that date. You know Miles. It would have been like him to—'
'You can skip Miles's character too.'
'I oughtn't to tell you a damned thing,' the lawyer said. 'So she got their car from the garage and drove down to the St. Mark, sitting in the car across the street. She saw him come out of the hotel and she saw that he was shadowing a man and a girl—she says she saw the same girl with you last night—who had come out just ahead of him. She knew then that he was working, had been kidding her. I suppose she was disappointed, and mad—she sounded that way when she told me about it. She followed Miles long enough to make sure he was shadowing the pair, and then she went up to your apartment. You weren't home.'
'What time was that?' Spade asked.
'When she got to your place? Between half-past nine and ten the first time.'
'The first time?'
'Yes. She drove around for half an hour or so and then tried again. That would make it, say, ten-thirty. You were still out, so she drove back downtown and went to a movie to kill time until after midnight, when she thought she'd be more likely to find you in.'
Spade frowned. 'She went to a movie at ten-thirty?'
'So she says—the one on Powell Street that stays open till one in the morning. She didn't want to go home, she said, because she didn't want to be there when Miles came. That always made him mad, it seems, especially if it was around midnight. She stayed in the movie till it closed.' Wise's words came out slower now and there was a sardonic glint in his eye. 'She says she had decided by then not to go back to your place again. She says she didn't know whether you'd like having her drop in that late. So she went to Tait's—the one on Ellis Street—had something to eat and then went home—alone.' Wise rocked back in his chair and waited for Spade to speak.
Spade's face was expressionless. He asked: 'You believe her?'
'Don't you?' Wise replied.
'How do I know? How do I know it isn't something you fixed up between you to tell me?'
Wise smiled. 'You don't cash many checks for strangers, do your Sammy?'
'Not basketfuls. Well, what then? Miles wasn't home. It was at least two o'clock by then—must've been— and he was dead.'
'Miles wasn't home,' Wise said. 'That seems to have made her mad again—his not being home first to be made mad by her not being home. So she took the car out of the garage again and went back to your place.'
'And I wasn't home. I was down looking at Miles's corpse. Jesus, what a swell lot of merry-go-round riding. Then what?'
'She went home, and her husband still wasn't there, and while she was undressing your messenger came with the news of his death.'
Spade didn't speak until he had with great care rolled and lighted another cigarette. Then he said: 'I think that's an all right spread. It seems to click with most of the known facts. It ought to hold.'
Wise's fingers, running through his hair again, combed more dandruff down on his shoulders. He studied Spade's face with curious eyes and asked: 'But you don't believe it?'
Spade plucked his cigarette from between his lips. 'I don't believe it or disbelieve it, Sid. I don't know a damned thing about it.'
A wry smile twisted the lawyer's mouth. He moved his shoulders wearily and said: 'That's right—I'm selling you out. Why don't you get an honest lawyer—one you can trust?'
'That fellow's dead.' Spade stood up. He sneered at Wise. 'Getting touchy, huh? I haven't got enough to think about: now I've got to remember to be polite to you. What did I do? Forget to genuflect when I came in?'
Sid Wise smiled sheepishly. 'You're a son of a gun, Sammy,' he said.
Effie Perine was standing in the center of Spade's outer office when he entered. She looked at him with worried brown eyes and asked: 'What happened?'
Spade's face grew stiff. 'What happened where?' he demanded.
'Why didn't she come?'
Spade took two long steps and caught Effie Perine by the shoulders. 'She didn't get there?' he bawled into her frightened face.
She shook her head violently from side to side. 'I waited and waited and she didn't come, and I couldn't get you on the phone, so I came down.'
Spade jerked his hands away from her shoulders, thrust them far down in his trousers-pockets, said, 'Another merry-go-round,' in a loud enraged voice, and strode into his private office. He came out again. 'Phone your mother,' he commanded. 'See if she's come yet.'
He walked up and down the office while the girl used the telephone. 'No,' she said when she had finished. 'Did—did you send her out in a taxi?'
His grunt probably meant yes.
'Are you sure she— Somebody must have followed her!'
Spade stopped pacing the floor. He put his hands on his hips and glared at the girl. He addressed her in a loud savage voice: 'Nobody followed her. Do you think I'm a God-damned schoolboy? I made sure of it before I put her in the cab, I rode a dozen blocks with her to be more sure, and I checked her another half-dozen blocks after I got out.'
'Well, but—'
'But she didn't get there. You've told me that. I believe it. Do you think I think she did get there?'
Effie Perine sniffed. 'You certainly act like a God-damned schoolboy,' she said.
Spade made a harsh noise in his throat and went to the corridor-door. 'I'm going out and find her if I have to dig up sewers,' he said. 'Stay here till I'm back or you hear from me. For Christ's sake let's do something right.'
He went out, walked half the distance to the elevators, and retraced his steps. Effie Perine was sitting at her desk when he opened the door. He said: 'You ought to know better than to pay any attention to me when I talk like that.'
'If you think I pay any attention to you you're crazy,' she replied, 'only'—she crossed her arms and felt her shoulders, and her mouth twitched uncertainly—'I won't be able to wear an evening gown for two weeks, you big brute.'
He grinned humbly, said, 'I'm no damned good, darling,' made an exaggerated bow, and went out again.
Two yellow taxicabs were at the corner-stand to which Spade went. Their chauffeurs were standing together talking. Spade asked: 'Where's the red-faced blond driver that was here at noon?'
'Got a load,' one of the chauffeurs said.
'Will he be back here?'
'I guess so.'
The other chauffeur ducked his head to the east. 'Here he comes now.'
Spade walked down to the corner and stood by the curb until the red-faced blond chauffeur had parked his cab and got out. Then Spade went up to him and said: 'I got into your cab with a lady at noontime. We went out Stockton Street and up Sacramento to Jones, where I got out.'
'Sure,' the red-faced man said, 'I remember that.'
'I told you to take her to a Ninth-Avenue-number. You didn't take her there. Where did you take her?'
The chauffeur rubbed his cheek with a grimy hand and looked doubtfully at Spade. 'I don't know about this.'
'It's all right,' Spade assured him, giving him one of his cards. 'If you want to play safe, though, we can ride up to your office and get your superintendent's OK.'
'I guess it's all right. I took her to the Ferry Building.'
'By herself?'
'Yeah. Sure.'
'Didn't take her anywhere else first?'
