The Maltese Falcon (26 page)

“I’ll know a lot when I’m through.” Spade was patient but resolute. “This trick upsets things. I’ve got to find the answer. It won’t take long.” He touched the girl’s elbow. “Come on.”

In the bathroom Brigid O’Shaughnessy found words. She put her hands up flat on Spade’s chest and her face up close to his and whispered: “I did not take that bill, Sam.”

“I don’t think you did,” he said, “but I’ve got to know. Take your clothes off.”

“You won’t take my word for it?”

“No. Take your clothes off.”

“I won’t.”

“All right. We’ll go back to the other room and I’ll have them taken off.”

She stepped back with a hand to her mouth. Her eyes were round and horrified. “You would?” she asked through her fingers.

“I will,” he said. “I’ve got to know what happened to that bill and I’m not going to be held up by anybody’s maidenly modesty.”

“Oh, it isn’t that.” She came close to him and put her hands on his chest again. “I’m not ashamed to be naked before you, but—can’t you see?—not like this. Can’t you see that if you make me you’ll—you’ll be killing something?”

He did not raise his voice. “I don’t know anything about that. I’ve got to know what happened to the bill. Take them off.”

She looked at his unblinking yellow-grey eyes and her face became pink and then white again. She drew herself up tall and began to undress. He sat on the side of the bathtub watching her and the open door. No sound came from the living-room. She removed her clothes swiftly, without fumbling, letting them fall down on the floor around her feet. When she was naked she stepped back from her clothing and stood looking at him. In her mien was pride without defiance or embarrassment.

He put his pistols on the toilet-seat and, facing the door, went down on one knee in front of her garments. He picked up each piece and examined it with fingers as well as eyes. He did not find the thousand-dollar bill. When he had finished he stood up holding her clothes out in his hands to her. “Thanks,” he said. “Now I know.”

She took the clothing from him. She did not say anything. He picked up his pistols. He shut the bathroom door behind him and went into the living-room.

Gutman smiled amiably at him from the rocking chair. “Find it?” he asked.

Cairo, sitting beside the boy on the sofa, looked at Spade with questioning opaque eyes. The boy did not look up. He was leaning forward, head between hands, elbows on knees, staring at the floor between his feet.

Spade told Gutman: “No, I didn’t find it. You palmed it.”

The fat man chuckled. “I palmed it?”

“Yes,” Spade said, jingling the pistols in his hand. “Do you want to say so or do you want to stand for a frisk?”

“Stand for-?”

“You’re going to admit it,” Spade said, “or I’m going to search you. There’s no third way.”

Gutman looked up at Spade’s hard face and laughed outright. “By Gad, sir, I believe you would. I really do. You’re a character, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“You palmed it,” Spade said.

“Yes, sir, that I did.” The fat man took a crumpled bill from his vest-pocket, smoothed it on a wide thigh, took the envelope holding the nine bills from his coat-pocket, and put the smoothed bill in with the others. “I must have my little joke every now and then and I was curious to know what you’d do in a situation of that sort. I must say that you passed the test with flying colors, sir. It never occurred to me that you’d hit on such a simple and direct way of getting at the truth.”

Spade sneered at him without bitterness. “That’s the kind of thing I’d expect from somebody the punk’s age.”

Gutman chuckled.

Brigid O’Shaughnessy, dressed again except for coat and hat, came out of the bathroom, took a step towards the living-room, turned around, went to the kitchen, and turned on the light.

Cairo edged closer to the boy on the sofa and began whispering in his ear again. The boy shrugged irritably.

Spade, looking at the pistols in his hand and then at Gutman, went out into the passageway, to the closet there. He opened the door, put the pistols inside on the top of a trunk, shut the door, locked it, put the key in his trousers-pocket, and went to the kitchen door.

Brigid O’Shaughnessy was filling an aluminum percolator.

“Find everything?” Spade asked.

“Yes,” she replied in a cool voice, not raising her head. Then she set the percolator aside and came to the door. She blushed and
her eyes were large and moist and chiding. “You shouldn’t have done that to me, Sam,” she said softly.

“I had to find out, angel.” He bent down, kissed her mouth lightly, and returned to the living-room.

Gutman smiled at Spade and offered him the white envelope, saying: “This will soon be yours; you might as well
take
it now.”

Spade did not take it. He sat in the armchair and said: “There’s plenty of time for that. We haven’t done enough talking about the money-end. I ought to have more than ten thousand.”

