Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett) - illustrated - (Literary Thoughts Edition)

“Thanks, Freed. Were you talking to him?”

“No. He was sitting in the lobby when I came in early in the evening. I didn’t stop. I thought he was probably working and I know you fellows like to be left alone when you’re busy. Did that have anything to do with his—?”

“I don’t think so, but we don’t know yet. Anyway, we won’t mix the house up in it if it can be helped.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s all right. Can you give me some dope on an ex-guest, and then forget that I asked for it?”

“Surely.”

“A Miss Wonderly checked out this morning. I’d like to know the details.”

“Come along,” Freed said, “and we’ll see what we can learn.”

Spade stood still, shaking his head. “I don’t want to show in it.”

Freed nodded and went out of the alcove. In the lobby he halted suddenly and came back to Spade.

“Harriman was the house-detective on duty last night,” he said. “He’s sure to have seen Archer. Shall I caution him not to mention it?”

Spade looked at Freed from the corners of his eyes. “Better not. That won’t make any difference as long as there’s no connection shown with this Wonderly. Harriman’s all right, but he likes to talk, and I’d as lief not have him think there’s anything to be kept quiet.”

Freed nodded again and went away. Fifteen minutes later he returned.

“She arrived last Tuesday, registering from New York. She hadn’t a trunk, only some bags. There were no phone-calls charged to her room, and she doesn’t seem to have received much, if any, mail. The only one anybody remembers having seen her with was a tall dark man of thirty-six or so. She went out at half-past nine this morning, came back an hour later, paid her bill, and had her bags carried out to a car. The boy who carried them says it was a Nash touring car, probably a hired one. She left a forwarding address—the Ambassador, Los Angeles.”

Spade said, “Thanks a lot, Freed,” and left the St. Mark.

When Spade returned to his office Effie Perine stopped typing a letter to tell him: “Your friend Dundy was in. He wanted to look at your guns.”

“And?”

“I told him to come back when you were here.”

“Good girl. If he comes back again let him look at them.”

“And Miss Wonderly called up.”

“It’s about time. What did she say?”

“She wants to see you.” The girl picked up a slip of paper from her desk and read the memorandum penciled on it: “She’s at the Coronet, on California Street, apartment one thousand and one. You’re to ask for Miss Leblanc.”

Spade said, “Give me,” and held out his hand. When she had given him the memorandum he took out his lighter, snapped on the flame, set it to the slip of paper, held the paper until all but one corner was curling black ash, dropped it on the linoleum floor, and mashed it under his shoesole.

The girl watched him with disapproving eyes.

He grinned at her, said, “That’s just the way it is, dear,” and went out again.

Miss Wonderly, in a belted green crêpe silk dress, opened the door of apartment 1001 at the Coronet. Her face was flushed. Her dark red hair, parted on the left side, swept back in loose waves over her right temple, was somewhat tousled.

Spade took off his hat and said: “Good morning.”

His smile brought a fainter smile to her face. Her eyes, of blue that was almost violet, did not lose their troubled look. She lowered her head and said in a hushed, timid voice: “Come in, Mr. Spade.”

She led him past open kitchen-, bathroom-, and bedroom-doors into a cream and red living-room, apologizing for its confusion: “Everything is upside-down. I haven’t even finished unpacking.”

She laid his hat on a table and sat down on a walnut settee. He sat on a brocaded oval-backed chair facing her.

She looked at her fingers, working them together, and said: “Mr. Spade, I’ve a terrible, terrible confession to make.”

Spade smiled a polite smile, which she did not lift her eyes to see, and said nothing.

“That—that story I told you yesterday was all—a story,” she stammered, and looked up at him now with miserable frightened eyes.

“Oh, that,” Spade said lightly. “We didn’t exactly believe your story.”

“Then—?” Perplexity was added to the misery and fright in her eyes.

“We believed your two hundred dollars.”

“You mean—?” She seemed to not know what he meant.

“I mean that you paid us more than if you’d been telling the truth,” he explained blandly, “and enough more to make it all right.”

Her eyes suddenly lighted up. She lifted herself a few inches from the settee, settled down again, smoothed her skirt, leaned forward, and spoke eagerly: “And even now you’d be willing to—?”

Spade stopped her with a palm-up motion of one hand. The upper part of his face frowned. The lower part smiled. “That depends,” he said. “The hell of it is, Miss—— Is your name Wonderly or Leblanc?”

She blushed and murmured: “It’s really O’Shaughnessy—Brigid O’Shaughnessy.”

“The hell of it is, Miss O’Shaughnessy, that a couple of murders”—she winced—“coming together like this get everybody stirred up, make the police think they can go the limit, make everybody hard to handle and expensive. It’s not—”

He stopped talking because she had stopped listening and was waiting for him to finish.

“Mr. Spade, tell me the truth.” Her voice quivered on the verge of hysteria. Her face had become haggard around desperate eyes. “Am I to blame for—for last night?”

Spade shook his head. “Not unless there are things I don’t know about,” he said. “You warned us that Thursby was dangerous. Of course you lied to us about your sister and all, but that doesn’t count: we didn’t believe you.” He shrugged his sloping shoulders. “I wouldn’t say it was your fault.”

She said, “Thank you,” very softly, and then moved her head from side to side. “But I’ll always blame myself.” She put a hand to her throat. “Mr. Archer was so—so alive yesterday afternoon, so solid and hearty and—”

“Stop it,” Spade commanded. “He knew what he was doing. They’re the chances we take.”

“Was—was he married?”

“Yes, with ten thousand insurance, no children, and a wife who didn’t like him.”

“Oh, please don’t!” she whispered.

Spade shrugged again. “That’s the way it was.” He glanced at his watch and moved from his chair to the settee beside her. “There’s no time for worrying about that now.” His voice was pleasant but firm. “Out there a flock of policemen and assistant district attorneys and reporters are running around with their noses to the ground. What do you want to do?”

“I want you to save me from—from it all,” she replied in a thin tremulous voice. She put a timid hand on his sleeve. “Mr. Spade, do they know about me?”

“Not yet. I wanted to see you first.”

“What—what would they think if they knew about the way I came to you—with those lies?”

“It would make them suspicious. That’s why I’ve been stalling them till I could see you. I thought maybe we wouldn’t have to let them know all of it. We ought to be able to fake a story that will rock them to sleep, if necessary.”

“You don’t think I had anything to do with the—the murders—do you?”

Spade grinned at her and said: “I forgot to ask you that. Did you?”

“No.”

“That’s good. Now what are we going to tell the police?”

She squirmed on her end of the settee and her eyes wavered between heavy lashes, as if trying and failing to free their gaze from his. She seemed smaller, and very young and oppressed.