The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett [83]
“I’ll make out all right,” Spade replied.
“I was sure you would. Well, sir, the shortest farewells are the best. Adieu.” He made a portly bow. “And to you, Miss O’Shaughnessy, adieu. I leave you the rara avis on the table as a little memento.”
20
IF THEY HANG YOU
For all of five minutes after the outer door had closed behind Casper Gutman and Joel Cairo, Spade, motionless, stood staring at the knob of the open living-room-door. His eyes were gloomy under a forehead drawn down. The clefts at the root of his nose were deep and red. His lips protruded loosely, pouting. He drew them in to make a hard v and went to the telephone. He had not looked at Brigid O’Shaughnessy, who stood by the table looking with uneasy eyes at him.
He picked up the telephone, set it on its shelf again, and bent to look into the telephone-directory hanging from a corner of the shelf. He turned the pages rapidly until he found the one he wanted, ran his finger down a column, straightened up, and lifted the telephone from the shelf again. He called a number and said:
“Hello, is Sergeant Polhaus there? … Will you call him, please? This is Samuel Spade….” He stared into space, waiting. “Hello, Tom, I’ve got something for you…. Yes, plenty. Here it is: Thursby and Jacobi were shot by a kid named Wilmer Cook.” He described the boy minutely. “He’s working for a man named Casper Gutman.” He described Gutman. “That fellow Cairo you met here is in with them too…. Yes, that’s it…. Gutman’s staying at the Alexandria, suite twelve C, or was. They’ve just left here and they’re blowing town, so you’ll have to move fast, but I don’t think they’re expecting a pinch…. There’s a girl in it too—Gutman’s daughter.” He described Rhea Gutman. “Watch yourself when you go up against the kid. He’s supposed to be pretty good with the gun…. That’s right, Tom, and I’ve got some stuff here for you. I’ve got the guns he used…. That’s right. Step on it—and luck to you!”
Spade slowly replaced receiver on prong, telephone on shelf. He wet his lips and looked down at his hands. Their palms were wet. He filled his deep chest with air. His eyes were glittering between straightened lids. He turned and took three long swift steps into the living room.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy, startled by the suddenness of his approach, let her breath out in a little laughing gasp.
Spade, face to face with her, very close to her, tall, big-boned and thick-muscled, coldly smiling, hard of jaw and eye, said: “They’ll talk when they’re nailed—about us. We’re sitting on dynamite, and we’ve only got minutes to get set for the police. Give me all of it—fast. Gutman sent you and Cairo to Constantinople?”
She started to speak, hesitated, and bit her lip.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “God damn you, talk!” he said. “I’m in this with you and you’re not going to gum it. Talk. He sent you to Constantinople?”
“Y-yes, he sent me. I met Joe there and—and asked him to help me. Then we—”
“Wait. You asked Cairo to help you get it from Kemidov?”
“Yes.”
“For Gutman?”
She hesitated again, squirmed under the hard angry glare of his eyes, swallowed, and said: “No, not then. We thought we would get it for ourselves.”
“All right. Then?”
“Oh, then I began to be afraid that Joe wouldn’t play fair with me, so—so I asked Floyd Thursby to help me.”
“And he did. Well?”
“Well, we got it and went to Hongkong.”
“With Cairo? Or had you ditched him before that?”
“Yes. We left him in Constantinople, in jail—something about a check.”
“Something you fixed up to hold him there?”
She looked shamefacedly at Spade and whispered: “Yes.”
“Right. Now you and Thursby are in Hongkong with the bird.”
“Yes, and then—I didn’t know him very well—I didn’t know whether I could trust him. I thought it would be safer—anyway, I met Captain Jacobi and I knew his boat was coming here, so I asked him to bring a package for me—and that was the bird. I wasn’t sure I could trust Thursby, or that Joe or—or somebody working for Gutman might not be on the boat we came on