“There’s a big life insurance policy at Bankers’ Life I can’t talk to anyone at the office about because we’ve privately agreed to settle even though we aren’t admitting it yet. But... I’m bothered. What do you know about the Collin Eberhard death?”
“What’s been in the papers. He was swimming in the bay out in front of the Neptune Bath House when he got into difficulty. Some witnesses say he was struggling against the current, others say he was just floating facedown. They rowed out in a small boat to rescue him, but he was already dead. The tabloids started hinting that there were rumors of irregularities at California-Citizens Bank, where he was founder and president.”
“Are you sure you didn’t memorize the papers?”
“Then they decided that he was financially ruined and because of that had taken out a very large life insurance policy in favor of his wife and then ingested a vial of poison. I don’t know what made them come up with that, but it sold a lot of newspapers.” Spade pulled the folded Chronicle from his suit coat pocket and slapped it on the table. “It still does. Today’s big question seems to be whether he died of suicide, accident, or natural causes.”
“Yeah. The autopsy was held seventeen hours after his death and the coroner held the inquest two weeks ago—”
“With you guys pushing for suicide. Because the policy hadn’t been in effect long enough for you to have to pay off if he killed himself, suicide would let you off the hook.”
“Can you blame us? This is a lot of money that would go to the widow, Sam — I mean a lot of money. Bankers’ Life’s money.”
Spade stopped spooning soup with an abrupt growl.
“I don’t blame anybody for anything. But I don’t work domestic cases, I don’t take pennies off dead men’s eyes, and I don’t pick the pockets of new widows.”
“What do you know about this one?”
“Nothing, Ray. Not a thing.”
“She’s nine years younger than Eberhard was. Married him seven — no, eight years ago, just about when he founded his little private bank. They were struggling. Just scraping by. Then four years ago the bank started growing, getting prosperous. He started getting rich. She was suddenly sitting pretty. A lot of money and no children. She didn’t want any.”
“Did he?”
Kentzler looked surprised. “I don’t know. But I do know that once you know rich, you don’t want to know poor again. I think she could be the sort of widow who’d fill up those pockets you talk about by defrauding the insurance company.”
“Dear, you’re in trouble at the bank and you’ve got this huge life insurance policy, so let me help you poison yourself?”
“You can laugh, but even so—”
“You’re saying there was?”
“What?”
“Collusion on her part?”
“How the hell do I know? I just want to find out one way or the other. If everything’s jake, then OK, the wife honestly should get her big payoff. If it’s suicide I want to keep her from getting one thin dime.”
“What do the forensics say?”
“Unclear. Natural causes, suicide, even murder — it could have been any of them. But who except the wife would benefit if it was murder, and how would she have rigged it? That’s why I dragged you down here today. You did such a good recovery job for us on that Pasadena bearer-bond theft—”
Spade grinned sardonically and returned to his chowder. Kentzler finished his oysters and began slathering butter on a warm, light-as-air popover.
“OK, I’ll skip the soft soap, Sam. I came to you because you’re tough, nasty, smart, and bullheaded. I’ll be sending a copy of the autopsy report over to your office on Monday.”
“It’s a man. He’s dead. That’s all I need to know unless something in the report shows that someone else made him dead.”
“There’s something screwy about the Eberhard death,” said Kentzler gloomily. “I just can’t put my finger on it. At the coroner’s inquest it was suggested that maybe he died of asphyxia with cerebral congestion. Or maybe he died of shock. Or maybe he died of a stroke.”
“Or maybe he died of old age at age forty-nine.”
“The only really sure thing about it is that Collin Eberhard did not die by drowning. No water in the lungs.”
“So he didn’t die by drowning.” Spade began rolling a cigarette while Kentzler called for the dessert menu. “But how do we get from there to suicide — or murder? I take it there was indeed cerebral congestion but no fracture of the cranial bones. Anything in the stomach to suggest that he was poisoned?”
“Nothing. But during the inquest the coroner said that a preparation of opium could produce cerebral congestion, kill you quickly, sometimes without leaving any mark on the stomach wall.”
“If he wanted to kill himself and hide the fact, why not just accidentally fall off a ferryboat some foggy night? If he was poisoned — and you say there’s no physical indication of that — I’d as lief say it was murder as suicide. But murder wouldn’t get Bankers’ Life off the hook, would it?”
“No,” mumbled Kentzler around a big mouthful of chocolate cake. “But the coroner’s jury was composed entirely of Eberhard’s friends, who ignored the puzzling details and said it was a stroke as a result of cerebral congestion that killed him. We have privately almost decided on a settlement with the wife, even though the possibility of poison has not been ruled out.”
“All I know about poisons is what I read in The Count of Monte Cristo when I was a kid. Take a small but increasingly larger dose of arsenic every day and you build up an immunity to it. I don’t even know if that’s true of arsenic, let alone opium.”
“Sausalito, four years ago,” said Kentzler. “You were involved in a case where two men were poisoned in connection with the gold theft off the San Anselmo.”
Spade’s face changed, darkened. “St. Clair McPhee,” he said. “Disappeared without a trace.”
“And that bothers you? After all this time?”
“I keep an almost-empty file on him,” Spade admitted almost ruefully. “I hate being made a sucker of. Someday I’ll figure out where he went, and how, and I’ll find him...” He shrugged. “It was the Marin coroner who said the two Portagees were poisoned, not me. I never even read his autopsy report.”
“Well, you’re going to read this one,” said Kentzler.
15
The Man with No Name
At 8:30 Monday morning Sam Spade bounded up the stairs to his office above Remedial Loans on Mission Street whistling “Gut Bucket Blues” slightly off-key. He found Effie Perine staring with uncomprehending eyes at an oblong of colored paper.
“What’s this, Sam?”
He went around behind her desk to look at it over her shoulder as if he had not stuck it between the pages of her shorthand pad after she had gone home on Friday night.
“A check for fifty bucks. Last week’s wages.”
“I don’t make fifty dollars a—”
“It’s nineteen twenty-five. Yesterday was your twenty-first birthday. Today you can vote. Today you can make fifty bucks a week. How was the surprise party your Greek friends threw for you Saturday?”
“How did you know about that?”
“Your mother called on Friday to make sure I wouldn’t have you working over the weekend.” He paused in the doorway of his office. “You’ll earn it, sister, and then some. Any calls?”
She slowly settled back in her chair. “No. But a document was delivered by messenger from Ray Kentzler.”