Teal to shadow him. Then he had told Whitacre that he had received a tip from his friend in Washington that an investigation was about to be made. The two partners planned to leave town on their separate ways the following week. The next night Mae Landis told Whitacre she had seen a man loitering in the neighborhood, apparently watching the building in which they lived. Whitacre – thinking Bob a Post Office inspector – had gone completely to pieces, and it had taken the combined efforts of the woman and his partner – apparently working separately – to keep him from bolting immediately. They persuaded him to stick it out another few days.
On the night of the murder, Ogburn, pretending scepticism of Whitacre’s story about being followed, had met Whitacre for the purpose of learning if he really was being shadowed. They had walked the streets in the rain for an hour. Then Ogburn, convinced, had announced his intention of going back and talking to the supposed Post Office inspector, to see if he could be bribed. Whitacre had refused to accompany his partner, but had agreed to wait for him in a dark doorway.
Ogburn had taken Bob Teal over behind the billboards on some pretext, and had murdered him. Then he had hurried back to his partner, cryirig: “My God! He grabbed me and I shot him. We’ll have to leave!”
Whitacre, in blind panic, had left San Francisco without stopping for his bags or even notifying Mae Landis. Ogburn was supposed to leave by another route. They were to meet in Oklahoma City ten days later, where Ogburn – after getting the loot out of the Los Angeles banks where he had deposited it under various names – was to give Whitacre his share, and then they were to part for good.
In Sacramento next day Whitacre had read the newspapers, and had understood what had been done to him. He had done all the bookkeeping; all the false entries in Ogburn & Whitacre’s books were in his writing. Mae Landis had revealed his former criminal record, and had fastened the ownership of the gun – really Ogburn’s – upon him. He was framed completely! He hadn’t a chance of clearing himself.
He had known that his story would sound like a far-fetched and flimsy lie; he had a criminal record. For him to have surrendered and told the truth would have been merely to get himself laughed at.
As it turned out, Ogburn went to the gallows, Mae Landis is now serving a fifteen-year sentence, and Whitacre, in return for his testimony and restitution of the loot, was not prosecuted for his share in the land swindle.
A MAN CALLED SPADE
Samuel Spade put his telephone aside and looked at his watch. It was not quite four o’clock. He called, “Yoo-hoo!”
Effie Ferine came in from the outer office. She was eating a piece of chocolate cake.
“Tell Sid Wise I won’t be able to keep that date this afternoon,” he said.
She put the last of the cake into her mouth and licked the tips of her forefinger and thumb. “That’s the third time this week.”
When he smiled, the V’s of his chin, mouth, and brows grew longer. “I know, but I’ve got to go out and save a life.” He nodded at the telephone. “Somebody’s scaring Max Bliss.”
She laughed. “Probably somebody named John D. Conscience.”
He looked up at her from the cigarette he had begun to make. “Know anything I ought to know about him?”
“Nothing you don’t know. I was just thinking about the time he let his brother go to San Quentin.”
Spade shrugged. “That’s not the worst thing he’s done.” He lit his cigarette, stood up, and reached for his hat. “But he’s all right now. All Samuel Spade clients are honest, God-fearing folk. If I’m not back at closing time just run along.”
He went to a tall apartment building on Nob Hill, pressed a button set in the frame of a door marked 10K. The door was opened immediately by a burly dark man in wrinkled dark clothes. He was nearly bald and carried a gray hat in one hand.
The burly man said, “Hello, Sam.” He smiled, but his small eyes lost none of their shrewdness. “What are you doing here?”
Spade said, “Hello, Tom.” His face was wooden, his voice expressionless. “Bliss in?”
“Is he!” Tom pulled down the corners of his thick-lipped mouth. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
Spade’s brows came together. “Well?”
A man appeared in the vestibule behind Tom. He was smaller than either Spade or Tom, but compactly built. He had a ruddy, square face and a close-trimmed, grizzled moustache. His clothes were neat. He wore a black bowler perched on the back of his head.
Spade addressed this man over Tom’s shoulder. “Hello, Dundy.”
Dundy nodded briefly and came to the door. His blue eyes were hard and prying.
“What is it?” he asked Tom.
“B-l-i-s-s, M-a-x,” Spade spelled patiently. “I want to see him. He wants to see me. Catch on?”
Tom laughed. Dundy did not. Tom said, “Only one of you gets your wish.” Then he glanced sidewise at Dundy and abruptly stopped laughing. He seemed uncomfortable.
Spade scowled. “All right,” he demanded irritably; “is he dead or has he killed somebody?”
Dundy thrust his square face up at Spade and seemed to push his words out with his lower lip. “What makes you think either?”
Spade said, “Oh, sure! I come calling on Mr. Bliss and I’m stopped at the door by a couple of men from the police Homicide Detail, and I’m supposed to think I’m just interrupting a game of rummy.”
“Aw, stop it, Sam,” Tom grumbled, looking at neither Spade nor Dundy. “He’s dead.”
“Killed?”
Tom wagged his head slowly up and clown. He looked at Spade now. “What’ve you got on it?”
Spade replied in a deliberate monotone, “He called me up this afternoon – say at five minutes to four – I looked at my watch after he hung up and there was still a minute to go – and said somebody was after his scalp. He wanted me to come over. It seemed real enough to him – it was up in his neck all right.” He made a small gesture with one hand. “Well, here I am.”
“Didn’t say who or how?” Dundy asked.
Spade shook his head. “No. Just somebody had offered to kill him and he believed them, and would I come over right away.”
“Didn’t he -?” Dundy began quickly.
“He didn’t say anything else,” Spade said. “Don’t you people tell me anything?”
Dundy said curtly, “Come in and take a look at him.”
Tom said, “It’s a sight.”
They went across the vestibule and through a door into a green and rose living-room.
A man near the door stopped sprinkling white powder on the end of a glass-covered small table to say, “Hello, Sam.”
Spade nodded, said, “How are you, Phels?” and then nodded at the two men who stood talking by a window.
The dead man lay with his mouth open. Some of his clothes had been taken off. His throat was puffy and dark. The end of his tongue showing in a corner of his mouth was bluish, swollen. On his bare chest, over the heart, a five-pointed star had been outlined in black ink and in the centre of it a T.
Spade looked down at the dead man and stood for a moment silently studying him. Then he asked, “He was found like that?”
“About,” Tom said. “We moved him around a little.” He jerked a thumb at the shirt, undershirt, vest, and coat lying on a table. “They were spread over the floor.”
Spade rubbed his chin. His yellow-gray eyes were dreamy. “When?”
Tom said, “We got it at four-twenty. His daughter gave it to us.” He moved his head to indicate a closed door. “You’ll see her.”
“Know anything?”
“Heaven knows,” Tom said wearily. “She’s been kind of hard to get along with so far.” He turned to Dundy. “Want to try her again now?”
Dundy nodded, then spoke to one of the men at the window. “Start sifting his papers, Mack. He’s supposed to’ve been threatened.”
