The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

Spade, looking at Brigid O’Shaughnessy, asked: “Well?”

She shook her head sidewise with emphasis. She did not say anything, though her lips moved slightly, as if she had tried to. Her face was frightened.

Spade held his hand out to Gutman, and the fat man put the money into it. Spade counted the money, nine thousand-dollar bills, and returned it to Gutman. Then Spade stood up, and his face was dull and placid. He picked up the three pistols on the table. He spoke in a matter-of-fact voice.

“I want to know about this. We” — he nodded slightly to indicate the girl — “are going in the bathroom. The door will be open, and I’ll be facing it. Unless you want a three-story drop from the windows there’s no way out of the room except past the bathroom door. Don’t try to make it.”

“Really, sir,” Gutman protested, “it’s not necessary, and certainly not very polite of you to threaten us in this manner. You must know that we’ve not the least desire to leave.”

“I’ll know when I’m through.” Spade was patient but resolute. “This trick upsets things. I’ve got to find the answer. It won’t take long.” He touched the girl’s elbow. “Come on.”

In the bathroom Brigid O’Shaughnessy found words. She put her hands up flat on Spade’s chest and her face up close to his and whispered:

“I did not take that bill, Sam.”

“I don’t think you did,” Spade said, “but I’ve got to know. Take your clothes off.”

“You won’t take my word for it?”

“No. Take your clothes off.”

“I won’t.”

“All right. We’ll go back to the other room and I’ll have them taken off.”

She stepped back with her hands to her mouth. Her eyes were round with horror. “You would?” she asked through her fingers.

“I will,” he said. “I’ve got to know what happened to that bill, and I’m not going to be held up by anybody’s maidenly modesty.”

“Oh, it isn’t that.” She came close to him and put her hands on his chest again. “Can’t you see that if you make me you’ll — you’ll be killing something?”

He did not raise his voice. “I don’t know anything about that. I’ve got to know what happened to the bill. Take them off.”

She looked at his unblinking yellow-gray eyes and her face became pink and then white again.

“Very well,” she said.

He sat on the side of the bath-tub watching the opened door. No sound came from the living-room. She removed her clothes swiftly. In her mien was pride without defiance or embarrassment.

He picked up each piece and examined it with fingers as well as with eyes. He did not find the thousand-dollar bill. When he had finished, he stood up, holding her clothes out in his hands to her.

“Thanks,” he said. “Now I know.”

She took the clothing from him. She did not say anything. He picked up his pistols. He shut the bathroom door behind him and went into the living-room.

Gutman smiled amiably from the rocking chair. “Find it?” he asked.

Cairo, sitting beside the boy on the sofa, looked at Spade with questioning opaque eyes. The boy did not look up. He was leaning forward, head between hands, elbows on knees, staring at the floor between his feet.

Spade told Gutman: “No, I didn’t find it. You palmed it.”

The fat man chuckled. “I palmed it?”

“Yes,” Spade said, jingling the pistols in his hand. “Do you want to say so, or do you want to stand for a frisk?”

“Stand for—?”

“You’re going to admit it,” Spade said, “or I’m going to search you. There’s no third way.”

Gutman looked up at Spade’s hard face and laughed outright.

“By Gad, sir, I believe you would. I really do. You’re a character, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“You palmed it,” Spade said.

“Yes, sir, that I did.” The fat man took a crumpled bill from his vest pocket, smoothed it on a wide thigh, took the envelope holding the nine bills from his coat pocket and put the smoothed bill in with the others. “I must have my little joke every now and then, and I was curious to know what you’d do in a situation of that sort. I must say you passed the test with flying colors, sir. It never occurred to me that you’d hit on such a simple and direct way of getting at the truth.”

Spade sneered at him without bitterness. “That’s the kind of thing I’d expect from somebody the punk’s age.”

Gutman chuckled.

Brigid O’Shaughnessy, dressed again except for coat and hat, came out of the bathroom, took a step toward the living-room, turned around, went back to the kitchen, and turned on the light.