THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett

Gutman set the bird down on the table again and fumbled at a pocket. “It’s it,” he said, “but we’ll make sure.” Sweat glistened on his round cheeks. His fingers twitched as he took out a gold pocket-knife and opened it.

Cairo and the girl stood close to him, one on either side. Spade stood back a little where he could watch the boy as well as the group at the table.

Gutman turned the bird upside-down and scraped an edge of its base with his knife. Black enamel came off in tiny curls, exposing blackened metal beneath. Gutman’s knife-blade bit into the metal, turning back a thin curved shrnving. The inside of the shaving, and the narrow plane its removal had heft, had the soft grey sheen of lead.

Gutman’s breath hissed between his teeth. His face became turgid with hot blood. He twisted the bird around and hacked at its head. There too the edge of his knife bared lead. He let knife and bird bang down on the table while he wheeled to confront Spade. “It’s a fake,” he said hoarsely.

Spade’s face had become somber. His nod was slow, but there was no slowness in his hand’s going out to catch Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s wrist. He pulled her to him and grasped her chin with his other hand, raising her face roughly. “All right,” he growled into her face. “You’ve had your little joke. Now teil us about it.”

She cried: “No, Sam, no! That is the one I got from Kemidov. I swear–”

Joel Cairo thrust himself between Spade and Gutman and began to emit words in a shrill spluttering stream: “That’s it! That’s it! It was the Russian! I should have known! What a fool we thought him, and what fools he made of us!” Tears ran down the Levantine’s cheeks and he danced up and down. “You bungled it!” he screamed at Gutman. “You and your stupid attempt to buy it from him! You fat fool! You let him know it was valuable and he found out how valuable and made a duplicate for us! No wonder we had so little troubic stealing it! No wonder ie w’as so willing to send me off around the world looking for it! You imbecile! You bloated idiot!” He put his hands to his face and blubbered.

Gutman’s jaw sagged. He blinked vacant eyes. Then he shook himself and was–by the time his bulbs had stopped jouncing–again a jovial fat man. “Come, sir,” he said good-naturedly, “there’s no need of going on like that. Everybody errs at times and you may be sure this is every bit as severe a blow to me as to anyone else. Yes, that is the Russian’s hand, there’s no doubt of it. Well, sir, what do you suggest? Shall we stand here and shed tears and call each other names? Or shall we”–hc paused and his smile was a cherub’s–“go to Constantinople?”

Cairo took his hands from his face and his eyes bulged. He stammered: “You arc–?” Amazement coming with-i full comprehension made him speechless.

Gutman patted his fat hands together. His eyes twinkled. His voice was a complacent throaty purring: “For seventeen years I have wanted that little item and have been trying to get it. If I must spend another year on the quest–well, sir–that will be an additional expenditure in time of only”–his lips moved silently as he calculated–“five and fifteenseventcenths per cent.”

The Levantine giggled and cried: “I go with you!”

Spade suddenly released the girl’s wrist and hooked around the room. The boy was not there. Spade went into the passageway. The corridor-door stood open. Spade made a dissatisfied mouth, shut the door, and returned to the living-room. He leaned against the door-frame and looked at Gutman and Cairo. He looked at Gutinan for a long time, sourly. Then he spoke, mimicking the fat man’s throaty purr: “Well, sir, I must say you’re a swell lot of thieves!”

Gutman chuckled. “We’ve little enough to boast about, and that’s a fact, sir,” he said. “But, well, we’re none of us dead yet and there’s not a bit of use thinking the world’s come to an end just because we’ve run into a little setback.” He brought his left hand from behind him and held it out towards Spade, pink smooth hilly palm up. “I’ll have to ask you for that envelope, sir.”

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