His eyes, squinting at the desk that had been his partner's, across the room from his own, were angry. He drew his lips back over his teeth in an impatient grimace and turned his chin aside to avoid contact with the crown of her hat.
"Did you send for Miles's brother?" he asked.
"Yes, he came over this morning."
The words were blurred by her sobbing and his coat against her mouth.
He grimaced again and bent his head for a surreptitious look at the watch on his wrist. His left arm was around her, the hand on her left shoulder. His cuff was pulled back far enough to leave the watch uncovered.
It showed ten-ten.
The woman stirred in his arms and raised her face again. Her blue eyes were wet, round, and white-ringed. Her mouth was moist.
"Oh, Sam," she moaned, "did you kill him?"
Spade stared at her with bulging eyes.
His bony jaw fell down.
He took his arms from her and stepped back out of her arms.
He scowled at her and cleared his throat.
She held her arms up as he had left them.
Anguish clouded her eyes, partly closed them under eyebrows pulled up at the inner ends.
Her soft damp red lips trembled.
Spade laughed a harsh syllable,
"Ha!" and went to the buff-curtained window.
He stood there with his back to her looking through the curtain into the court until she started towards him.
Then he turned quickly and went to his desk.
He sat down, put his elbows on the desk, his chin between his fists, and looked at her. His yellowish eyes glittered between narrowed lids.
"Who," he asked coldly, "put that bright idea in your head?"
"I thought—" She lifted a hand to her mouth and fresh tears came to her eyes.
She came to stand beside the desk, moving with easy surefooted grace in black slippers whose smallness and heel-height were extreme.
"Be kind to me, Sam," she said humbly.
He laughed at her, his eyes still glittering.
"You killed my husband, Sam, be kind to me."
He clapped his palms together and said:
"Jesus Christ."
She began to cry audibly, holding a white handkerchief to her face.
He got up and stood close behind her. He put his arms around her.
He kissed her neck between ear and coat-collar. He said:
"Now, Iva, don't." His face was expressionless.
When she had stopped crying he put his mouth to hem ear and murmured: "You shouldn't have come here today, precious.
It wasn't wise.
You c2n't stay.
You ought to be home."
She turned around in his arms to face him and asked:
"You'll come tonight?"
He shook his head gently.
"Not tonight."
"Soon?"
"Yes."
"How soon?"
"As soon as I can."
He kissed her mouth, led her to the door, opened it, said,
"Goodbye, Iva," bowed her out, shut the door, and returned to his desk.
He took tobacco and cigarette-papers from his vest-pockets, but did not roll a cigarette.
He sat holding the papers in one hand, the tobacco in the other, and looked with brooding eyes at his dead partner's desk.
Effie Perine opened the door and came in.
Her brown eyes were uneasy. Her voice was careless. She asked: