THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett

Spade slowly replaced receiver on prong, telephone on shelf. He wet his lips and hooked down at his hands. Their palms were wet. He filledhis deep chest with air. His eyes were glittering between straightened lids.. He turned and took three long swift steps into the living-room.

Brigid O’Shaughnessy, startled by the suddenness of his approach, let her breath out in a little laughing gasp.

Spade, face to face with her, very close to her, tail, big-boned and thick-muscled, coldly smiling, hard of jaw and eye, said: “They’ll talk when they’re nailed–about us. We’re sitting on dynamite, and we’ve only got minutes to get set for the police. Give me all of it–fast. Gutman sent you and Cairo to Constantinople?”

She started to speak, hesitated, and bit her lip.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “God damn you, talk!” he said. “I’m in this with you and you’re not going to gum it. Talk. He sent you to Constantinople?”

“Y-yes, he sent me. I met Joe there and–and asked him to help me. Then we–”

“Wait. You asked Cairo to help you get it from Kemidov?”

“Yes.”

“For Gutman?”

She hesitated again, squirmed under the hard angry glare of his eyes, swallowed, and said: “No, not then. We thought we would get it for ourselves.”

“All right. Then?”

“Oh, then I began to be afraid that Joe wouldn’t play fair with me, so–so I asked Floyd Thursby to help me.”

“And he did. Well?”

“Well, we got it and went to Hongkong.”

“With Cairo? Or had you ditched him before that?”

“Yes. We left him in Constantinople, in jail–something about a check.”

“Something you fixed up to hold him there?”

She looked shamefacedly at Spade and whispered: “Yes.”

“Right. Now you and Thursby arc in Hongkong with the bird.”

“Yes, and then–I didn’t know him very well–I didn’t know whether I could trust him. I though-it it would be safer–anyway, I met Captain Jacobi and I knew his boat was coming here, so I asked him to bring a package for me–and that was the bird. I wasn’t sure I could trust Thursby, or that Joe or–or somebody working for Gutman might not be on the boat we came on–and that seemed the safest plan.”

“All right. Then you and Thursby caught one of the fast boats over. Then what?”

“Then–thien I was afraid of Gutman. I knew he had people–connections–everywhere, and he’d soon know what we had done. And I was afraid he’d have learned that we had left Hongkong for San Francisco. He was in New York and I knew’ if he heard that by cable he would have phenty of time to get here by the time we did, or before. He did. I didn’t know that then, but I was afraid of it, and I had to wait here until Captain Jacobi’s boat arrived. And I was afraid Gutman wouhd find me–or find Floyd and buy him over. That’s why I came to you and asked you to watch him for–”

“That’s a lie,” Spade said. “You had Thursby hooked and you knew it. He was a sucker for women. His record shows that–the only falls he took were over women. Am-id once a chump, always a chump. Maybe you didn’t know’ his record, but you’d know you had him safe.”

She blushed and looked timidly at him.

He said: “You wanted to get him out of the way before Jacobi came with the loot. What was your schenic?”

“I–I knew he’d left tfie States with a gambler after some trouble. I didn’t know what it was. but I thought that if it was anything serious and he saw a detective watching him he’d think it was on account of the old trouble, and would be frightened into going away. I didn’t think–”

“You told him he was being shadowed,” Spade said confidently. “Miles hadn’t many brains, but he wasn’t clumsy enough to be spotted the first night.”

“I told him, yes. Whcn we went out for a walk that night I pretended to discover Mr. Archer following us and pointed him out to Floyd.” She sobbed. “But please believe, Sam, that I wouldn’t have done it if I had thought Floyd would kill him. I thought he’d be frightened into leaving the city. I didn’t for a minute think he’d shoot him like that.”

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