Reginald appeared with a tray bearing brandy snifters, a cut glass decanter of cognac, and a silver humidor. He set the tray down on a large table in the front corner of the room, bowed, departed. They selected cigars, poured cognac, moved to two of the padded leather armchairs, sat down. They toasted each other, sipped, drifted fragrant smoke into the air.
“OK,” said Spade, “nothing illegal about Cal-Cit’s banking practices. But if everything is on the up-and-up, why deny the widow access? Why not make the will public?”
“Spaulding tried to reiterate that it was confidential bank business. I said I was the president of a bank myself, and knew better. Plus I was a member of the Banking Commission. Then he tried to say the police had told them not to release any information. Then he tried to refer me to counsel. I said I was talking with him, right then and there, face-to-face. He finally opened up about the mining stocks. Under Collin’s direction the bank had lent money to a Sacramento-based Blue Sky Mining and Development Syndicate, run by a speculator named Devlin St. James, so they could develop mines in the Sierra.”
“What does St. James look like?” demanded Spade quickly.
“Apart from Collin, nobody ever met him. Communication was by telephone or letter. For each new mine the syndicate borrowed ten thousand dollars on a note from Cal-Cit co-signed by St. James and endorsed by the syndicate. After a mine was developed the bank loan was repaid with interest and a fifteen-percent commission override. In return the syndicate kept very heavy deposits in the bank, which were vital to Cal-Cit’s financial health.”
Spade swirled his snifter. “Ring around the rosy.”
“But then Eberhard died and the syndicate, and St. James, drew out all of the money they had on deposit. The bank panicked. Spaulding, as acting president, tried to call in the syndicate’s notes. The syndicate said all of the money had been spent in developing new mines.”
“So of course the bank tried to seize the syndicate’s assets,” said Spade, “and there weren’t any.”
“Just a storefront office on a Sacramento side street with a filing cabinet and a chair and a desk and a typewriter and a telephone. A dollar-a-day clerk to answer the phone and type the letters he was told to type. If anyone came around asking, St. James was in the High Sierra searching out new mines to lease.”
“They get a description of St. James from the clerk?”
“He was hired by an employment agency.”
“And the agency was hired by letter?”
“By phone, actually. How do you know all of this, Spade?”
“You know banking. I know con games and frauds. Your Devlin St. James is the mystery man you saw at the Neptune Bath House, and was the man arguing with Eberhard at his home. He somehow got Eberhard to help him run a shell game with the bank’s money and Eberhard’s money and his own money from some source — I’m pretty sure not from gold mines.”
“I refuse to believe that Collin Eberhard was a crook!”
“He’s dead, so we can’t ask him.”
Barber mopped his face, gulped the last of his cognac.
“Yes, Collin is dead. And St. James is gone, the syndicate is gone, the syndicate’s records — including the names and locations of the mines — are gone. The bank’s money is gone. If that gets out there will be a panic among their depositors. So I feel their actions reflect incompetence, not anything illegal.”
Spade drained his own snifter, shook his head.
“I could almost buy that everyone was conned. Almost. But it doesn’t work. Spaulding has to be in on the fraud now, or Eberhard was before his death, or both. Otherwise Cal-Cit would be seeking criminal indictments from the state attorney general and opening up their books. And then there’s Evelyn Eberhard.”
“Surely Evelyn wasn’t involved.”
“Not involved. Defrauded. As Eberhard’s heir, she would step into his controlling interest in the bank and could demand to see the books. If they showed Eberhard was ruined, she would get the insurance money and nothing more. And be glad to get it. If he wasn’t ruined, then somebody’s been cooking the books.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“There’s something I can do about it,” said Spade.
24
Seven Lies
When the key turned in the lock, Spade was sitting in Penny’s easy chair reading the clippings about Eberhard’s death. His empty coffee mug was perched on one frayed arm of the chair.
Penny came through the door, turned and closed and locked it before she registered that the lights were on. She whirled, her face going deathly pale and her mouth becoming a round O of terror when she saw someone sitting in the armchair.
“Don’t yell. You’ll wake little Jenny across the hall.”
She recognized him. Fire replaced fear in her eyes.
“I thought I could trust you! Instead you followed me here after you promised you wouldn’t. You lied to me.”
“As you lied to me.” Spade tossed the clippings back onto the magazine stand, stood up, and carried his empty mug around the linoleum-topped counter to the tiny kitchen. He refilled his mug from the pot on the stove, raised it. “Coffee?”
Penny shook her head. Her eyes were hostile. He poured a second mug anyway, set his on the counter, hers on the chair arm.
She burst out, “What do you mean I lied to you? I didn’t want you to know where I lived, but I told you where I worked.”
“You haven’t worked there for a month,” said Spade.
Her magnificent dark eyes dulled. Moving like a suddenly old woman, she groped her way to the armchair, sat, and then, despite her refusal, began greedily drinking thick, hot coffee.
“Let’s stop playing games,” said Spade in a softer voice. “Let’s stop accusing each other of things. Just tell me the truth, Penny, so I’ll know what I’m dealing with.”
“I have been telling you the truth!”
Spade snatched up the sheaf of clippings on the Eberhard death from the magazine table beside her chair. “These say you’re lying.” He slammed them down again. “To your mother. To Effie. To me. To everyone. Want me to list all the lies?”
“They weren’t lies. They were—”
“One” — Spade folded in his left thumb — “the Turk that’s supposed to be following you. There is no Turk.” He folded down his forefinger. “Two. The chest of Bergina. Maybe there is a chest. Maybe your father even wrote to you about it. But it has nothing to do with you either way.” He folded down his index finger. “Three. You told me you were a secretary at Hartford and Cole. You started out that way right enough, but by the time you quit you were a de facto broker.” He folded down the ring finger. “Four. You told Cole you had to care for your aged father. Your father is dead.” The little finger. “Five—”
“Stop it!” she cried.
“Five,” he repeated inexorably, his left hand now a closed fist. “You moved in here under a false name — Julia Drosos.”
He opened his left hand, then folded in his right thumb.
“Six. You told Beverly Donant across the hall that your mother had died down in Santa Barbara and you had come up here because being there made you sad.” Folded the right forefinger. “Seven. You told her you were looking for work as a nanny for little children like her Jenny.” Right index finger. “Eight.”
Her mouth twisted with some deep emotion, perhaps anger.
“What about your lies to Beverly? That you were looking for someone to take care of the small children of a wealthy family outside the city? I should have known better, but I so much wanted to get away from here and be safe and—”