IF THEY HANG YOU_The Maltese falcon

FOR all of five minutes after the outer door had closed behind Casper

Gutman and Joel Cairo, Spade, motionless, stood staring at the knob of

the open living-room-door. His eyes were gloomy under a forehead drawn

down. The clefts at the root of his nose were deep and red. His lips

protruded loosely, pouting. He drew them in to make a hard v and went to

the telephone. He had not looked at Brigid O’Shaughnessy, who stood by

the table looking with uneasy eyes at him.

He picked up the telephone, set it on its shelf again, and bent to look

into the telephone-directory hanging from a corner of the shelf. He

turned the pages rapidly until he found the one he wanted, ran his

finger down a column, straightened up, and lifted the telephone from the

shelf again. He called a number and said:

“Hello, is Sergeant Polhaus there? . . . Will you call him, please? This

is Samuel Spade. . . .” He stared into space, waiting. “Hello, Tom, I’ve

got something for you. . . . Yes, plenty. Here it is: Thursby and Jacobi

were shot by a kid named Wilmer Cook.” He described the boy minutely.

“He’s working for a man named Casper Gutman.” He described Gutman. “That

fellow Cairo you met here is in with them too. . . . Yes, that’s

it. . . . Gutman’s staying at the Alexandria, suite twelve C, or was.

They’ve just left here and they’re blowing town, so you’ll have to move

fast, but I don’t think they’re expecting a pinch. . . . There’s a girl

in it too—Gutman’s daughter.” He described Rhea Gutman. “Watch yourself

when you go up against the kid. He’s supposed to be pretty good with the

gun. . . . That’s right, Tom, and I’ve got some stuff here for you. I

think I’ve got the guns he used. . . . That’s right. Step on it—and

luck to you!”

Spade slowly replaced receiver on prong, telephone on shelf. He wet his

lips and looked down at his hands. Their palms were wet. He filled his

deep chest with air. His eyes were glittering between straightened lids.

He turned and took three long swift steps into the living-room.

Brigid O’Shaughnessy, startled by the suddenness of his approach, let

her breath out in a little laughing gasp.

Spade, face to face with her, very close to her, tall, big-boned and

thick-muscled, coldly smiling, hard of jaw and eye, said: “They’ll talk

when they’re nailed—about us. We’re sitting on dynamite, and we’ve only

got minutes to get set for the police. Give me all of it—fast. Gutman

sent you and Cairo to Constantinople?”

She started to speak, hesitated, and bit her lip.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “God damn you, talk!” he said. “I’m in

this with you and you’re not going to gum it. Talk. He sent you to

Constantinople?”

“Y-yes, he sent me. I met Joe there and—and asked him to help me. Then

we—”

“Wait. You asked Cairo to help you get it from Kemidov?”

“Yes.”

“For Gutman?”

She hesitated again, squirmed under the hard angry glare of his eyes,

swallowed, and said: “No, not then. We thought we would get it for

ourselves.”

“All right. Then?”

“Oh, then I began to be afraid that Joe wouldn’t play fair with me,

so—so I asked Floyd Thursby to help me.”

“And he did. Well?”

“Well, we got it and went to Hongkong.”

“With Cairo? Or had you ditched him before that?”

“Yes. We left him in Constantinople, in jail—something about a check.”

“Something you fixed up to hold him there?”

She looked shamefacedly at Spade and whispered: “Yes.”

“Right. Now you and Thursby are in Hongkong with the bird.”

“Yes, and then—I didn’t know him very well—I didn’t know whether I

could trust him. I thought it would be safer—anyway, I met Captain

Jacobi and I knew his boat was coming here, so I asked him to bring a

package for me—and that was the bird. I wasn’t sure I could trust

Thursby, or that Joe or—or somebody working for Gutman might not be on

the boat we came on—and that seemed the safest plan.”

“All right. Then you and Thursby caught one of the fast boats over. Then

what?”

“Then—then I was afraid of Gutman. I knew he had

people—connections—everywhere, and he’d soon know what we had done.

And I was afraid he’d have learned that we had left Hongkong for San

Francisco. He was in New York and I knew if he heard that by cable he

would have plenty of time to get here by the time we did, or before. He

did. I didn’t know that then, but I was afraid of it, and I had to wait

here until Captain Jacobi’s boat arrived. And I was afraid Gutman would

find me—or find Floyd and buy him over. That’s why I came to you and

asked you to watch him for—”

“That’s a lie,” Spade said. “You had Thursby hooked and you knew it. He

was a sucker for women. His record shows that—the only falls he took

were over women. And once a chump, always a chump. Maybe you didn’t know

his record, but you’d know you had him safe.”

