“It’s an autopsy report. Open a file on Eberhard, Collin. Leave the ‘Client’ space blank, but it’s Bankers’ Life.”
Her face lit up. “They’re saying he poisoned himself.”
“They’re probably wrong. But see can you round up the newspaper coverage on Eberhard since his death.”
Spade went down a long brown linoleum hallway on the ground floor of the Hall of Justice in Kearny Street, his footsteps echoing hollowly. Motes of suspended dust moved with him as he went in the door marked CORONEr’s OFFICE.
Behind the anteroom desk was a middle-aged woman with gray hair pulled into a bun held in place by a tortoise-shell comb. She wore a shapeless gingham apron frock with a square-cut collar. Flowers doing poorly on the left front corner of the desk did little to brighten the room.
She looked up from typing a form to ask sharply, “Yes?”
“Dr. Leland, please. About the Collin Eberhard autopsy.”
“The coroner is in conference. The chief deputy is in conference. The assistant deputies are in conference.”
“This is a public office. I’m a citizen. I’ll wait.” He took a chair against the wall, leaned back, stuck his legs out straight in front of him, crossed them at the ankles, and tipped his hat down over his eyes. He began to hum, very softly, “Sweet Georgia Brown.”
She said almost shrilly, “If you don’t stop that I’m going to call upstairs for a police officer to escort you—”
Spade lifted his hat to say, “Try Tom Polhaus in Homicide.”
He lowered the hat again. He resumed his humming. After long moments her chair creaked. He raised his hat brim enough to see her disappearing through the door behind her desk. Her dress was taut across an ample backside. He grinned, took off his hat.
Ten minutes later she reappeared, followed by a square, chunky man with a wide face and dark hair low on his forehead. He jerked a thumb at Spade. “You. In here.”
Spade sauntered across the room, bowing slightly to the woman as he passed. He followed the man through a suite of offices to a cubicle with no windows and a lot of paperwork on a battered blond-wood desk. The room smelled of cigar smoke and, very faintly, disinfectant. The square man sat down behind the desk. He did not offer to shake hands, instead tented his fingers, half-sneered as Spade sat down across from him.
“Assistant Deputy Coroner Adolf Klinger. We’re sick of you newshounds coming around with your lies and innuendos. The coroner’s jury has rendered its verdict upon the Eberhard matter. Natural causes. We have released the body for burial. Period.”
“Not a newshawk.” Spade laid a business card on the desk. “The autopsy report showed blood, not water, in Eberhard’s lungs, and serum blood in the right ventricle of his heart. So it was not a drowning. And there also was bleeding through the scalp.”
“And no lacerations,” snapped Klinger. “The blood was from the cerebral congestion that brought on the fatal stroke.”
“Did anyone ever follow up on the statement at the inquest that a lethal concoction of opium sometimes leaves no discernible trace in the stomach lining?”
Klinger sneered again. “No discernible trace. You said it yourself. No evidence of anything.” He stood up, jerked a thumb again, this time at the door. “Private op, huh? Take the air.”
In the drab, crowded detectives’ assembly room on the hall’s third floor Spade found Tom Polhaus and Dundy, both newly promoted to the San Francisco Homicide Detail.
“Congratulations, Sergeant Polhaus,” Spade said to Tom; then, to Dundy, with no trace of irony in his voice, “And congratulations on your promotion too, Lieutenant Dundy.”
Dundy looked at him suspiciously, said gruffly, “Thanks, Spade,” then couldn’t refrain from “What brings you here?”
“Collin Eberhard.”
“Oh. That.” Dundy gave a contemptuous bark of laughter. “That one’s dead and buried.”
“Just trying to drum up a little business. His widow’s going to be mighty well off if they can’t prove suicide.” Spade hooked a hip over the corner of a desk. “You boys got anything to add to what’s in Eberhard’s autopsy report?”
Dundy uttered something that sounded like “pfaw,” waved a dismissive hand, said, “I’m sure you’ll come up with some angle to make money off it, Spade. You always do.”
Spade nodded, said to Polhaus, “Let’s take a walk.”
They crossed Kearny Street to the gentle green slope of Portsmouth Square. It was another sunny September day, so they sat on the grass below the Stevenson monument.
“OK,” said Polhaus, “what’s this really about, Sam?”
“What I said. The Eberhard death. I’ve got a client.”
“The widow?”
“I couldn’t tell you even if she was.”
“If not her, then the insurance company,” said Polhaus with smug finality. “There’s no one else got enough money to pay you except the tabloids, and I don’t figure you’d work for them.”
“What do you have on Eberhard?”
Polhaus tipped his hat down over his eyes against the sun, gave a disgusted grunt. “Not a damned thing. Oh, I know the newspapers are still screaming about suicide because of something wrong at the bank or in his personal finances. Course we’d love to pin a murder rap on the widow, but I figure the coroner’s jury got it right. Cerebral congestion and a stroke.”
“Did you read the autopsy report?”
“Like the lieutenant said, that one’s dead and buried. Literally. They released the body for burial. Why don’t you go talk to the coroner’s office if you’re so all-fired interested?”
“I just came from there. All I got was a stiff-arm from an assistant coroner named Klinger.”
“Him. Their troubleshooter.” Tom chuckled; then unease entered his face. “Should we have an open file on Eberhard?”
Spade idly watched the hips of a stylishly dressed young matron pushing a pram up the walk that flanked the square.
“Even back in sixteen, when I went up to Seattle for Continental, people were bellyaching that San Francisco coroner’s inquests had the weight of a legal proceeding even though coroners weren’t trained in the law. That’s a perfect setup for a packed jury. This one was made up of pals of Eberhard.”
“I ain’t gonna cry over big insurance takin’ a K.O.”
“It came out at the inquest that a lethal dose of opium can be hard to detect in the stomach lining.”
“You’re grabbin’ at straws, Sam. Opium’s easy to get, right enough, but the wife wasn’t at the Neptune Bath House.”
“Maybe he did it himself. Maybe the newspapers are right.”
“In that case it was suicide and the Homicide Detail don’t care anyway ‘cause the guy made himself dead.” With a grunt Polhaus heaved himself to his feet and brushed off the seat of his pants with both hands. He looked down at Spade. “You get something, Sam, you come to us with it first.”
“You’re starting to sound like Dundy. The case is dead and buried, but if it isn’t we want you to solve it for us.”
Polhaus started off down the slope. “Aw, go to hell.”
Spade chuckled and stubbed out his cigarette on Stevenson’s left foot.
The Neptune Bath House, for men only, was built back from the curved sandy beach just west of the Hyde Street Pier. It had a thirty-yard pool and shower, steam, massage, and locker rooms.
Spade paid his two bits for a swimsuit, towel, and locker he had no intention of using. He sat down on a bench. A half dozen affluent-looking men were changing in the locker room, several with setups of ice and ginger ale for the bottles of whiskey they had taken out of their lockers. The damp air was heavy with the smell of salt water and liniment.