his fist could come up Tom Polhaus had pushed himself between the two men, facing Spade, encumbering Spade’s arms with the closeness of his barrel-like belly and his own arms.
“No, no, for Christ’s sake!” Tom begged.
After a long moment of motionlessness Spade’s muscles relaxed. “Then get him out of here quick,” he said. His smile had gone away again, leaving his face sullen and somewhat pale.
Tom, staying close to Spade, keeping his arms on Spade’s arms, turned his head to hook over his shoulder at Lieutenant Dundy. Tom’s small eyes were reproachful.
Dundy’s fists w’ere clenched in front of his body and his feet were planted firm and a little apart on the floor, but the truculence in his face was modified by thin rims of white showing between green irises and upper eyelids.
“Get their names and addresses,” he ordered.