She blushed and looked timidly at him.

He said: “You wanted to get him out of the way before Jacobi came with

the loot. What was your scheme?”

“I—I knew he’d left the States with a gambler after some trouble. I

didn’t know what it was, but I thought that if it was anything serious

and he saw a detective watching him he’d think it was on account of the

old trouble, and would be frightened into going away. I didn’t think—”

“You told him he was being shadowed,” Spade said confidently. “Miles

hadn’t many brains, but he wasn’t clumsy enough to be spotted the first

night.”

“I told him, yes. When we went out for a walk that night I pretended to

discover Mr. Archer following us and pointed him out to Floyd.” She

sobbed. “But please believe, Sam, that I wouldn’t have done it if I had

thought Floyd would kill him. I thought he’d be frightened into leaving

the city. I didn’t for a minute think he’d shoot him like that.”

Spade smiled wolfishly with his lips, but not at all with his eyes. He

said: “If you thought he wouldn’t you were right, angel.”

The girl’s upraised face held utter astonishment.

Spade said: “Thursby didn’t shoot him.”

Incredulity joined astonishment in the girl’s face.

Spade said: “Miles hadn’t many brains, but, Christ! he had too many

years’ experience as a detective to be caught like that by the man he

was shadowing. Up a blind alley with his gun tucked away on his hip and

his overcoat buttoned? Not a chance. He was as dumb as any man ought to

be, but he wasn’t quite that dumb. The only two ways out of the alley

could be watched from the edge of Bush Street over the tunnel. You’d

told us Thursby was a bad actor. He couldn’t have tricked Miles into the

alley like that, and he couldn’t have driven him in. He was dumb, but

not dumb enough for that.”

He ran his tongue over the inside of his lips and smiled affectionately

at the girl. He said: “But he’d’ve gone up there with you, angel, if he

was sure nobody else was up there. You were his client, so he would have

had no reason for not dropping the shadow on your say-so, and if you

caught up with him and asked him to go up there he’d’ve gone. He was

just dumb enough for that. He’d’ve looked you up and down and licked his

lips and gone grinning from ear to ear—and then you could’ve stood as

close to him as you liked in the dark and put a hole through him with

the gun you had got from Thursby that evening.”

Brigid O’Shaughnessy shrank back from him until the edge of the table

stopped her. She looked at him with terrified eyes and cried:

“Don’t—don’t talk to me like that, Sam! You know I didn’t! You know—”

“Stop it.” He looked at the watch on his wrist. “The police will be

blowing in any minute now and we’re sitting on dynamite. Talk!”

She put the back of a hand on her forehead. “Oh, why do you accuse me of

such a terrible—?”

“Will you stop it?” he demanded in a low impatient voice. “This isn’t

the spot for the schoolgirl-act. Listen to me. The pair of us are

sitting under the gallows.” He took hold of her wrists and made her

stand up straight in front of him. “Talk!”

“I—I—How did you know he—he licked his lips and looked—?”

Spade laughed harshly. “I knew Miles. But never mind that. Why did you

shoot him?”

She twisted her wrists out of Spade’s fingers and put her hands up

around the back of his neck, pulling his head down until his mouth all

but touched hers. Her body was flat against his from knees to chest. He

put his arms around her, holding her tight to him. Her dark-lashed lids

were half down over velvet eyes. Her voice was hushed, throbbing: “I

didn’t mean to, at first. I didn’t, really. I meant what I told you, but

when I saw Floyd couldn’t be frightened I—”

Spade slapped her shoulder. He said: “That’s a lie. You asked Miles and

me to handle it ourselves. You wanted to be sure the shadower was

somebody you knew and who knew you, so they’d go with you. You got the

gun from Thursby that day—that night. You had already rented the

apartment at the Coronet. You had trunks there and none at the hotel and

when I looked the apartment over I found a rent-receipt dated five or

six days before the time you told me you rented it.”

She swallowed with difficulty and her voice was humble. “Yes, that’s a

lie, Sam. I did intend to if Floyd—I—I can’t look at you and tell you

this, Sam.” She pulled his head farther down until her cheek was against

his cheek, her mouth by his ear, and whispered: “I knew Floyd wouldn’t

be easily frightened, but I thought that if he knew somebody was

shadowing him either he’d—Oh, I can’t say it, Sam!” She clung to him,

sobbing.

Spade said: “You thought Floyd would tackle him and one or the other of

them would go down. If Thursby was the one then you were rid of him. If

Miles was, then you could see that Floyd was caught and you’d be rid of

him. That it?”

