The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett [60]
Spade went to his office.
A swart greasy man in notable clothes was waiting in the outer room. Effie Perine, indicating the swart man, said: “This gentleman wishes to see you, Mr. Spade.”
Spade smiled and bowed and opened the inner door. “Come in.” Before following the man in Spade asked Effie Perine: “Any news on that other matter?”
“No, sir.”
The swart man was the proprietor of a moving-picture-theater in Market Street. He suspected one of his cashiers and a doorman of colluding to defraud him. Spade hurried him through the story, promised to “take care of it,” asked for and received fifty dollars, and got rid of him in less than half an hour.
When the corridor-door had closed behind the showman Effie Perine came into the inner office. Her sunburned face was worried and questioning. “You haven’t found her yet?” she asked.
He shook his head and went on stroking his bruised temple lightly in circles with his fingertips.
“How is it?” she asked.
“All right, but I’ve got plenty of headache.”
She went around behind him, put his hand down, and stroked his temple with her slender fingers. He leaned back until the back of his head over the chair-top rested against her breast. He said: “You’re an angel.”
She bent her head forward over his and looked down into his face. “You’ve got to find her, Sam. It’s more than a day and she—”
He stirred and impatiently interrupted her: “I haven’t got to do anything, but if you’ll let me rest this damned head a minute or two I’ll go out and find her.”
She murmured, “Poor head,” and stroked it in silence awhile. Then she asked: “You know where she is? Have you any idea?”
The telephone-bell rang. Spade picked up the telephone and said: “Hello…. Yes, Sid, it came out all right, thanks…. No…. Sure. He got snotty, but so did I…. He’s nursing a gambler’s-war pipe-dream…. Well, we didn’t kiss when we parted. I declared my weight and walked out on him…. That’s something for you to worry about…. Right. ’Bye.” He put the telephone down and leaned back in his chair again.
Effie Perine came from behind him and stood at his side. She demanded: “Do you think you know where she is, Sam?”
“I know where she went,” he replied in a grudging tone.
“Where?” She was excited.
“Down to the boat you saw burning.”
Her eyes opened until their brown was surrounded by white. “You went down there.” It was not a question.
“I did not,” Spade said.
“Sam,” she cried angrily, “she may be—”
“She went down there,” he said in a surly voice. “She wasn’t taken. She went down there instead of to your house when she learned the boat was in. Well, what the hell? Am I supposed to run around after my clients begging them to let me help them?”
“But, Sam, when I told you the boat was on fire!”
“That was at noon and I had a date with Polhaus and another with Bryan.”
She glared at him between tightened lids. “Sam Spade,” she said, “you’re the most contemptible man God ever made when you want to be. Because she did something without confiding in you you’d sit here and do nothing when you know she’s in danger, when you know she might be—”
Spade’s face flushed. He said stubbornly: “She’s pretty capable of taking care of herself and she knows where to come for help when she thinks she needs it, and when it suits her.”
“That’s spite,” the girl cried, “and that’s all it is! You’re sore because she did something on her own hook, without telling you. Why shouldn’t she? You’re not so damned honest, and you haven’t been so much on the level with her, that she should trust you completely.”
Spade said: “That’s enough of that.”
His tone brought a brief uneasy glint into her hot eyes, but she tossed her head and the glint vanished. Her mouth was drawn taut and small. She said: “If you don’t go down there this very minute, Sam, I will and I’ll take the police down there.” Her voice trembled, broke, and was thin and wailing. “Oh, Sam, go!”
He stood up cursing her. Then he said: “Christ!