The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett [86]
“But—but, Sam, you can’t! Not after what we’ve been to each other. You can’t—”
“Like hell I can’t.”
She took a long trembling breath. “You’ve been playing with me? Only pretending you cared—to trap me like this? You didn’t—care at all? You didn’t—don’t—l-love me?”
“I think I do,” Spade said. “What of it?” The muscles holding his smile in place stood out like wales. “I’m not Thursby. I’m not Jacobi. I won’t play the sap for you.”
“That is not just,” she cried. Tears came to her eyes. “It’s unfair. It’s contemptible of you. You know it was not that. You can’t say that.”
“Like hell I can’t,” Spade said. “You came into my bed to stop me asking questions. You led me out yesterday for Gutman with that phoney call for help. Last night you came here with them and waited outside for me and came in with me. You were in my arms when the trap was sprung—I couldn’t have gone for a gun if I’d had one on me and couldn’t have made a fight of it if I had wanted to. And if they didn’t take you away with them it was only because Gutman’s got too much sense to trust you except for short stretches when he has to and because he thought I’d play the sap for you and—not wanting to hurt you—wouldn’t be able to hurt him.”
Brigid O’Shaughnessy blinked her tears away. She took a step towards him and stood looking him in the eyes, straight and proud. “You called me a liar,” she said. “Now you are lying. You’re lying if you say you don’t know down in your heart that, in spite of anything I’ve done, I love you.”
Spade made a short abrupt bow. His eyes were becoming bloodshot, but there was no other change in his damp and yellowish fixedly smiling face. “Maybe I do,” he said. “What of it? I should trust you? You who arranged that nice little trick for—for my predecessor, Thursby? You who knocked off Miles, a man you had nothing against, in cold blood, just like swatting a fly, for the sake of double-crossing Thursby? You who double-crossed Gutman, Cairo, Thursby—one, two, three? You who’ve never played square with me for half an hour at a stretch since I’ve know you? I should trust you? No, no, darling. I wouldn’t do it even if I could. Why should I?”
Her eyes were steady under his and her hushed voice was steady when she replied: “Why should you? If you’ve been playing with me, if you do not love me, there is no answer to that. If you did, no answer would be needed.”
Blood streaked Spade’s eyeballs now and his long-held smile had become a frightful grimace. He cleared his throat huskily and said: “Making speeches is no damned good now.” He put a hand on her shoulder. The hand shook and jerked. “I don’t care who loves who I’m not going to play the sap for you. I won’t walk in Thursby’s and Christ knows who else’s footsteps. You killed Miles and you’re going over for it. I could have helped you by letting the others go and standing off the police the best way I could. It’s too late for that now. I can’t help you now. And I wouldn’t if I could.”
She put a hand on his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t help me then,” she whispered, “but don’t hurt me. Let me go away now.”
“No,” he said. “I’m sunk if I haven’t got you to hand over to the police when they come. That’s the only thing that can keep me from going down with the others.”
“You won’t do that for me?”
“I won’t play the sap for you.”
“Don’t say that, please.” She took his hand from her shoulder and held it to her face. “Why must you do this to me, Sam? Surely Mr. Archer wasn’t as much to you as—”
“Miles,” Spade said hoarsely, “was a son of a bitch. I found that out the first week we were in business together and I meant to kick him out as soon as the year was up. You didn’t do me a damned bit of harm by killing him.”
“Then what?”
Spade pulled his hand out of hers. He no longer either smiled or grimaced. His wet yellow face was set hard and deeply lined. His eyes burned madly. He said: “Listen. This isn’t a damned bit of good. You