“You've got to be careful these days,” Spade said solemnly, and went through the doorway into a room where two men were trying to seem uninterested in his arrival.
One of them leaned against the window sill filing his fingernails. The other was tilted back in a chair with his , feet on the edge of a table and a newspaper spread between his hands. They glanced at Spade in unison and went on with their occupations.
Spade said cheerfully, “Always glad to meet any friends of Tom Minera's.”
Minera finished shutting the door and said awkwardly, “Uh—yes—Mr. Spade, meet Mr. Conrad and Mr. James.”
Conrad, the man at the window, made a vaguely polite gesture with the nail file in his hand. He was a few years older than Minera, of average height, sturdily built, with a thick-featured, dull-eyed face.
James lowered his paper for an instant to look coolly, appraisingly at Spade and say, “How'r'ye, brother?” Then he returned to his reading. He was as sturdily built as Conrad, but taller, and his face had a shrewdness the other's lacked.
“Ah,” Spade said, “and friends of the late Eli Haven.”
The man at the window jabbed a finger with his nail file, and cursed it bitterly. Minera moistened his lips, and then spoke rapidly, with a whining note in his voice: “But on the level, Spade, we hadn't none of us seen him for a week.”
Spade seemed mildly amused by the dark man's manner.
“What do you think he was killed for?”
“All I know is what the paper says: His pockets was all turned inside out and there wasn't as much as a match on him.” He drew down the ends of his mouth. “But far as I know he didn't have no dough. He didn't have none Tuesday night.”
Spade, speaking softly, said, “I hear he got some Thursday night.”
Minera, behind Spade, caught his breath audibly.
James said, “I guess you ought to know. I don't.”
“He ever work with you boys?”
James slowly put aside his newspaper and took his feet off the table. His interest in Spade's question seemed great enough, but almost impersonal. “Now what do you mean by that?”
Spade pretended surprise. “But you boys must work at something?”
Minera came around to Spade's side. “Aw, listen, Spade,” he said. “This guy Haven was just a guy we knew. We didn't have nothing to do with rubbing him out; we don't know nothing about it. You know, we —” Three deliberate knocks sounded at the door. Minera and Conrad looked at James, who nodded, but by then Spade, moving swiftly, had reached the door and was opening it. Roger Ferris was there.
Spade blinked at Ferris, Ferris at Spade. Then Ferris put out his hand and said, “I am glad to see you.”
“Come on in,” Spade said.
“Look at this, Mr. Spade.” Ferris's hand trembled as he took a slightly soiled envelope from his pocket.
Ferris' name and address were typewritten on the envelope. There was no postage stamp on it. Spade took out the enclosure, a narrow slip of cheap white paper, and unfolded it. On it was typewritten:
You had better come to Room No 411 Buxton Hotel on ' Army St at 5 PM this afternoon on account of Thursday night.
There was no signature.
Spade said, “It's a long time before five o'clock.”
“It is,” Ferris agreed with emphasis. “I came as soon as I got that. It was Thursday night Eli was at my house.” Minera was jostling Spade, asking, “What is all this?” Spade held the note up for the dark man to read. He read it and yelled, “Honest, Spade, I don't know nothing about that letter.”
“Does anybody?” Spade asked.
Conrad said “No” hastily.
James said, “What letter?”
Spade looked dreamily at Ferris for a moment, then said, as if speaking to himself, “Of course, Haven was trying to shake you down.”
Ferris's face reddened. “What?”
“Shake-down,” Spade repeated patiently; “money, blackmail.”
“Look here, Spade,” Ferris said earnestly; “you don't really believe what you said? What would he have to blackmail me on?”
“'To good old Buck'”—Spade quoted the dead poet's inscription—“ 'who knew his colored lights, in memory of them there days.'” He looked somberly at Ferris from beneath slightly raised brows. “What colored lights? What's the circus and carnival slang term for kicking a guy off a train while it's going? Red-lighting. Sure, that's it —red lights. Who'd you red-light, Ferris, that Haven knew about?”
