Finally he turned to face her. She was standing beside the chair, hands hanging laxly at her sides, tears pouring down her cheeks. She made no attempt to stop them, as if she did not know that she was crying.
Spade said softly, “I’ll take you home. Dundy would hound you forever if he knew you’d been here, so you never were.”
She finally wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “I was never here,” she repeated in a soft, obedient voice.
29
The Third Woman
Spade was in his armchair, a glass of Bacardi on the floor beside him. He was freshly bathed, cleanly shaven, wearing slacks and a gray plaid flannel shirt open at the throat. His lion-yellow eyes were dead, without animation.
The street doorbell rang. His head came up. He stood, tossing The Great Gatsby that he wasn’t reading onto the sofa. He crossed the room to the telephone box beside the bathroom door that connected to the downstairs door.
“Who is it?”
“Tom Polhaus.”
“Is Dundy with you?”
“No.”
Spade pressed the button that released the street-door lock, went into the kitchen, and poured a second glass of Bacardi. He set it on the table beside the lowered made-up wall bed.
When he heard the elevator door rattling open and closed down the hall, he stood framed in his open apartment doorway, almost at attention, as if to make sure that Dundy was not sneaking down the hall behind Polhaus.
“He ain’t with me Sam,” said Tom bluntly.
“He send you?”
“Yeah. You ain’t been to your office for ten days.”
Spade stood aside, let Tom enter past him. He gestured at the drink on the table beside the bed, returned to his easy chair. The bedsprings squeaked under Tom’s weight. They faced each other across the breadth of the room like adversaries taking each other’s measure.
Tom picked up his drink. They toasted silently, drank. Polhaus looked exhausted and bulky in his topcoat and the hat he had not yet removed. With an abrupt movement, he took it off and dropped it on the bed beside him.
“You’re gonna have to talk to Dundy sometime, Sam. We need your statement signed.”
“I’ll talk to you. I won’t talk to Dundy.”
“You will if you expect to keep operating in this town.”
“Not now. Not yet.” Spade drank, added without emphasis or emotion, “If I saw him now I’d kill him.”
Polhaus leaned back, opening his arms so abruptly some of his drink slopped over his knuckles.
“For hell’s sake, Sam! It would of happened anyway. Spaulding says he didn’t know nothing about the Eberhard murder, and I believe him. He went along with the forged will because St. James offered him a lot of money, pure and simple.”
Spade sprang to his feet to point hotly at Polhaus across the room. “Penny’d still be alive if Dundy’d done his job!”
Tom was on his feet also. He drained his glass, set it on the table. “There’s no talking to you. If you’d of told us where she was we’d of had her safely in custody...”
The look on Spade’s face, the tension in his body, stopped the policeman cold. But it was Spade who looked away.
“You know he wouldn’t have moved on it. Not Dundy, not for me. And Penny wasn’t at Effie’s, where she was supposed to be.”
“If you’d of called us when you knew she’d gone to the Severn Place apartment—”
“She was dead an hour before I knew where she was.”
Polhaus started to speak, stopped. Spade sat, started rolling a cigarette. He said evenly, “Any word on St. James?”
Polhaus looked embarrassed. “When we, ah, finally got moving on it we found an eyewitness saw him on a ferry to Oakland. Dead end. But first thing Mrs. Eberhard did when she took over at the bank, she hired Continental to find the murderer of her husband. She’s spending a lot of money on it.”
“Is it doing any good?”
Polhaus leaned forward, suddenly intent, his coat opening so the gun holstered under his left arm could be seen. “St. James bought a train ticket to New York. By the time Continental got that the train was already past Salt Lake City. They had agents waiting in Denver. He wasn’t on it. He could of got off anywhere, Sacramento, Reno, Salt Lake City — if he got on at Oakland in the first place. So they’ve lost him, for now.”
“Good,” said Spade.
“Good? I’d of thought you’d want to see him—”
“I want him for myself,” said Spade gutturally
Tom seemed to be waiting for him to say more. He didn’t. Polhaus shrugged, stood, jammed his hat back on his head.
“I’ll see you at the hall in the morning, right? We gotta get that statement signed.” Spade was silent. “Right, Sam? I’ll make sure Dundy ain’t around.”
After a long moment Spade said, “I’ll be there.”
For ten minutes after Polhaus left Spade walked around the apartment, his chin jutting, his eyes gleaming red. He stubbed out his cigarette, didn’t roll another, didn’t take any more Bacardi. Finally the muscles knotted along his jaw relaxed. The fire in his eyes was replaced by a leaden indifference.
The street doorbell rang again. The indifference left Spade’s face. The gleam returned to his eyes.
“Dundy, for a dollar,” he said aloud.
He crossed to the front door once again, pressed the button that released the street-door lock. When the rattle of the elevator could be heard he stood in the opened doorway as he had while waiting for Polhaus. But soft footfalls, those of a woman, came up the hall from the elevator. A frown gouged deep lines between his eyes.
Iva Archer swept around the corner. Her big blue eyes were round and guileless as ever. The smile on her generous red mouth was ripe with promise.
“Iva.” He said it gravely, without moving aside. She tried to see around him into the apartment.
“Am I interrupting something?”
“Where’s Miles?”
“You’re no fun!” she exclaimed pettishly. “If you must know we’ve been here for a week, looking around again. You know, what we talked about over dinner that night. He went back up to Seattle this morning. Do we have to talk out here in the hall, Sam, with the neighbors listening?”
Spade stepped back. She went into the living room.
“I stayed over to do some shopping. Spokane has no fashion sense.” She turned in a circle, displaying her coat. It had deep fur cuffs and a wide fur band around the lower back and sides. “Like it? Velana suede trimmed with Mendoza fur and lined with silk crepe.”
“Yeah, stunning.”
“It’s a design by the famous Parisian couturier Paul Poiret.” She buried her hands sensuously in the wide fur collar. “Aren’t you going to buy a girl a drink?”
Spade went into the kitchen, got another glass, and poured rum into it. By the time he returned she had thrown her coat carelessly across the sofa and was standing by the bed. She was wearing a silk dress, navy blue with beige trimming, that had a softly bloused bodice giving a generous glimpse of her bosom.
“Another copy of a Poiret original.”
Spade’s face was cold, rock hard, but he let his eyes run deliberately up and down her finely honed body. She preened under that gaze. He gave her the Bacardi, got his own. Standing beside the bed, they clinked glasses.
“To us,” said Iva.
“Sure, why the hell not?” said Spade. They drank.
“I have to go back up to Spokane in the morning.” There was an open challenge in her voice, her eyes. “I checked my luggage at the train station and didn’t keep the hotel room.”
“Sure, why the hell not?” said Spade again.
He went to lock the apartment door. There was a tired finality in his movements. Before going back up the hall he rested his forehead against the doorframe for a moment.