Spade thought for a moment. “That sounds all right. Now Jacobi.”
Gutman looked at Spade with grave eves and said: “Captain Jacobi’s death was entirely Miss O’Shaughncssv’s fault.”
The girl gasped, “Oh!” and put a hand to her mouth.
Spade’s voice was heavy and even. “Never mind that now. Tell me what happened.”
After a shrewd hook at Spade, Gutman smiled. “Just as you say, sir,” he said. “Well, Cairo, as you know, got in touch with me–I sent for him– after he left police headquarters the night–or morning–he was up here. We recognized the mutual advantage of pooling forces.” He directed his smile at the Levantine. “Mr. Cairo is a man of nice judgment. The Paloma was his thought. He saw the notice of its arrival in the papers that morning and remembered that he had heard in Hongkong that Jacobi and Miss O’Shaughnessy had been seen together. That was when he had been trying to find her there, and he thought at first that she had left on the Paloina, though later he learned that si-ic hadn’t. Weih, sir, when he saw the notice of arrival in the paper he guessed just what had happened: si-ic had given the bird to Jacobi to bring here for her. Jacobi did not know what it was, of course. Miss O’Shaughnessv is too discreet for that.”
He beamed at the girl, rocked his chair twice, and went on: “Mr. Cairo and Wilmer and I went to call on Captain Jacobi and were fortunate enough to arrive while Miss O’Shaughnessy w’as there. In many ways it was a difficult conference, but finally, by midnight w’e had persuaded Miss O’Shaughnessy to come to terms, or so we thought. We then left the boat and set out for my hotel, where I was to pay Miss O’Shaughnessy and receive the bird. Well, sir, we mere men should have known better than to suppose ourselves capable of coping with her. En route, she and Captain Jacobi and the falcon slipped completely through our fingers.” He laughed merrily. “By Gad, sir, it was neatly done.”
Spade looked at the girl. Her eyes, large and dark with pleading, met his. He asked Gutman: “You touched off the boat before you left?”
“Not intentionally, no, sir,” the fat n-ian replied, “though I dare say we–or Wilmer at least–were responsible for the fire. He had been out trying to find the falcon while the rest of us were talking in the cabin and no doubt was careless with matches.”
“That’s fine,” Spade said. “If any slip-up makes it necessary for us to try him for Jacobi’s murder we can also hang an arson-rap on him. All right. Now about the shooting.”
“Well, sir, we dashed around town all day trying to find them and we found them late this afternoon. We weren’t sure at first that we’d found them. All we were sure of was that we’d found Miss O’Shaughnessy’s apartment. But when we listened at the door we heard them moving around inside, so we were pretty confident we had them and rang the bell. ‘When she asked us who we were and we told her–through the door–we heard a window going up.
“We knew what that meant, of course; so Wilmer hurried downstairs as fast as he could and around to the rear of the building to cover the fire-escape. And when he turned into the alley he ran right plumb smack into Captain Jacobi running away with the falcon under his arm. That was a difficult situation to handle, but Wilmer did every bit as well as he could. He shot Jacobi–more than once–but Jacobi was too tough to either fall or drop the falcon, and he was too close for Wilmer to keep out of his way. He knocked Wilmer down and ran on. And this was in broad daylight, you understand, in the afternoon. When Wilmer got up he could see a policeman coming up from the block below. So he had to give it up. He dodged into the open back door of the building next the Coronet, through into the street, and then up to join us–and very fortunate he was, sir, to make it without being seen.