Spade walked brisky over to Grant Avenue to take up his position in the same convenient doorway across from the Gypsy Tea Shop. Penny was there, went through the same routine, except this time she actually went to the movies. Spade followed her to Noe Valley, saw her safely into her apartment, went home himself. He set his alarm for 6 a.m.
When Penny emerged from Severn Place at 8:30 the next morning Spade was loitering in a little market in Twenty-third Street. Against the morning chill Penny wore a woolen cloche hat and a worn calf-length coat over a cheap working-girl’s frock. Spade laid a nickel on the counter by the cash register.
“Use your phone?”
The gray-haired heavy-faced German shopkeeper waved a hand. “You wouldn’t believe the people use that phone, and without offering me no nickel either.”
Spade gave central his number. While he waited he picked out an apple, laid down another nickel.
Effie Perine’s voice said, “Samuel Spade Investigations.”
“Me. When Penny gets there, tell her nobody was behind her last night and that I feel she has nothing to worry about. But give her my apartment address and the phone number. If she sees anyone, she should get somewhere safe and let me know right away. Day or night.”
Her voice was low, relieved. “Thanks, Sam.” Then she added, “When I came in the phone was ringing. Charles Barber. He wants you to meet him for lunch at the Bohemian Club. I think he wants to apologize for yesterday.” Excitement entered her voice. “They say you have to spend years on the waiting list just to become a member.”
“And no women allowed, ever.”
“Not even as waitresses?” Then her voice changed, got catty. “They have women at the Bohemian Grove up on the Russian River during their two-week summer camp up there. At least lots of girls stay in Guerneville cabins that are close by.”
“What would your mother say if she heard you talking that way, sweetheart? Tell Barber I’ll be there at noon.”
Spade went down Severn Place eating his apple, turned in at the narrow row house that in the morning light proved to be a paint-peeling gray. He climbed five worn wooden steps.
There were six name tags to the right of the front door, two per floor. Apartment 3A was Drosos. Apartment 3B was Donant. No Chiotras. The front door was unlocked. He went in.
Backed up against the wall inside the door was a battered Queen Anne — style library table with mail strewn across it. Nothing for Chiotras. Nothing for Drosos. Spade dropped his apple core on top of discarded mail in a wastebasket beside the table, without stealth climbed to the third floor.
The hallway ran straight back to a communal bathroom at the far end, where the toilet, tub, and sink would be. Halfway down were facing doors, 3A to the left, 3B to the right. It was in the window of 3A that lights had gone on and the roller shade had been lowered after Penny had entered the building.
Spade laid an ear to the door of 3B, heard a radio playing “Sleepy Time Gal.” He stepped quickly across the hall, tapped on the panel of 3A while fingering his keys. No response. The third key worked. He glanced over his shoulder, slid through the half-opened door, closed it without sound.
He was in a small, narrow apartment. An easy chair with frayed arms and the fiber-and-hardwood magazine stand beside it were the only furniture in the front room. Behind it was a chest-high wooden counter topped with oilcloth enclosing a minuscule kitchen with a stained porcelain sink, a two-burner stove, and two chairs shoved under a two-by-three kitchen table.
Behind that a closed three-wing hardwood screen with a floral-patterned cretonne panel and two-way hinges partitioned off the final bit of space. Spade folded back one of the end wings. Hooks on the inside of it held a bath towel, a hand towel, a woolly robe. Inside on the floor were fuzzy slippers.
It took Spade only twenty minutes to methodically search the entire place, inch by inch, using quick eyes that missed nothing and surprisingly delicate fingers that probed everything. In the kitchen, no icebox, no dishes in the sink. A slightly warm coffeepot on the stove. A bread box with half a loaf in it, butter and jam and three eggs on the shelf over the drainboard, a can of Lipton’s coffee. Plate, cup, saucer, one set of cutlery.
The space created by the hardwood screen was just large enough to hold a single bed, a chest of drawers, and a battered wardrobe. Between the bed and the wall was a cheap suitcase, empty. On top of the chest of drawers were a few cosmetics and a bar of bath soap wrapped in a washcloth. The chest held a meager array of neatly folded blouses and underclothes.
The wardrobe held one hat, two scarves, and three skirts on hangers, all the same size. There was only one dress, the expensive brown and tan silk frock with the Greek gold coin as a buckle ornament Penny had worn to his office on her first visit.
Spade found no papers, no checkbook, no money or jewelry, no rent or utility receipts. No phone, no books, no magazines, no radio. No crumpled letter written in Greek. No chest of Bergina. Apart from the silk frock, nothing to suggest that anyone named Chiotras lived there. Nor anyone named Drosos. But on the shelf of the magazine stand beside the easy chair were two dozen newspaper clippings about the Eberhard death.
Just as Spade slipped out of 3A the radio in 3B went silent. He palmed the knob, began knocking on the door he had just closed as a thin, slightly haggard blond woman in a cloth coat emerged from 3B. She held the hand of a girl of four or five, who was carrying a doll. The girl wore a woolen coat, a two-color hockey cap with a pom-pom and a matching scarf with a knit fringe. Blond curls peeped out from beneath the cap.
Spade had turned with an ingratiating smile. “I wonder if you might know where I could reach Mrs. Drosos.”
“Miss Drosos,” the blond woman corrected automatically. The little girl was examining Spade with gravity, clutching her doll to her chest. The woman absently patted her head. “Julia Drosos.” Her voice bore traces of erstwhile refinement.
“Yes, ma’am. We got her letter, you see.”
“About a job?” she asked quickly.
“Her professional qualifications sound fine, but we need a little more personal information.”
“I’m Beverly Donant. I — we, my husband and I — we don’t know Julia well, she’s lived here only a month. She’s all alone in this world. She was caring for her aged mother down in Santa Barbara, and after the poor woman died she found herself bursting into tears all the time. She wants work taking care of children. Some youth and gaiety in her life after all that heartbreak.”
“This would be a nanny situation for a well-to-do family down the peninsula.”
Beverly Donant’s smile illuminated her long, narrow face, made her suddenly pretty. The daughter smiled with her. She had her mother’s same radiant smile.
“I’m sure Julia would be just right for the job,” Beverly Donant said enthusiastically. “She’s stayed with my little Jenny twice when Tom and I went to the movies.”
“She sings me songs and tells me stories,” said Jenny.
“Stories about ancient Greece?” asked Spade.
“Greece!” exclaimed Beverly Donant. “I should have known! All that life and vitality, all that long black hair and those dark eyes and that lovely complexion. I thought maybe Irish, but Greek fits even better.”
“She sounds like just the person we’re looking for.”
26
At the Bohemian Club
Spade went up slanting Taylor Street to the unmarked entry-way of a red brick building half covered with ivy. At the top of eight wide marble steps was a foyer with, to the right, a four-foot cast-bronze owl standing on a bronze life-size human skull.