Gutman said: “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money.”

Spade said: “You’re quoting me, but it’s not all the money in the world.”

“No, sir, it’s not. I grant you that. But it’s a lot of money to be picked up in as few days and as easily as you’re getting it.”

“You think it’s been so damned easy?” Spade asked, and shrugged. “Well, maybe, but that’s my business.”

“It certainly is,” the fat man agreed. He screwed up his eyes, moved his head to indicate the kitchen, and lowered his voice. “Are you sharing with her?”

Spade said: “That’s my business too.”

“It certainly is,” the fat man agreed once more, “but”—he hesitated—“I’d like to give you a word of advice.”

“Go ahead.”

“If you don’t—I dare say you’ll give her some money in any event, but—if you don’t give her as much as she thinks she ought to have, my word of advice is—be careful.”

Spade’s eyes held a mocking light. He asked: “Bad?”

“Bad,” the fat man replied.

Spade grinned and began to roll a cigarette.

Cairo, still muttering in the boy’s ear, had put his arm around the boy’s shoulders again. Suddenly the boy pushed his arm away and turned on the sofa to face the Levantine. The boy’s face held disgust and anger. He made a fist of one small hand and struck Cairo’s mouth with it. Cairo cried out as a woman might have cried
and drew back to the very end of the sofa. He took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and put it to his mouth. It came away daubed with blood. He put it to his mouth once more and looked reproachfully at the boy. The boy snarled, “Keep away from me,” and put his face between his hands again. Cairo’s handkerchief released the fragrance of
chypre
in the room.

Cairo’s cry’ had brought Brigid O’Shaughnessy to the door. Spade, grinning, jerked a thumb at the sofa and told her: “The course of true love. How’s the food coming along?”

“It’s coming,” she said and went back to the kitchen.

Spade lighted his cigarette and addressed Gutman: “Let’s talk about money.”

“Willingly, sir, with all my heart,” the fat man replied, “but I might as well tell you frankly right now that ten thousand is every cent I can raise.”

Spade exhaled smoke. “I ought to have twenty.”

“I wish you could. I’d give it to you gladly if I had it, but ten thousand dollars is every cent I can manage, on my word of honor. Of course, sir, you understand that is simply the first payment. Later—”

Spade laughed. “I know you’ll give me millions later,” he said, “but let’s stick to this first payment now. Fifteen thousand?”

Gutman smiled and frowned and shook his head. “Mr. Spade, I’ve told you frankly and candidly and on my word of honor as a gentleman that ten thousand dollars is all the money I’ve got—every penny—and all I can raise.”

“But you don’t say positively.”

Gutman laughed and said: “Positively.”

Spade said gloomily: “That’s not any too good, but if it’s the best you can do—give it to me.”

Gutman handed him the envelope. Spade counted the bills and was putting them in his pocket when Brigid O’Shaughnessy came in carrying a tray.

The boy would not eat. Cairo took a cup of coffee. The girl, Gutman, and Spade ate the scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and marmalade
she had prepared, and drank two cups of coffee apiece. Then they settled down to wait the rest of the night through.

Gutman smoked a cigar and read
Celebrated Criminal Cases of America,
now and then chuckling over or commenting on the parts of its contents that amused him. Cairo nursed his mouth and sulked on his end of the sofa. The boy sat with his head in his hands until a little after four o’clock. Then he lay down with his feet towards Cairo, turned his face to the window, and went to sleep. Brigid O’Shaughnessy, in the armchair, dozed, listened to the fat man’s comments, and carried on wide-spaced desultory conversations with Spade.

Spade rolled and smoked cigarettes and moved, without fidgeting or nervousness, around the room. He sat sometimes on an arm of the girl’s chair, on the table-corner, on the floor at her feet, on a straight-backed chair. He was wide-awake, cheerful, and full of vigor.

At half-past five he went into the kitchen and made more coffee. Half an hour later the boy stirred, awakened, and sat up yawning. Gutman looked at his watch and questioned Spade: “Can you get it now?”

“Give me another hour.”

Gutman nodded and went back to his book.