“S-something like that.”

“And when you found that Thursby didn’t mean to tackle him you borrowed

the gun and did it yourself. Right?”

“Yes—though not exactly.”

“But exact enough. And you had that plan up your sleeve from the first.

You thought Floyd would be nailed for the killing.”

“I—I thought they’d hold him at least until after Captain Jacobi had

arrived with the falcon and—”

“And you didn’t know then that Gutman was here hunting for you. You

didn’t suspect that or you wouldn’t have shaken your gunman. You knew

Gutman was here as soon as you heard Thursby had been shot. Then you

knew you needed another protector, so you came back to me. Right?”

“Yes, but—oh, sweetheart!—it wasn’t only that. I would have come back

to you sooner or later. From the first instant I saw you I knew—”

Spade said tenderly: “You angel! Well, if you get a good break you’ll be

out of San Quentin in twenty years and you can come back to me then.”

She took her cheek away from his, drawing her head far back to stare up

without comprehension at him.

He was pale. He said tenderly: “I hope to Christ they don’t hang you,

precious, by that sweet neck.” He slid his hands up to caress her

throat.

In an instant she was out of his arms, back against the table,

crouching, both hands spread over her throat. Her face was wild-eyed,

haggard. Her dry mouth opened and closed. She said in a small parched

voice: “You’re not—” She could get no other words out.

Spade’s face was yellow-white now. His mouth smiled and there were

smile-wrinkles around his glittering eyes. His voice was soft, gentle.

He said: “I’m going to send you over. The chances are you’ll get off

with life. That means you’ll be out again in twenty years. You’re an

angel. I’ll wait for you.” He cleared his throat. “If they hang you I’ll

always remember you.”

She dropped her hands and stood erect. Her face became smooth and

untroubled except for the faintest of dubious glints in her eyes. She

smiled back at him, gently. “Don’t, Sam, don’t say that even in fun. Oh,

you frightened me for a moment! I really thought you—You know you do

such wild and unpredictable things that—” She broke off. She thrust her

face forward and stared deep into his eyes. Her cheeks and the flesh

around her mouth shivered and fear came back into her eyes. “What—?

Sam!” She put her hands to her throat again and lost her erectness.

Spade laughed. His yellow-white face was damp with sweat and though he

held his smile he could not hold softness in his voice. He croaked:

“Don’t be silly. You’re taking the fall. One of us has got to take it,

after the talking those birds will do. They’d hang me sure. You’re

likely to get a better break. Well?”

“But—but, Sam, you can’t! Not after what we’ve been to each other. You

can’t—”

“Like hell I can’t.”

She took a long trembling breath. “You’ve been playing with me? Only

pretending you cared—to trap me like this? You didn’t—care at all? You

didn’t—don’t—l-love me?”

“I think I do,” Spade said. “What of it?” The muscles holding his smile

in place stood out like wales. “I’m not Thursby. I’m not Jacobi. I won’t

play the sap for you.”

“That is not just,” she cried. Tears came to her eyes. “It’s unfair.

It’s contemptible of you. You know it was not that. You can’t say that.”

“Like hell I can’t,” Spade said. “You came into my bed to stop me asking

questions. You led me out yesterday for Gutman with that phoney call for

help. Last night you came here with them and waited outside for me and

came in with me. You were in my arms when the trap was sprung—I

couldn’t have gone for a gun if I’d had one on me and couldn’t have made

a fight of it if I had wanted to. And if they didn’t take you away with

them it was only because Gutman’s got too much sense to trust you except

for short stretches when he has to and because he thought I’d play the

sap for you and—not wanting to hurt you—wouldn’t be able to hurt him.”

Brigid O’Shaughnessy blinked her tears away. She took a step towards him

and stood looking him in the eyes, straight and proud. “You called me a

liar,” she said. “Now you are lying. You’re lying if you say you don’t

know down in your heart that, in spite of anything I’ve done, I love

you.”

Spade made a short abrupt bow. His eyes were becoming bloodshot, but

there was no other change in his damp and yellowish fixedly smiling

face. “Maybe I do,” he said. “What of it? I should trust you? You who

arranged that nice little trick for—for my predecessor, Thursby? You

who knocked off Miles, a man you had nothing against, in cold blood,

just like swatting a fly, for the sake of double-crossing Thursby? You

who double-crossed Gutman, Cairo, Thursby—one, two, three? You who’ve

never played square with me for half an hour at a stretch since I’ve

known you? I should trust you? No, no, darling. I wouldn’t do it even if

I could. Why should I?”