Minera went over to a chair, sat down, put his elbows on his knees, his head between his hands, and stared blankly at the floor. Conrad was breathing as if he had been running.
Spade addressed Ferris: “Well?”
Ferris wiped his face with a handkerchief, put the handkerchief in his pocket, and said simply, “It was a shakedown.”
And you killed him.”
Ferris's blue eyes, looking into Spade's yellow-gray ones, were clear and steady, as was his voice. “I did not,” he said. “I swear I did not. Let me tell you what happened He sent me the book, as I told you, and I knew right away what that joke he wrote in the front meant. So the next day, when he phoned me and said he was coming over to talk over old times and to try to borrow some money for old times' sake, I knew what he meant again, and I went down to the bank and drew out ten thousand dollars. You can check that up. It's the Seamen's National.”
“I will,” Spade said.
“As it turned out, I didn't need that much. He wasn't very big-time and I talked him into taking five thousand. I put the other five back in the bank next day. You can check that up.”
“I will,” Spade said.
“I told him I wasn't going to stand for any more taps, this five thousand was the first and last. I made him sign a paper saying he'd helped in the —what I'd done —and he signed it. He left sometime around midnight, and that's the last I ever saw of him.”
Spade tapped the envelope Ferris had given him. “And how about this note?”
“A messenger boy brought it at noon, and I came right over. Eli had assured me he hadn't said anything to anybody, but I didn't know. I had to face it, whatever it was.”
Spade turned to the others, his face wooden. “Well?”
Minera and Conrad looked at James, who made an impatient grimace and said, “Oh, sure, we sent him the letter. Why not? We was friends of Eli's, and we hadn't been able to find him since he went to put the squeeze to this baby, and then he turns up dead, so we kind of like to have the gent come over and explain things.”
“You knew about the squeeze?”
“Sure. We was all together when he got the idea.”
“How'd he happen to get the idea?” Spade asked.
James spread the fingers of his left hand. “We'd been drinking and talking—you know the way a bunch of guys will, about all they'd seen and done—and he told a yarn about once seeing a guy boot another off a train into a canon, and he happens to mention the name of the guy that done the booting—Buck Ferris. And somebody says, 'What's this Ferris look like?' Eli tells him what he looked like then, saying he ain't seen him for fifteen years; and whoever it is whistles and says, 'I bet that's the Ferris that owns about half the movie joints in the state. I bet you he'd give something to keep that back trail covered!'
“Well, the idea kind of hit Eh'. You could see that. He thought a little while and then he got cagey. He asked what this movie Ferris's first name is, and when the other guy tells him, 'Roger,' he makes out he's disappointed and says, 'No, it ain't him. His first name was Martin.' We all give him the ha-ha and he finally admits he's thinking of seeing the gent, and when he called me up Thursday around noon and says he's throwing a party at Pogey Hecker's that night, it ain't no trouble to figure out what's what.”
“What was the name of the gentleman who was red-lighted?”
“He wouldn't say. He shut up tight. You couldn't blame him.”
“Uh-huh,” Spade agreed.
“Then nothing. He n
ever showed up at Fogey's. We tried to get him on the phone around two o'clock in the morning, but his wife said he hadn't been home, so we stuck around till four or five and then decided he had given us a run-around, and made Pogey charge the bill to him, and beat it. I ain't seen him since—dead or alive.” Spade said mildly. “Maybe. Sure you didn't find Eli later that morning, take him riding, swap him bullets for Ferris's five thou, dump him in the—?”
A sharp double knock sounded on the door.
Spade's face brightened. He went to the door and opened it.
A young man came in. He was very dapper, and very well proportioned. He wore a light topcoat and his hands were in its pockets. Just inside the door he stepped to the right, and stood with his back to the wall. By that time another young man was coming in. He stepped to the left. Though they did not actually look alike, their common dapperness, the similar trimness of their bodies, and their almost identical positions—backs to wall, hands in pockets, cold, bright eyes studying the occupants of the room—gave them, for an instant, the appearance of twins.