At seven o’clock Spade went to the telephone and called Effie Perine’s number. “Hello, Mrs. Perine? … This is Mr. Spade. Will you let me talk to Effie, please? … Yes, it is…. Thanks.” He whistled two lines of
En Cuba,
softly. “Hello, angel. Sorry to get you up…. Yes, very. Here’s the plot: in our Holland box at the Post Office you’ll find an envelope addressed in my scribble. There’s a Pickwick Stage parcel-room-check in it—for the bundle we got yesterday. Will you get the bundle and bring it to me—p. d. q.? … Yes, I’m home…. That’s the girl—hustle…. ’Bye.”

The street-doorbell rang at ten minutes of eight. Spade went to the telephone-box and pressed the button that released the lock. Gutman put down his book and rose smiling. “You don’t mind if I go to the door with you?” he asked.

“O K,” Spade told him.

Gutman followed him to the corridor-door. Spade opened it. Presently Effie Perine, carrying the brown-wrapped parcel, came from the elevator. Her boyish face was gay and bright and she came forward quickly, almost trotting. After one glance she did not look at Gutman. She smiled at Spade and gave him the parcel.

He took it saying: “Thanks a lot, lady. I’m sorry to spoil your day of rest, but this—”

“It’s not the first one you’ve spoiled,” she replied, laughing, and then, when it was apparent that he was not going to invite her in, asked: “Anything else?”

He shook his head. “No, thanks.”

She said, “Bye-bye,” and went back to the elevator.

Spade shut the door and carried the parcel into the living-room. Gutman’s face was red and his cheeks quivered. Cairo and Brigid O’Shaughnessy came to the table as Spade put the parcel there. They were excited. The boy rose, pale and tense, but he remained by the sofa, staring under curling lashes at the others.

Spade stepped back from the table saying: “There you are.”

Gutman’s fat fingers made short work of cord and paper and excelsior, and he had the black bird in his hands. “Ah,” he said huskily, “now, after seventeen years!” His eyes were moist.

Cairo licked his red lips and worked his hands together. The girl’s lower lip was between her teeth. She and Cairo, like Gutman, and like Spade and the boy, were breathing heavily. The air in the room was chilly and stale, and thick with tobacco smoke.

Gutman set the bird down on the table again and fumbled at a pocket. “It’s it,” he said, “but we’ll make sure.” Sweat glistened on his round cheeks. His fingers twitched as he took out a gold pocket-knife and opened it.

Cairo and the girl stood close to him, one on either side. Spade stood back a little where he could watch the boy as well as the group at the table.

Gutman turned the bird upside-down and scraped an edge of its base with his knife. Black enamel came off in tiny curl, exposing blackened metal beneath. Gutman’s knife-blade bit into the metal,
turning back a thin curved shaving. The inside of the shaving, and the narrow plane its removal had left, had the soft grey sheen of lead.

Gutman’s breath hissed between his teeth. His face became turgid with hot blood. He twisted the bird around and hacked at its head. There too the edge of his knife bared lead. He let knife and bird bang down on the table where he wheeled to confront Spade. “It’s a fake,” he said hoarsely.

Spade’s face had become somber. His nod was slow, but there was no slowness in his hand’s going out to catch Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s wrist. He pulled her to him and grasped her chin with his other hand, raising her face roughly. “All right,” he growled into her face. “You’ve had
your
little joke. Now tell us about it.”

She cried: “No, Sam, no! That is the one I got from Kemidov. I swear—”

Joel Cairo thrust himself between Spade and Gutman and began to emit words in a shrill spluttering stream: “That’s it! That’s it! It was the Russian! I should have known! What a fool we thought him, and what fools he made of us!” Tears ran down the Levantine’s cheeks and he danced up and down. “You bungled it!” he screamed at Gutman. “You and your stupid attempt to buy it from him! You fat fool! You let him know it was valuable and he found out how valuable and made a duplicate for us! No wonder we had so little trouble stealing it! No wonder he was so willing to send me off around the world looking for it! You imbecile! You bloated idiot!” He put his hands to his face and blubbered.

Gutman’s jaw sagged. He blinked vacant eyes. Then he shook himself and was—by the time his bulbs had stopped jouncing—again a jovial fat man. “Come, sir,” he said good-naturedly, “there’s no need of going on like that. Everybody errs at times and you may be sure this is every bit as severe a blow to me as to anyone else. Yes, that is the Russian’s hand, there’s no doubt of it. Well, sir, what do you suggest? Shall we stand here and shed tears and call each other names? Or shall we”—he paused and his smile was a cherub’s—“go to Constantinople?”