The top of a car showed over the hedge.
Its motor idled.
Eddie Mars found the purple flagon and the two gold-veined glasses on the desk.
He sniffed at one of the glasses, then at the flagon.
A disgusted smile wrinkled his lips.
"The lousy pimp," he said tonelessly.
He looked at a couple of books, grunted, went on around the desk and stood in front of the little totem pole with the camera eye.
He studied it, dropped his glance to the floor in front of it.
He moved the small rug with his foot, then bent swiftly, his body tense. He went down on the floor with one gray knee.
The desk hid him from me partly.
There was a sharp exclamation and he came up again.
His arm flashed under his coat and a black Luger appeared in his hand. He held it in long brown fingers, not pointing it at me me, not pointing it at anything. "Blood," he said. "Blood on the floor there, under the rug.
Quite a lot of blood."
"Is that so?" I said, looking interested.
He slid into the chair behind the desk and hooked the mulberry-colored phone towards him and shifted the Luger to his left hand.
He frowned sharply at the telephone, bringing his thick gray eyebrows close together and making a hard crease in the weathered skin at the top of his hooked nose.
"I think we'll have some law," he said. I went over and kicked at the rug that lay where Geiger had lain. "It's old blood," I said. "Dried blood." "Just the same we'll have some law."
"Why not?" I said.
His eyes went narrow.
The veneer had flaked off him, leaving a well-dressed hard boy with a Luger.
He didn't like my agreeing with him.
"Just who the hell are you, soldier?"
"Marlowe is the name. I'm a sleuth."
"Never heard of you.
Who's the girl?"
"Client.
Geiger was trying to throw a loop on her with some blackmail.
We came to talk it over.
He wasn't here.
The door being open we walked in to wait.
Or did I tell you that?"
"Convenient," he said. "The door being open.
When you didn't have a key."
"Yes.
How come you had a key?"
"Is that any of your business, soldier?"
"I could make it my business."
He smiled tightly and pushed his hat back on his gray hair.
"And I could make your business my business."
"You wouldn't like it.
The pay's too small."
"All right, bright eyes.
I own this house.
Geiger is my tenant.
Now what do you think of that?"
"You know such lovely people."
"I take them as they come.
They come all kinds." He glanced down at the Luger, shrugged and tucked it back under his arm. "Got any good ideas, soldier?"
"Lots of them.
Somebody gunned Geiger.