Then Gene Colyer came in. He nodded at Spade, but paid no attention to the others in the room, though James said, “Hello, Gene.”
“Anything new?” Colyer asked Spade.
Spade nodded. “It seems this gentleman”—he jerked a thumb at Ferris—“was —”
“Any place we can talk?”
“There's a kitchen back here.”
Colyer snapped a “Smear anybody that pops” over his shoulder at the two dapper young men and followed Spade into the kitchen. He sat on the one kitchen chair and stared with unblinking green eyes at Spade while Spade told him what he had learned.
When the private detective had finished, the green-eyed man asked, “Well, what do you make of it?”
Spade looked thoughtfully at the other. “You've picked up something. I'd like to know what it is.”
Colyer said, “They found the gun in a stream a quarter of a mile from where they found him. It's James's—got the mark on it where it was shot out of his hand once inVallejo.”
“That's nice,” Spade said.
“Listen. A kid named Thurber says James comes to him last Wednesday and gets him to tail Haven. Thurber picks him up Thursday afternoon, puts him in at Ferris's, and phones James. James tells him to take a plant on the place and let him know where Haven goes when he leaves, but some nervous woman in the neighborhood puts in a rumble about the kid hanging around, and the cops chase him along about ten o'clock.”
Spade pursed his lips and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.
Colyer's eyes were expressionless, but sweat made his round face shiny, and his voice was hoarse. “Spade,” he said, “I'm going to turn him in.”
Spade switched his gaze from the ceiling to the protuberant green eyes.
“I've never turned in one of my people before,” Colyer said, “but this one goes. Julia's got to believe I hadn't anything to do with it if it's one of my people and I turn him in, hasn't she?”
Spade nodded slowly. “I think so.”
Colyer suddenly averted his eyes and cleared his throat. When he spoke again it was curtly: “Well, he goes.”
Minera, James, and Conrad were seated when Spade and Colyer came out of the kitchen. Ferris was walking the floor. The two dapper young men had not moved.
Colyer went over to James. “Where's your gun, Louis?” he asked.
James moved his right hand a few inches towards his left breast, stopped it, and said, “Oh, I didn't bring it.”
With his gloved hand—open—Colyer struck James on the side of the face, knocking him out of his chair.
James straightened up, mumbling, “I didn't mean nothing.” He put a hand to the side of his face. “I know I oughtn't've done it, Chief, but when he called up and said he didn't like to go up against Ferris without something and didn't have any of his own, I said, 'All right,' and sent it over to him.”
Colyer said, “And you sent Thurber over to him, too.”
“We were just kind of interested in seeing if he did go through with it,” James mumbled!
“And you couldn't've gone there yourself, or sent somebody else?”
“After Thurber had stirred up the whole neighborhood?”
Colyer turned to Spade. “Want us to help you take them in, or want to call the wagon?”
“We'll do it regular,” Spade said, and went to the wall telephone. When he turned away from it his face was wooden, his eyes dreamy. He made a cigarette, lit it, and said to Colyer, “I'm silly enough to think your Louis has got a lot of right answers in that story of his.”
James took his hand down from his bruised cheek and stared at Spade with astonished eyes. Colyer growled, “What's the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” Spade said softly, “except I think you're a little too anxious to slam it on him.” He blew smoke out. “Why, for instance, should he drop his gun there when it had marks on it that people knew?” Colyer said, “You think he's got brains.”
“If these boys killed him, knew he was dead, why do they wait till the body's found and things are stirred up before they go after Ferris again? What'd they turn his pockets inside out for if they hijacked him? That's a lot of trouble and only done by folks that kill for some other reason and want to make it look like robbery.” He shook his head. “You're too anxious to slam it on them. Why should they-?”
“That's not the point right now,” Colyer said. “The point is, why do you keep saying I'm too anxious to slam “ on him?”
Spade shrugged. “Maybe to clear yourself with Julia as soon as possible and as clear as possible, maybe even to clear yourself with the police, and then you've got clients.”
