"She's impulsive."
"Yeah," Tom agreed.
Dundy scowled down at the girl and asked:
"What do you want us to think the truth is?"
"Not what he said," she replied.
"Not anything he said."
She turned to Spade.
"Is it?"
"How do I know'?" Spade responded.
"I was out in the kitchen mixing an omelette when it all happened, wasn't I?"
She wrinkled her forehead, studying him with eyes that perplexity clouded.
Tom grunted in disgust.
Dundy, still scowling at the girl, ignored Spade's speech and asked her:
"If he's not telling the truth, how come he did the squawking for help, and not you?"
"Oh, he was frightened to death when I struck him," she replied, looking contemptuously at the Levantine.
Cairo's face flushed where it was not blood-smeared. He exclaimed:
"Pfoo!
Another lie!"
She kicked his leg, the high heel of her blue slipper striking him just below the knee.
Dundy pulled him away from her while big Tom came to stand close to her, rumbling:
"Behave, sister.
That's no way to act."
"Then make him tell the truth," she said defiantly.
"We'll do that all right," he promised.
"Just don't get rough."
Dundy, looking at Spade with green eyes hard and bright and satisfied, addressed his subordinate:
"Well, Tom, I don't.guess we'll go wrong pulling the lot of them in."
Tom nodded gloomily.
Spade left the door and advanced to the center of the room, dropping his cigarette into a tray on the table as he passed it.
His smile and manner were amiably composed. "Don't be in a hurry," he said.
"Everything can be explained."
"I bet you," Dundy agreed, sneering.
Spade bowed to the girl.
"Miss O'Shaughnessy," he said, "may I present Lieutenant Dundy and Detective-sergeant Polhaus."
He bowed to Dundy.
"Miss O'Shaughnessy is an operative in my employ."
Joel Cairo said indignantly:
"That isn't so.
She—"
Spade interrupted him in a quite loud, but still genial, voice:
"I hired her just recently, yesterday.
This is Mr. Joel Cairo, a friend—an acquaintance, at any rate—of Thursby's.
He came to me this afternoon and tried to hire me to find something Thursby was supposed to have on him when he was bumped off.
It hooked funny, the way he put it to me, so I wouldn't touch it.
Then he pulled a gun—well, never mind that unless it comes to a point of laying charges against each other.
Anywa , after talking it over with Miss O'Shaughnessy, I thought maybe I could get something out of him about Miles's and Thursby's killings, so I asked him to come up here.
Maybe we put the questions to him a little rough, but he wasn't hurt any, not enough to have to cry for help.
I'd already had to take his gun away from him again."
As Spade talked anxiety came into Cairo's reddened face.
His eyes moved jerkily up and down, shifting their focus uneasily between the floor and Spade's bland face.