He stirred and impatiently interrupted her: “I haven’t got to do anything, but if you’ll let me rest this damned head a minute or two I’ll go out and find her.”
She murmured, “Poor head,” and stroked it in silence awhile. Then she asked: “You know where she is? Have you any idea?”
The telephone-bell rang. Spade picked up the telephone and said: “Hello. . . . Yes, Sid, it came out all right, thanks. . . . No. . . . Sure. He got snotty, but so did I. . . . He’s nursing a gambler’s-war pipe-dream. . . . Well, we didn’t kiss when we parted. I declared my weight and walked out on him. . . . That’s something for you to worry about. . . . Right. ‘Bye.” he put the telephone down and leaned back in his chair again.
Effie Perine came from behind him and stood at his side. She demanded: “Do you think you know where she is, Sam?”
“I know where she went,” he replied in a grudging tone.
“Where?” She was excited.
“Down to the boat you saw burning.”
Her eyes opened until their brown was surrounded by white. “You went down there.” It was not a question.
“I did not,” Spade said.
“Sam,” she cried angrily, “she may be–”
“She went down there,” he said in a surly voice. “She wasn’t taken. She went down there instead of to your house when she learned the boat was in. Well, what the hell? Am I supposed to run around after my clients begging them to let me help them?”
“But, Sam, when I told you the boat was on fire!”
“That was at noon and I had a date with Polhaus and another with Bryan.”
She glared at him between tightened lids. “Sam Spade,” she said, “you’re the most contemptible man God ever made when you want to be. Because she did something without confiding in you you’d sit here and do nothing when you know she’s in danger, when you know she might be–”
Spade’s face flushed. He said stubbornly: “She’s pretty capable of taking care of herself and she knows where to come for help when she thinks she needs it, and when it suits her.”
“That’s spite,” the girl cried, “and that’s all it is! You’re sore because she did something on her own hook, without telling you. Why shouldn’t she? You’re not so damned honest, and you haven’t been so much on the level with her, that she should trust you completely.”
Spade said: “That’s enough of that.”
His tone brought a brief uneasy glint into her hot eyes, but she tossed her head and the glint vanished. Her mouth was drawn taut and small. She said: “If you don’t go down there this very minute, Sam, I will and I’ll take the police down there.” Her voice trembled, broke, and was thin and wailing. “Oh. Sam, go!”
He stood up cursing her. Then he said: “Christ! It’ll be easier on my head than sitting here listening to you squawk.” He looked at his watch. “You might as well lock up and go home.”
She said: “I won’t. I’m going to wait right here till you come back.”
He said, “Do as you damned please,” put his hat on, flinched, took it off, and went out carrying it in his hand.
An hour and a half later, at twenty minutes past five, Spade returned. He was cheerful. He came in asking: “What makes you so hard to get along with, sweetheart?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” He put a finger on the tip of Effie Perine’s nose and flattened it. He put his hands under her elbows, lifted her straight up, and kissed her chin. He set her down on the floor again and asked: “Anything doing while I was gone?”
“Luke–what’s his name?–at the Belvedere called up to tell you Cairo has returned. That was about half an hour ago.”
Spade snapped his mouth shut, turned with a long step, and started for the door.
“Did you find her?” the girl called.
“Tell you about it when I’m back,” he replied without pausing and hurried out.
A taxicab brought Spade to the Belvedere within ten minutes of his departure from his office. He found Luke in the lobby. The hotel-detective came grinning and shaking his head to meet Spade. “Fifteen minutes late,” he said. “Your bird has fluttered.”