Colyer said, “What?”
Spade made a careless gesture with his cigarette. “Ferris” he said blandly. “He killed him, of course.”
Colyer's eyelids quivered, though he did not actually blink.
Spade said, “First, he's the last person we know of who saw Eli alive, and that's always a good bet. Second, he's the only person I talked to before Eli's body turned up who cared whether I thought they were holding out on me or not. The rest of you just thought I was hunting for a guy who'd gone away. He knew I was hunting for a man he'd killed, so he had to put himself in the clear. He was even afraid to throw that book away, because it had been sent up by the book store and could be traced, and there might be clerks who'd seen the inscription. Third, he was the only one who thought Eli was just a sweet, clean, lovable boy—for the same reasons. Fourth, that story about a blackmailer showing up at three o'clock in the afternoon, making an easy touch for five grand, and then sticking around till midnight is just silly, no matter how good the booze was. Fifth, the story about the paper Eli signed is still worse, though a forged one could be fixed up easy enough. Sixth, he's got the best reason for anybody we know for wanting Eli dead.”
Colyer nodded slowly. “Still —”
“Still nothing,” Spade said. “Maybe he did the ten-thousand-out-five-thousand-back trick with his bank, but that was easy. Then he got this feeble-minded blackmailer in his house, stalled him along until the servants had gone to bed, took the borrowed gun away from him, shoved him downstairs into his car, took him for a ride—maybe took him already dead, maybe shot him down there by the bushes—frisked him clean to make identification harder and to make it look like robbery, tossed the gun in the water, and came home —”
He broke off to listen to the sound of a siren in the street. He looked then, for the first time since he had begun to talk, at Ferris.
Ferris's face was ghastly white, but he held his eyes steady.
Spade said, “I've got a hunch, Ferris, that we're going to find out about that red-lighting job, too. You told me you had your carnival company with a partner for a while when Eli was working for you, and then by yourself. We oughtn't to have a lot of trouble finding out about your partner—whether he disappeared, or died a natural death, or is still alive.”
Ferris ha
d lost some of his erectness. He wet his lips and said, “I want to see my lawyer. I don't want to talk till I've seen my lawyer.”
Spade said, “It's all right with me. You're up against it, but I don't like blackmailers myself. I think Eli wrote a good epitaph for them in that book back there—'Too many have lived.'”
THEY CAN ONLY HANG YOU ONCE
SAMUEL SPADE SAID: “My name is Ronald Ames. I want to see Mr. Binnett—Mr. Timothy Binnett.”
“Mr. Binnett is resting now, sir,” the butler replied hesitantly.
“Will you find out when I can see him? It's important.” Spade cleared his throat. “I'm-uh-just back from Australia, and it's about some of his properties there.”
The butler turned on his heel while saying “I'll see, sir,” and was going up the front stairs before he had finished speaking.
Spade made and lit a cigarette.
The butler came downstairs again. “I'm sorry; he can't be disturbed now, but Mr. Wallace Binnett—Mr. Timothy's nephew—will see you.”
Spade said, “Thanks,” and followed the butler upstairs.
Wallace Binnett was a slender, handsome, dark man of about Spade's age—thirty-eight—who rose smiling from a brocaded chair, said, “How do you do, Mr. Ames?” waved his hand at another chair, and sat down again. “You're from Australia?”
“Got in this morning.”
“You're a business associate of Uncle Tim's?”
Spade smiled and shook his head. “Hardly that, but I've some information I think he ought to have—quick.”
Wallace Binnett looked thoughtfully at the floor, then up at Spade. “I'll do my best to persuade him to see you, Mr. Ames, but, frankly, I don't know.”
Spade seemed mildly surprised. “Why?”
Binnett shrugged. “He's peculiar sometimes. Understand, his mind seems perfectly all right, but he has the testiness and eccentricity of an old man in ill health and—well—at times he can be difficult.”
The Adventures Of Sam Spade Page 2