Her eyes were steady under his and her hushed voice was steady when she

replied: “Why should you? If you’ve been playing with me, if you do not

love me, there is no answer to that. If you did, no answer would be

needed.”

Blood streaked Spade’s eyeballs now and his long-held smile had become a

frightful grimace. He cleared his throat huskily and said: “Making

speeches is no damned good now.” He put a hand on her shoulder. The hand

shook and jerked. “I don’t care who loves who I’m not going to play the

sap for you. I won’t walk in Thursby’s and Christ knows who else’s

footsteps. You killed Miles and you’re going over for it. I could have

helped you by letting the others go and standing off the police the best

way I could. It’s too late for that now. I can’t help you now. And I

wouldn’t if I could.”

She put a hand on his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t help me then,” she

whispered, “but don’t hurt me. Let me go away now.”

“No,” he said. “I’m sunk if I haven’t got you to hand over to the police

when they come. That’s the only thing that can keep me from going down

with the others.”

“You won’t do that for me?”

“I won’t play the sap for you.”

“Don’t say that, please.” She took his hand from her shoulder and held

it to her face. “Why must you do this to me, Sam? Surely Mr. Archer

wasn’t as much to you as—”

“Miles,” Spade said hoarsely, “was a son of a bitch. I found that out

the first week we were in business together and I meant to kick him out

as soon as the year was up. You didn’t do me a damned bit of harm by

killing him.”

“Then what?”

Spade pulled his hand out of hers. He no longer either smiled or

grimaced. His wet yellow face was set hard and deeply lined. His eyes

burned madly. He said: “Listen. This isn’t a damned bit of good. You’ll

never understand me, but I’ll try once more and then we’ll give it up.

Listen. When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something

about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was

your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it. Then it

happens we were in the detective business. Well, when one of your

organization gets killed it’s bad business to let the killer get away

with it. It’s bad all around—bad for that one organization, bad for

every detective everywhere. Third, I’m a detective and expecting me to

run criminals down and then let them go free is like asking a dog to

catch a rabbit and let it go. It can be done, all right, and sometimes

it is done, but it’s not the natural thing. The only way I could have

let you go was by letting Gutman and Cairo and the kid go. That’s—”

“You’re not serious,” she said. “You don’t expect me to think that these

things you’re saying are sufficient reason for sending me to the—”

“Wait till I’m through and then you can talk. Fourth, no matter what I

wanted to do now it would be absolutely impossible for me to let you go

without having myself dragged to the gallows with the others. Next, I’ve

no reason in God’s world to think I can trust you and if I did this and

got away with it you’d have something on me that you could use whenever

you happened to want to. That’s five of them. The sixth would be that,

since I’ve also got something on you, I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t

decide to shoot a hole in _me_ some day. Seventh, I don’t even like the

idea of thinking that there might be one chance in a hundred that you’d

played me for a sucker. And eighth—but that’s enough. All those on one

side. Maybe some of them are unimportant. I won’t argue about that. But

look at the number of them. Now on the other side we’ve got what? All

we’ve got is the fact that maybe you love me and maybe I love you.”

“You know,” she whispered, “whether you do or not.”

“I don’t. It’s easy enough to be nuts about you.” He looked hungrily

from her hair to her feet and up to her eyes again. “But I don’t know

what that amounts to. Does anybody ever? But suppose I do? What of it?

Maybe next month I won’t. I’ve been through it before—when it lasted

that long. Then what? Then I’ll think I played the sap. And if I did it

and got sent over then I’d be sure I was the sap. Well, if I send you

over I’ll be sorry as hell—I’ll have some rotten nights—but that’ll

pass. Listen.” He took her by the shoulders and bent her back, leaning

over her. “If that doesn’t mean anything to you forget it and we’ll make

it this: I won’t because all of me wants to—wants to say to hell with

the consequences and do it—and because—God damn you—you’ve counted on

that with me the same as you counted on that with the others.” He took

his hands from her shoulders and let them fall to his sides.

She put her hands up to his cheeks and drew his face down again. “Look

at me,” she said, “and tell me the truth. Would you have done this to me

if the falcon had been real and you had been paid your money?”

“What difference does that make now? Don’t be too sure I’m as crooked as

I’m supposed to be. That kind of reputation might be good

business—bringing in high-priced jobs and making it easier to deal with

the enemy.”

She looked at him, saying nothing.

He moved his shoulders a little and said: “Well, a lot of money would

have been at least one more item on the other side of the scales.”

She put her face up to his face. Her mouth was slightly open with lips a

little thrust out. She whispered: “If you loved me you’d need nothing