The Maltese falcon Read Free Page A

and found him."
    "What about the machine that was turning around?"
    "Not a damned thing about it, Sam. Shilling didn't pay any attention to it, not knowing anything was wrong then. He says nobody didn't come out of here while he was coming down from Powell or he'd've seen them. The only other way out would be under the billboard on Stockton. Nobody went that way. The fog's got the ground soggy, and the only marks are where Miles slid down and where this here gun rolled."
    "Didn't anybody hear the shot?"
    "For the love of God, Sam, we only just got here. Somebody must've heard it, when we find them." He turned and put a leg over the fence. "Coming down for a look at him before he's moved?"
    Spade said: "No."
    Tom halted astride the fence and looked back at Spade with surprised small eyes.
    Spade said: "You've seen him. You'd see everything I could."
    Tom, still looking at Spade, nodded doubtfully and withdrew his leg over the fence. "His gun was tucked away on his hip," he said. "It hadn't been fired. His overcoat was buttoned. There's a hundred and sixty-some bucks in his clothes. Was he working, Sam?"
    Spade, after a moment's hesitation, nodded.
    Tom asked: "Well?"
    "He was supposed to be tailing a fellow named Floyd Thursby," Spade said, and described Thursby as Miss Wonderly had described him.
    "What for?"
    Spade put his hands into his overcoat-pockets and blinked sleepy eyes at Tom. Tom repeated impatiently: "What for?"
    "He was an Englishman, maybe. I don't know what his game was, exactly. We were trying to find out where he lived." Spade grinned faintly and took a hand from his pocket to pat Tom's shoulder. "Don't crowd me" He put the hand in his pocket again. "I'm going out to break the news to Miles's wife." He turned away.
    Tom, scowling, opened his mouth, closed it without having said anything, cleared his throat, put the scowl off his face, and spoke with a husky sort of gentleness: "It's tough, him getting it like that. Miles had his faults same as the rest of us, but I guess he must've had some good points too."
    "I guess so," Spade agreed in a tone that was utterly meaningless, and went out of the alley.
    In an all-night drug-store on the corner of Bush and Taylor Streets, Spade used a telephone.
    "Precious," he said into it a little while after he had given a number, "Miles has been shot Yes, he's dead… Now don't get excited… Yes… You'll have to break it to Iva… No, I'm damned if I will. You've got to do it… That's a good girl… And keep her away from the office… Tell her I'll see her-uh-some time… Yes, but don't tie me up to anything… That's the stuff. You're an angel. 'Bye."
    Spade's tinny alarm-clock said three-forty when he turned on the light in the suspended bowl again. He dropped his hat and overcoat on the bed and went into his kitchen, returning to the bedroom with a wineglass and a tall bottle of Bacardi. He poured a drink and drank it standing. He put bottle and glass on the table, sat on the side of the bed facing them, and rolled a cigarette. He had drunk his third glass of Bacardi and was lighting his fifth cigarette when the street-door-bell rang. The hands of the alarm-clock registered four-thirty. Spade sighed, rose from the bed, and went to the telephone-box beside his bathroom door. He pressed the button that released the streetdoor-lock. He muttered, "Damn her," and stood scowling at the black telephone-box, breathing irregularly while a dull flush grew in his cheeks.
    The grating and rattling of the elevator-door opening and closing came from the corridor. Spade sighed again and moved towards the corridor-door. Soft heavy footsteps sounded on the carpeted floor outside, the footsteps of two men. Spade's face brightened. His eyes were no longer harassed. He opened the door quickly. "Hello, Tom," he said to the barrel-bellied tall detective with whom he had talked in Burritt Street, and, "Hello, Lieutenant," to the man beside Tom. "Come in."
    They nodded together, neither