“Yes, Sam. Who—do you know who he is?”
He grinned wolfishly. “Uh-huh,” he said, “but I’d guess he was Captain Jacobi, master of La Paloma.” He picked up his hat and put it on. He looked thoughtfully at the dead man and then around the room.
“Hurry, Sam,” the girl begged.
“Sure,” he said absentmindedly, “I’ll hurry. Might not hurt to get those few scraps of excelsior off the floor before the police come. And maybe you ought to try to get hold of Sid. No.” He rubbed his chin. “We’ll leave him out of it awhile. It’ll look better. I’d keep the door locked till they come.” He took his hand from his chin and rubbed her cheek. “You’re a damned good man, sister,” he said and went out.
XVII
Saturday Night
Carrying the parcel lightly under his arm, walking briskly, with only the ceaseless shifting of his eyes to denote wariness, Spade went, partly by way of an alley and a narrow court, from his office-building to Kearny and Post Streets, where he hailed a passing taxicab.
The taxicab carried him to the Pickwick Stage terminal in Fifth Street. He checked the bird at the Parcel Room there, put the check into a stamped envelope, wrote “M. F. Holland” and a San Francisco Post Office box-number on the envelope, sealed it, and dropped it into a mailbox. From the stage-terminal another taxicab carried him to the Alexandria Hotel.
Spade went up to suite 12-C and knocked on the door. The door was opened, when he had knocked a second time, by a small fair-haired girl in a shimmering yellow dressing-gown—a small girl whose face was white and dim and who clung desperately to the inner doorknob with both hands and gasped: “Mr. Spade?”
Spade said, “Yes,” and caught her as she swayed.
Her body arched back over his arm and her head dropped straight back so that her short fair hair hung down her scalp and her slender throat was a firm curve from chin to chest.
Spade slid his supporting arm higher up her back and bent to get his other arm under her knees, but she stirred then, resisting, and between parted lips that barely moved blurred words came: “No! Ma’ me wa’!”
Spade made her walk. He kicked the door shut and he walked her up and down the green-carpeted room from wall to wall. One of his arms around her small body, that hand under her armpit, his other hand gripping her other arm, held her erect when she stumbled, checked her swaying, kept urging her forward, but made her tottering legs bear all her weight they could bear. They walked across and across the floor, the girl falteringly, with incoordinate steps, Spade surely on the balls of his feet with balance unaffected by her staggering. Her face was chalk-white and eyeless, his sullen, with eyes hardened to watch everywhere at once.
He talked to her monotonously: “That’s the stuff. Left, right, left, right. That’s the stuff. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, now we turn.” He shook her as they turned from the wall. “Now back again. One, two, three, four. Hold your head up. That’s the stuff. Good girl. Left, right, left, right. Now we turn again.” He shook her again. “That’s the girl. Walk, walk, walk, walk. One, two, three, four. Now we go around.” He shook her, more roughly, and increased their pace. “That’s the trick. Left, right, left, right. We’re in a hurry. One, two, three. …”
She shuddered and swallowed audibly. Spade began to chafe her arm and side and he put his mouth nearer her ear. “That’s fine. You’re doing fine. One, two, three, four. Faster, faster, faster, faster. That’s it. Step, step, step, step. Pick them up and lay them down. That’s the stuff. Now we turn. Left, right, left, right. What’d they do—dope you? The same stuff they gave me?”
Her eyelids twitched up then for an instant over dulled golden-brown eyes and she managed to say all of “Yes” except the final consonant.
They walked the floor, the girl almost trotting now to keep up with Spade, Spade slapping and kneading her flesh through yellow silk with both hands, talking and talking while his eyes remained hard and aloof and watchful. “Left, right, left, right, left, right, turn. That’s the girl. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Keep the chin up. That’s the stuff. One, two …”
Her lids lifted again a bare fraction of an inch and under them her eyes moved weakly from side to side.
“That’s fine,” he said in a crisp voice, dropping his monotone. “Keep them open. Open them wide—wide!” He shook her.
She moaned in protest, but her lids went farther up, though her eyes were without inner light. He raised his hand and slapped her cheek half a dozen times in quick succession. She moaned again and tried to break away from him. His arm held her and swept her along beside him from wall to wall.
“Keep walking,” he ordered in a harsh voice, and then: “Who are you?”
Her “Rhea Gutman” was thick but intelligible.
“The daughter?”
“Yes.” Now she was no farther from the final consonant than sh.
“Where’s Brigid?”
She twisted convulsively around in his arms and caught at one of his hands with both of hers. He pulled his hand away quickly and looked at it. Across its back was a thin red scratch an inch
