Dashiell Hammett - The Adventures Of Sam Spade

Tom put down the telephone. “He got out the fifteenth of last month,” he said. “I got them trying to locate him.”

Spade went to the telephone, called a number, and asked for Mr. Darrell. Then: “Hello, Harry, this is Sam Spade. . . . Fine. How's Lil? . .. Yes. … Listen, Harry, what does a five-pointed star with a capital T in the middle mean? . . . What? How do you spell it? … Yes, I see. . . . And if you found it on a body? . . . Neither do I. … Yes, and thanks. I'll tell you about it when I see you. . . .Yes, give me a ring. . . . Thanks. . . . 'By.”

Dundy and Tom were watching him closely when he turned from the telephone. He said, “That's a fellow who knows things sometimes. He says it's a pentagram with a Greek tau—t-a-u—in the middle; a sign magicians used to use. Maybe Rosicrucians still do.”

“What's a Rosicrucian?” Tom asked.

“It could be Theodore's first initial, too,” Dundy said.

Spade moved his shoulders, said carelessly, “Yes, but if he wanted to autograph the job it'd been just as easy for him to sign his name.”

He then went on more thoughtfully, “There are Rosicrucians at both San Jose and Point Loma. I don't go much for this, but maybe we ought to look them up.”

Dundy nodded.

Spade looked at the dead man's clothes o'n the table. “Anything in his pockets?”

“Only what you'd expect to find,” Dundy replied. “It's on the table there.”

Spade went to the table and looked down at the little pile of watch and chain, keys, wallet, address book, money, gold pencil, handkerchief, and spectacle case beside the clothing. He did not touch them, but slowly picked up, one at a time, the dead man's shirt, undershirt, vest, and coat. A blue necktie lay on the table beneath them. He scowled irritably at it. “It hasn't been worn,” he complained.

Dundy, Tom, and the coroner's deputy, who had stood silent all this while by the window—he was a small man with a slim, dark, intelligent face—came together to stare down at the unwrinkled blue silk.

Tom groaned miserably. Dundy cursed under his breath. Spade lifted the necktie to look at its back. The label was a London haberdasher's.

Spade said cheerfully, “Swell. San Francisco, Point Loma, San Jose, Paris, London.”

Dundy glowered at him.

The gray-faced man came in. “The papers got here at three-thirty, all right,” he said. His eyes widened a little. “What's up?” As he crossed the room towards them he said, “I can't find anybody that saw Blondy sneak back in here again.” He looked uncomprehendingly at the necktie until Tom growled, “It's brand-new”; then he whistled softly.

Dundy turned to Spade. “The deuce with all this,” he said bitterly. “He's got a brother with reasons for not liking him. The brother just got out of stir. Somebody who looks like his brother left here at half past three. Twenty-five minutes later he phoned you he'd been threatened. Less than half an hour after that his daughter came in and found him dead—strangled.” He poked a finger at the small, dark-faced man's chest. “Right?”

“Strangled,” the dark-faced man said precisely, “by a man. The hands were large.”

“O. K.” Dundy turned to Spade again. “We find a threatening letter. Maybe that's what he was telling you about, maybe it was something his brother said to him. Don't let's guess. Let's stick to what we know. We know he—”

The man at the secretaire turned around and said, “Got another one.” His mien was somewhat smug.

The eyes with which the five men at the table looked at him were identically cold, unsympathetic.

He, nowise disturbed by their hostility, read aloud:

Dear Bliss:

I am writing this to tell you for the last time that I want my money back, and I want it back by the first of the month, all of it. If I don't get it I am going to do something about it, and you ought to be able to guess what I mean. And don't think I am kidding. Yours truly,

Daniel Talbot.”

He grinned. “That's another T for you.” He picked up an envelope. “Postmarked San Diego, the twenty-fifth of last month.” He grinned again. “And that's another city for you.”

Spade shook his head. “Point Loma's down that way,” he said.

He went over with Dundy to look at the letter. It was written in blue ink on white stationery of good quality, as was the address on the envelope, in a cramped, angular handwriting that seemed to have nothing in common with that of the penciled letter.

Spade said ironically, “Now we're getting somewhere.”

Dundy made an impatient gesture. “Let's stick to what we know,” he growled.

“Sure,” Spade agreed. “What is it?”

There was no reply.

Spade took tobacco and cigarette papers from his pocket. “Didn't somebody say something about talking to a daughter?” he asked.

“We'll talk to her.” Dundy turned on his heel, then suddenly frowned at the dead man on the floor. He jerked a thumb at the small, dark-faced man. “Through with it?”

“I'm through.”

Dundy addressed Tom curtly: “Get rid of it.” He addressed the gray-faced man: “I want to see both elevator boys when I'm finished with the girl.”

He went to the closed door Tom had pointed out to Spade and knocked on it.

A slightly harsh female voice within asked, “What is it?”

“Lieutenant Dundy. I want to talk to Miss Bliss.”

There was a pause; then the voice said, “Come in.”

Dundy opened the door and Spade followed him into a black, gray, and silver room, where a big-boned and ugly middle-aged woman in black dress and white apron sat beside a bed on which a girl lay.

The girl lay, elbow on pillow, cheek on hand, facing the big-boned, ugly woman. She was apparently about eighteen years old. She wore a gray suit. Her hair was blonde and short, her face firm-featured and remarkably symmetrical. She did not look at the two men coming into the room.

Dundy spoke to the big-boned woman, while Spade was lighting his cigarette: “We want to ask you a couple of questions, too, Mrs. Hooper. You're Bliss's housekeeper, aren't you?”

The woman said, “I am.” Her slightly harsh voice, the level gaze of her deep-set gray eyes, the stillness and size of her hands lying in her lap, all contributed to the impression she gave of resting strength.

“What do you know about this?”

“I don't know anything about it. I was let off this morning to go over to Oakland to my nephew's funeral, and when I got back you and the other gentlemen were here and—and this had happened.”

Dundy nodded, asked, “What do you think about it?”

“I don't know what to think,” she replied simply.

“Didn't you know he expected it to happen?”

Now the girl suddenly stopped watching Mrs. Hooper. She sat up in bed, turning wide, excited eyes on Dundy, and asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said. He'd been threatened. He called up Mr. Spade”—he indicated Spade with a nod—“and told him so just a few minutes before he was killed.”

“But who—?” she began.

“That's what we're asking you,” Dundy said. “Who had that much against him?”

She stared at him in astonishment. “Nobody would—“

This time Spade interrupted her, speaking with a soft ness that made his words seem less brutal than they were.

“Somebody did.” When she turned her stare on him he asked, “You don't know of any threats?”

She shook her head from side to side with emphasis.

He looked at Mrs. Hooper. “You?”

“No, sir,” she said.

He returned his attention to the girl. “Do you know Daniel Talbot?”

“Why, yes,” she said. “He was here for dinner last night.”