Dundy nodded. “And you know he’s got a yen for the sister-in-law, this Court?”
“I don’t know that. But I’ve heard plenty of gossip to the same effect.”
Dundy made a growling noise in his throat, then asked sharply: “How does the old man’s will read?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know whether he’s made one.” He addressed Spade, now earnestly: “I’ve told everything I know every single thing.”
Dundy said, “It’s not enough.” He jerked a thumb at the door. “Show him where to wait, Tom, and let’s have the widower in again.”
Big Polhaus said, “Right,” went out with Ira Binnett, and returned with Wallace Binnett, whose face was hard and pale.
Dundy asked: “Has your uncle made a will?”
“I don’t know,” Binnett replied.
Spade put the next question, softly: “Did your wife?”
Binnett’s mouth tightened in a mirthless smile. He spoke deliberately: “I’m going to say some things I’d rather not have to say. My wife, properly, had no money. When I got into financial trouble some time ago I made some property over to her, to save it. She turned it into money without my knowing about it till afterward. She paid our bills – our living expenses – out of it, but she refused to return it to me and she assured me that in no event – whether she lived or died or we stayed together or were divorced – would I ever be able to get hold of a penny of it. I believed her, and still do.”
“You wanted a divorce?” Dundy asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It wasn’t a happy marriage.”
“Joyce Court?”
Binnett’s face flushed. He said stiffly: “I admire Joyce Court tremendously, but I’d’ve wanted a divorce anyway.”
Spade said: “And you’re sure – still absolutely sure – you don’t know anybody who fits your uncle’s description of the man who choked him?”
“Absolutely sure.”
The sound of the doorbell ringing came faintly into the room.
Dundy said sourly, “That’ll do.”
Binnett went out.
Polhaus said: “That guy’s as wrong as they make them. And -“
From below came the heavy report of a pistol fired indoors.
The lights went out.
In darkness the three detectives collided with one another going through the doorway into the dark hall. Spade reached the stairs first. There was a clatter of footsteps below him, but nothing could be seen until he reached a bend in the stairs. Then enough light came from the street through the open front door to show the dark figure of a man standing with his back to the open door.
A flashlight clicked in Dundy’s hand – he was at Spade’s heels – and threw a glaring white beam of light on the man’s face. He was Ira Binnett. He blinked in the light and pointed at something on the floor in front of him.
Dundy turned the beam of his light down on the floor. Jarboe lay there on his face, bleeding from a bullet-hole in the back of his head.
Spade grunted softly.
Tom Polhaus came blundering down the stairs, Wallace Binnett close behind him. Joyce Court’s frightened voice came from farther up: “Oh, what’s happened? Wally, what’s happened?”
“Where’s the light switch?” Dundy barked.
“Inside the cellar door, under these stairs,” Wallace Binnett said. “What is it?”
Polhaus pushed past Binnett toward the cellar door.
Spade made an inarticulate sound in his throat and, pushing Wallace Binnett aside, sprang up the stairs. He brushed past Joyce Court and went on, heedless of her startled scream. He was halfway up the stairs to the third floor when the pistol went off up there.
He ran to Timothy Binnett’s door. The door was open. He went in.
Something hard and angular struck him above his right ear, knocking him across the room, bringing him down on one knee. Something thumped and clattered on the floor just outside the door.
The lights came on.
On the floor, in the centre of the room, Timothy Binnett lay on his back bleeding from a bullet wound in his left forearm. His pajama jacket was torn. His eyes were shut.
Spade stood up and put a hand to his head. He scowled at the old man on the floor, at the room, at the black automatic pistol lying on the hallway floor. He said: “Come on, you old cut-throat. Get up and sit on a chair and I’ll see if I can stop that bleeding till the doctor gets here.”
The man on the floor did not move.
There were footsteps in the hallway and Dundy came in, followed by the two younger Binnetts. Dundy’s face was dark and furious. “Kitchen door wide open,” he said in a choked voice. “They run in and out like -“
“Forget it,” Spade said. “Uncle Tim is our meat.” He paid no attention to Wallace Binnett’s gasp, to the incredulous looks on Dundy’s and Ira Binnett’s faces. “Come on, get up,” he said to the old man on the floor, “and tell us what it was the butler saw when he peeped through the keyhole.”
The old man did not stir.
“He killed the butler because I told him the butler had peeped,” Spade explained to Dundy. “I peeped, too, but didn’t see anything except that chair and the window, though we’d made enough racket by then to scare him back to bed. Suppose you take the chair apart while I go over the window.” He went to the window and began to examine it carefully. He shook his head, put a hand out behind him, and said: “Give me the flashlight.”
Dundy put the flashlight in his hand.
Spade raised the window and leaned out, turning the light on the outside of the building. Presently he grunted and put his other hand out, tugging at a brick a little below the sill. Presently the brick came loose. He put it on the window-sill and stuck his hand into the hole its removal had made. Out of the opening, one at a time, he brought an empty black pistol holster, a partially filled box of cartridges, and an unsealed manila envelope.
Holding these things in his hands, he turned to face the others. Joyce Court came in with a basin of water and a roll of gauze and knelt beside Timothy Binnett. Spade put the holster and cartridges on a table and opened the manila envelope. Inside were two sheets of paper, covered on both sides with boldly pencilled writing. Spade read a paragraph to himself, suddenly laughed, and began at the beginning again, reading aloud:
“’I, Timothy Kieran Binnett, being sound of mind and body, do declare this to be my last will and testament. To my dear nephews, Ira Binnett and Wallace Bourke Binnett, in recognition of the loving kindness with which they have received me into their homes and attended my declining years, I give and bequeath, share and share alike, all my worldly possessions of whatever kind, to wit, my carcass and the clothes I stand in.
“’I bequeath them, furthermore, the expense of my funeral and these memories: First, the memory of their credulity in believing that the fifteen years I spent in Sing Sing were spent in Australia; second, the memory of their optimism in supposing that those fifteen years had brought me great wealth, and that if I lived on them, borrowed from them, and never spent any of my own money, it was because I was a miser whose hoard they would inherit; and not because I had no money except what I shook them down for; third, for their hopefulness in thinking that I would leave either of them anything if I had it; and, lastly, because their painful lack of any decent sense of humour will keep them from ever seeing how funny this has all been. Signed and sealed this-‘”
Spade looked up to say: “There is no date, but it’s signed Timothy Kieran Binnett with flourishes.”
Ira Binnett was purple with anger, Wallace’s face was ghastly in its pallor and his whole body was trembling. Joyce Court had stopped working on Timothy Binnett’s arm.
The old man sat up and opened his eyes. He looked at his nephews and began to laugh. There was in his laughter neither hysteria nor madness: it was sane, hearty laughter, and subsided slowly.
Spade said: “All right, now you’ve had your fun. Let’s talk about the killings:”
“I know nothing more about the first one than I’ve told you,” the old man said, “and this one’s not a killing,
