“I’ll go right now,” she said, “and you go see a doctor about that head.”
“We’ll have breakfast first.”
“No, I’ll eat over in Berkeley. I can’t wait to hear what Ted thinks of this.”
“Well,” Spade said, “don’t start boo-hooing if he laughs at you.”
After a leisurely breakfast at the Palace, during which he read both morning papers, Spade went home, shaved, bathed, rubbed ice on his bruised temple, and put on fresh clothes.
He went to Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s apartment at the Coronet. Nobody was in the apartment. Nothing had been changed in it since his last visit.
He went to the Alexandria Hotel. Gutman was not in. None of the other occupants of Gutman’s suite was in. Spade learned that these other occupants were the fat man’s secretary, Wilmer Cook, and his daughter Rhea, a brown-eyed fair-haired smallish girl of seventeen whom the hotelstaff said was beautiful. Spade was told that the Gutman party had arrived at the hotel, from New York, ten days before, and had not checked out.
Spade went to the Belvedere and found the hotel-detective eating in the hotel-café.
“Morning, Sam. Set down and bite an egg.” The hotel-detective stared at Spade’s temple. “By God, somebody maced you plenty!”
“Thanks, I’ve had mine,” Spade said as he sat down, and then, referring to his temple: “It looks worse than it is. How’s my Cairo’s conduct?”
“He went out not more than half an hour behind you yesterday and I ain’t seen him since. He didn’t sleep here again last night.”
“He’s getting bad habits.”
“WelI, a fellow like that alone in a big city. Who put the slug to you, Sam?”
“It wasn’t Cairo.” Spade looked attentively at the small silver dome covering Luke’s toast. “How’s chances of giving his room a casing while he’s out?”
“Can do. You know I’m willing to go all the way with you all the time.” Luke pushed his coffee back, put his elbows on the table, and screwed up his eyes at Spade. “But I got a hunch you ain’t going all the way with me. What’s the honest-to-God on this guy, Sam? You don’t have to kick back on me. You know’ I’m regular.”
Spade lifted his eyes from the silver dome. They were clear and candid. “Sure, you are,” he said. “I’m not holding out. I gave you it straight. I’m doing a job for him, but he’s got some friends that look w’rong to me and I’m a little leery of him.”
“The kid we chased out yesterday was one of his friends.”
“Yes, Luke, he was.”
“And it was one of them that shoved Miles across.”
Spade shook his head. “Thursby killed Miles.”
“And who killed him?”
Spade smiled. “That’s supposed to be a secret, but, confidentially, I did,” he said, “according to the police.”
Luke grunted and stood up saying: “You’re a tough one to figure out, Sam. Come on, we’ll have that look-see.”
They stopped at the desk long enough for Luke to “fix it so we’ll get a ring if he comes in,” and went up to Cairo’s room. Cairo’s bed was smooth and trim, but paper in wastebasket, unevenly drawn blinds, and a couple of rumpled towels in the bathroom showed that the chambermaid had not yet been in that morning.
Cairn’s luggage consisted of a square trunk, a valise, and a gladstone bag. His bathroom-cabinet was stoekcd with cosmetics–boxes, cans, jars, and bottles of powders, creams, ungents, perfumes, lotions, and tonics. Two suits and an overcoat hung in the closet over three pairs of carefully treed shoes.
The valise and smaller bag were unlocked. Luke had the trunk unlocked by the time Spade had finished searching elsewhere.
“Blank so far,” Spade said as they dug down into the trunk.
They found nothing there to interest them.
“Any particular thing we’re supposed to be looking for?” Luke asked as he locked the trunk again.
“No. He’s supposed to have come here from Constantinople. I’d like to know if he did. I haven’t seen anything that says he didn’t.”
“What’s his racket?”
Spade shook his head. “That’s something else I’d like to know.” He crossed the room and bent down over the wastebasket. “Well, this is our last shot.”