The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett [86]
Brigid O’Shaughnessy shrank back from him until the edge of the table stopped her. She looked at him with terrified eyes and cried: “Don’t—don’t talk to me like that, Sam! You know I didn’t! You know—”
“Stop it.” He looked at the watch on his wrist. “The police will be blowing in any minute now and we’re sitting on dynamite. Talk!”
She put the back of a hand on her forehead. “Oh, why do you accuse me of such a terrible—?”
“Will you stop it?” he demanded in a low impatient voice. “This isn’t the spot for the schoolgirl-act. Listen to me. The pair of us are sitting under the gallows.” He took hold of her wrists and made her stand up straight in front of him. “Talk!”
“I—I— How did you know he—he licked his lips and looked—?”
Spade laughed harshly. “I knew Miles. But never mind that. Why did you shoot him?”
She twisted her wrists out of Spade’s fingers and put her hands up around the back of his neck, pulling his head down until his mouth all but touched hers. Her body was flat against his from knees to chest. He put his arms around her, holding her tight to him. Her dark-lashed lids were half down over velvet eyes. Her voice was hushed, throbbing: “I didn’t mean to, at first. I didn’t, really. I meant what I told you, but when I saw Floyd couldn’t be frightened I—”
Spade slapped her shoulder. He said: “That’s a lie. You asked Miles and me to handle it ourselves. You wanted to be sure the shadower was somebody you knew and who knew you, so they’d go with you. You got the gun from Thursby that day—that night. You had already rented the apartment at the Coronet. You had trunks there and none at the hotel and when I looked the apartment over I found a rent-receipt dated five or six days before the time you told me you rented it.”
She swallowed with difficulty and her voice was humble. “Yes, that’s a lie, Sam. I did intend to if Floyd— I—I can’t look at you and tell you this, Sam.” She pulled his head farther down until her cheek was against his cheek, her mouth by his ear, and whispered: “I knew Floyd wouldn’t be easily frightened, but I thought that if he knew somebody was shadowing him either he’d— Oh, I can’t say it, Sam!” She clung to him, sobbing.
Spade said: “You thought Floyd would tackle him and one or the other of them would go down. If Thursby was the one then you were rid of him. If Miles was, then you could see that Floyd was caught and you’d be rid of him. That it?”
“S-something like that.”
“And when you found that Thursby didn’t mean to tackle him you borrowed the gun and did it yourself. Right?”
“Yes—though not exactly.”
“But exact enough. And you had that plan up your sleeve from the first. You thought Floyd would be nailed for the killing.”
“I—I thought they’d hold him at least until after Captain Jacobi had arrived with the falcon and—”
“And you didn’t know then that Gutman was here hunting for you. You didn’t suspect that or you wouldn’t have shaken your gunman. You knew Gutman was here as soon as you heard Thursby had been shot. Then you knew you needed another protector, so you came back to me. Right?”
“Yes, but—oh, sweetheart!—it wasn’t only that. I would have come back to you sooner or later. From the first instant I saw you I knew—”
Spade said tenderly: “You angel! Well, if you get a good break you’ll be out of San Quentin in twenty years and you can come back to me then.”
She took her cheek away from his, drawing her head far back to stare up without comprehension at him.
He was pale. He