Tom grunted disgust. Lieutenant Dundy said: “He was shot four times in the back, with a forty-four or forty-five, from across the street, when he started to go in the hotel. Nobody saw it, but that’s the way it figures.”
“And he was wearing a Luger in a shoulder-holster,” Tom added. “It hadn’t been fired.”
“What do the hotel-people know about him?” Spade asked.
“Nothing except that he’d been there a week.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“What did you find on him? or in his room?”
Dundy drew his lips in and asked: “What’d you think we’d find?”
Spade made a careless circle with his limp cigarette. “Something to tell you who he was, what his story was. Did you?”
“We thought you could tell us that.”
Spade looked at the Lieutenant with yellow-grey eyes that held an almost exaggerated amount of candor. “I’ve never seen Thursby, dead or alive.”
Lieutenant Dundy stood up looking dissatisfied. Tom rose yawning and stretching. “We’ve asked what we came to ask,” Dundy said, frowning over eyes hard as green pebbles. He held his mustached upper lip tight to his teeth, letting his lower lip push the words out. “We’ve told you more than you’ve told us. That’s fair enough. You know me, Spade. If you did or you didn’t you’ll get a square deal out of me, and most of the breaks. I don’t know that I’d blame you a hell of a lot–but that wouldn’t keep me from nailing you.”
“Fair enough,” Spade replied evenly. “But I’d feel better about it if you’d drink your drink.”
Lieutenant Dundy turned to the table, picked up his glass, and slowly emptied it. Then he said, “Good night,” and held out his hand. They shook hands ceremoniously. Tom and Spade shook hands ceremoniously. Spade let them out. Then he undressed, turned off the lights, and went to bed.
III.
Three Women
When Spade reached his office at ten o’clock the following morning Effie Perine was at her desk opening the morning’s mail. Her boyish face was pale under its sunburn. She put down the handful of envelopes and the brass paper-knife she held and said: “She’s in there.” Her voice was low and warning.
“I asked you to keep her away,” Spade complained. He too kept his voice low.
Effie Perine’s brown eyes opened wide and her voice was irritable as his: “Yes, but you didn’t tell me how.” Her eyelids went together a little and her shoulders drooped. “Don’t be cranky, Sam,” she said wearily. “I had her all night.”
Spade stood beside the girl, put a hand on her head, and smoothed her hair away from its parting. “Sorry, angel, I haven’t–” He broke off as the inner door opened. “Hello, Iva,” he said to the woman who had opened it.
“Oh, Sam!” she said. She was a blonde woman of a few more years than thirty. Her facial prettiness was perhaps five years past its best moment. Her body for all its sturdiness was finely modeled and exquisite. She wore black clothes from hat to shoes. They had as mourning an impromptu air. Having spoken, she stepped back from the door and stood waiting for Spade.
He took his hand from Effie Perine’s head and entered the inner office, shutting the door. Iva came quickly to him, raising her sad face for his kiss. Her arms were around him before his held her. When they had kissed he made a little movement as if to release her, but she pressed her face to his chest and began sobbing.
He stroked her round back, saying: “Poor darling.” His voice was tender. His eyes, squinting at the desk that had been his partner’s, across the room from his own, were angry. He drew his lips back over his teeth in an impatient grimace and turned his chin aside to avoid contact with the crown of her hat. “Did you send for Miles’s brother?” he asked.
“Yes, he came over this morning.” The words were blurred by her sobbing and his coat against her mouth.
He grimaced again and bent his head for a surreptitious look at the watch on his wrist. His left arm was around her, the hand on her left shoulder. His cuff was pulled back far enough to leave the watch uncovered. It showed ten-ten.