“Like hell he didn’t,” Spade said merrily. “He came up here with his mouth watering, though you’d have sense enough to know I’d been stringing Gutman.”
“Cut it out,” Tom grumbled again, looking uneasily sidewise at his superior. “Anyways we got it from Cairo. Gutman’s dead. The kid had just finished shooting him up when we got there.”
Spade nodded. “He ought to have expected that,” he said.
Effie Perine put down her newspaper and jumped out of Spade’s chair when he came into the office at a little after nine o’clock Monday morning.
He said: “Morning, angel.”
“Is that–what the papers have–right?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” He dropped his hat on the desk and sat down. His face was pasty in color, but its lines were strong and cheerful and his eyes, though still somewhat red-veined, were clear.
The girl’s brown eyes were peculiarly enlarged and there was a queer twist to her mouth. She stood beside him, staring down at him.
He raised his head, grinned, and said mockingly: “So much for your woman’s intuition.”
Her voice was queer as the expression on her face. “You did that, Sam, to her?”
He nodded. “Your Sam’s a detective.” He looked sharply at her. He put his arm around her waist, his hand on her hip. “She did kill Miles, angel,” he said gently, “offhand, like that.” He snapped the fingers of his other hand.
She escaped from his arm as if it had hurt her. “Don’t, please, don’t touch me,” she said brokenly. “I know–I know you’re right. You’re right. But don’t touch me now–not now.”
Spade’s face became pale as his collar.
The corridor-door’s knob rattled. Effie Perine turned quickly and went into the outer office, shutting time door behind her. When she came in again she shut it behind her.
She said in a small flat voice: “Iva is here.”
Spade, looking down at his desk, nodded almost imperceptibly. “Yes,” he said, and shivered. “Well, send her in.”