“The master criminal,” said Kest in an awed voice.
“Given the keys, the theft’s easy. Getting the loot off once the ship docked is what’s tough.” Spade paused. “You came in too late to go through quarantine and anchored off until morning?”
“That’s right,” said Ogilvie. “We usually do.”
“So, maybe a fifth man ashore. When the I.B.C. and the customs officers and the cops and the detectives get here, they should run down all of the passengers and their luggage and not let them leave the jurisdiction. Tell ’em to concentrate on anyone who came aboard at Honolulu. Search all crew members before they go ashore, then search the ship itself.”
“You think the gold is hidden aboard?”
Spade checked his watch again, shrugged. “Could be. Are the mail sacks unloaded by hand or handled by machine?”
“By machine,” said Rafferty.
“So you could take the gold from the boxes, wrap it in small packages, and hide it in mail sacks consigned to some direct-delivery address.” Spade nodded. “Yeah. If the mail hasn’t already been cleared at the customs shed you might want to open the sacks and check them — if you can do it legally.”
“You Port Authority people can,” said Ogilvie.
“I’ll go set that in motion right now,” said Spade quickly.
Topside, he took a quick five minutes to check the canvas-covered lifeboats hanging from their davits beyond the railings, left when he heard the approaching police sirens.
6
Continental
“It’s the purser,” said Sid Wise. Effie Perine had brought in an extra chair from Spade’s office, was working the steno pad balanced on her knee. “In his position he could move around the ship at all hours without anyone thinking anything about it.”
Spade shook his head. “Uh-uh. Our inside man on the heist is Quartermaster Walter Kest. I’d have liked twenty minutes alone with that bird. Tap him, he’ll crack like an egg. Trouble is I shot my mouth off, telling them the investigative steps to make, which they’ll pass on to the International Banking Corporation and the cops. I had to beat it before some smart flatfoot recognized me.”
“They should just be grateful for all the work you did.”
“You’ve got a lot to learn about the coppers, sweetheart. I saw a sergeant named Dundy going aboard. He’d love to get me between floors at the Hall of Justice with a couple of other cops and rolled-up newspapers for some kidney work. I stuck my finger in his eye once too often when I was with Continental.”
“Sometimes I think you just like to make people in authority mad at you.”
“It keeps things stirred up.” Spade stood. “The cops and Continental and Burns will be all over that boat for the next couple of days looking for the loot.”
“What about my client’s son?” demanded Wise. “How will you know he hasn’t stowed away if you can’t get back aboard?”
“I’ll get aboard all right. Meanwhile, no other vessel’s scheduled out of San Francisco for the South Seas this week.”
In the hallway Spade said to Effie Perine, “You’re having the time of your life, aren’t you, sweetheart? Be an angel, while I’m gone run down and get the newspapers to see how they’re handling the story.”
The round ornate pillar clock in front of Samuel’s Jewelers in Market Street showed just shy of 2 o’clock when Spade entered the triangular-shaped Flood Building. He took the stairs to the third floor, walked down a quiet linoleum-covered hallway. Light from a pebbled-glass fire escape window at the far end of the hall showed CONTINENTAL DETECTIVE AGENCY on the door to suite 314. Spade entered without knocking.
In the reception room a secretary he didn’t know was banging on a typewriter as if it were a faithless lover. Spade pointed a forefinger at her with his hand closed behind it, worked his thumb like the hammer of a gun, said, “Samuel Spade to see Phil Geaque. I’ll be in the operatives’ room.”
She started to her feet, protesting, but by then Spade had slid through the door in the left-hand wall and closed it behind him. The big boxy tan three-windowed room held a couch, seven chairs, four desks, and a conference table. On the desks were messy stacks of paper, typewriters, unwashed coffee mugs. On one wall was a notice board plastered with WANTED posters from other Continental offices around the country.
Lounging on the couch under the windows was a hulking Irishman with an ingenuous face and big ears that stuck out a mile. Beside him was a tall lean man with lank brown hair and a big head thrust slightly forward on a surprisingly thin stalk of neck. Sitting in a turned-around straight-backed chair was a medium-size youngster with a narrow face and quick eyes. His chin rested on forearms crossed on the back of the chair.
The Irishman was saying, “I’d of had the chance of a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest if that boogie’d had a shiv on him,” when Spade interrupted with, “Hi, Mickey.”
Mickey Linehan sprang to his feet, grinning, exclaiming in a bogus Irish brogue, “Faith an’ be-Jaysus an’ they let you out early. For good behavior, is it?” He said to the other two men, “Samuel Spade here was the best shadow man Continental ever had.”
The tall lean man switched his store-bought cigarette to his left hand and stuck out his right. “Woody Robinson. Pleased t’meetcha, mate.” He had bad teeth and a marked Australian accent. “This bird here is Phil Haultain, with us a week today.”
“Woody and the kid just got back from a shadow job down in Calistoga,” said Linehan.
Haultain said, “The Frisco D.A.’s office was hiding two witnesses down there until they could get on the stand. They were at the party the night that Virginia Rappe got dead.”
Spade hitched his hip over the edge of a desk, began rolling a cigarette. “Hell of a town to do a tail job in, Calistoga. Everybody knows everybody.”
“We found that out,” said Robinson. “Fatty Arbuckle’s lawyers wanted us to get a line on the witnesses — a couple of good-time girls named Bambina Delmont and Alice Blake — though they’re calling themselves models and actresses now. Their chaperone, a woman from the D.A.’s office, made us dead quick.”
“The jury’ll set Arbuckle free,” said Spade around his cigarette. “She didn’t die until four days after he took her into that hotel room at the St. Francis. The D.A.’d as lief charge the two ladies with manslaughter as Arbuckle.”
“Their sticking her in that cold bath because they thought she’d had too much to drink probably ruptured her bladder and killed her right enough,” nodded Mickey sagely.
Spade shook his head. “I figure her torn bladder grew out of some chronic condition aggravated by bootleg hootch. But I hear this assistant district attorney Bryan likes to win cases so much that he pretends the law is what he says it is.”
“You mean it ain’t?” said Robinson.
The receptionist stuck her head in. “Mr. Geaque can see you now, Mr. Spade.”
The superintendent’s triangular corner office had windows overlooking Powell and Market Streets. Phil Geaque, standing up behind his littered desk, burst out laughing. He was bald headed and sharp-eyed and came just to Spade’s shoulder.
“Daniel Gough indeed! As soon as Pearl told me you were here I remembered you always liked to use street names for aliases, so I knew it had to be you who’d been nosing around the San Anselmo this morning.”
They shook hands as if they liked each other, sat down on opposite sides of the desk.
“I figured you’d already be on it, Phil, so I came by to pick your brains.”