The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett [39]
She was not satisfied. “But he found it, or somebody did.”
“Sure.” He frowned at her feet. “I wonder if it could have been Cairo. He wasn’t at his hotel all night, didn’t get in till a few minutes ago. He told me he had been standing up under a police-grilling all night. I wonder.” He turned, opened the door, and asked Effie Perine: “Got Tom yet?”
“He’s not in. I’ll try again in a few minutes.”
“Thanks.” Spade shut the door and faced Brigid O’Shaughnessy.
She looked at him with cloudy eyes. “You went to see Joe this morning?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She hesitated. “Why?”
“Why?” He smiled down at her. “Because, my own true love, I’ve got to keep in some sort of touch with all the loose ends of this dizzy affair if I’m ever going to make heads or tails of it.” He put an arm around her shoulders and led her over to his swivel-chair. He kissed the tip of her nose lightly and set her down in the chair. He sat on the desk in front of her. He said: “Now we’ve got to find a new home for you, haven’t we?”
She nodded with emphasis. “I won’t go back there.”
He patted the desk beside his thighs and made a thoughtful face. “I think I’ve got it,” he said presently. “Wait a minute.” He went into the outer office, shutting the door.
Effie Perine reached for the telephone, saying: “I’ll try again.”
“Afterwards. Does your woman’s intuition still tell you that she’s a madonna or something?”
She looked sharply up at him. “I still believe that no matter what kind of trouble she’s gotten into she’s all right, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s what I mean,” he said. “Are you strong enough for her to give her a lift?”
“How?”
“Could you put her up for a few days?”
“You mean at home?”
“Yes. Her joint’s been broken into. That’s the second burglary she’s had this week. It’d be better for her if she wasn’t alone. It would help a lot of you could take her in.”
Effie Perine leaned forward, asking earnestly: “Is she really in danger, Sam?”
“I think she is.”
She scratched her lip with a fingernail. “That would scare Ma into a green hemorrhage. I’ll have to tell her she’s a surprise-witness or something that you’re keeping under cover till the last minute.”
“You’re a darling,” Spade said. “Better take her out there now. I’ll get her key from her and bring whatever she needs over from her apartment. Let’s see. You oughtn’t to be seen leaving here together. You go home now. Take a taxi, but make sure you aren’t followed. You probably won’t be, but make sure. I’ll send her out in another in a little while, making sure she isn’t followed.”
11
THE FAT MAN
The telephone-bell was ringing when Spade returned to his office after sending Brigid O’Shaughnessy off to Effie Perine’s house. He went to the telephone.
“Hello … Yes, this is Spade…. Yes, I got it. I’ve been waiting to hear from you…. Who? … Mr. Gutman? Oh, yes, sure! … Now—the sooner the better…. Twelve C…. Right. Say fifteen minutes…. Right.”
Spade sat on the corner of his desk beside the telephone and rolled a cigarette. His mouth was a hard complacent v. His eyes, watching his fingers make the cigarette, smoldered over lower lids drawn up straight.
The door opened and Iva Archer came in.
Spade said, Hello, honey,” in a voice as lightly amiable as his face had suddenly become.
“Oh, Sam, forgive me! forgive me!” she cried in a choked voice. She stood just inside the door, wadding a black-bordered handkerchief in her small gloved hands, peering into his face with frightened red and swollen eyes.
He did not get up from his seat on the desk-corner. He said: “Sure. That’s all right. Forget it.”
“But, Sam,” she wailed, “I sent those policemen there. I was mad, crazy with jealousy, and I phoned them that if they’d go there they’d learn something about Miles’s murder.”
“What made you think that?”
“Oh, I didn’t! But I was mad, Sam, and I wanted to hurt you.”
“It made things damned awkward.