"I let him hit me, didn't I?"
"Oh, yes, but a police official."
"It wasn't that," Spade explained.
"It was that in hosing his head and slugging me he overplayed his hand.
If I'd mixed it with him then he couldn't'ye backed down.
He'd've had to go through with it, and we'd've had to tell that goofy story at headquarters."
He stared thoughtfully at the girl, and asked: "What did you do to Cairo?"
"Nothing."
Her face became flushed.
"I tried to frighten him into keeping still until they had gone and he either got too frightened or stubborn and yelled."
"And then you smacked him with the gun?"
"I had to. He attacked me."
"You don't know what you're doing."
Spade's smile did not hide his annoyance.
"It's just what I told you: you're fumbling along by guess and by God."
"I'm sorry," she said, face and voice soft with contrition, "Sam."
"Sure you are."
He took tobacco and papers from his pockets and began to make a cigarette.
"Now you've had your talk with Cairo.
Now you can talk to me."
She put a fingertip to her mouth, staring across the room at nothing with widened eyes, and then, with narrower eyes, glanced quickly at Spade.
He was engrossed in the making of his cigarette.
"Oh, yes," she began, "of course—" She took the finger away from her mouth and smoothed her blue dress over her knees. She frowned at her knees.
Spade licked his cigarette, sealed it, and asked,
"Well?" while he felt for his lighter.
"But I didn't," she said, pausing between words as if she were selecting them with great care, "have time to finish talking to him."
She stopped frowning at her knees and looked at Spade with clear candid eyes.
"We were interrupted almost before we had begun."
Spade lighted his cigarette and laughed his mouth empty of smoke.
"Want me to phone him and ask him to come back?"
She shook her head, not smiling. Her eyes moved back and forth between her lids as she shook her head, maintaining their focus on Spade's eyes. Her eyes were inquisitive.
Spade put an arm across her back, cupping his hand over the smooth bare white shoulder farthest from him.
She leaned back into the bend of his arm.
He said:
"Well, I'm listening."
She twisted her head around to smile up at him with playful insolence, asking:
"Do you need your arm there for that?"
"No."
He removed his hand from her shoulder and let his arm drop down behind her.
"You're altogether unpredictable," she murmured. He nodded and said annably:
"I'm still listening."
"Look at the time!" she exclaimed, wriggling a finger at the alarm-clock perched atop the book saying two-fifty with its clumsily shaped hands.
"Uh-huh, it's been a busy evening."
"I must go."
She rose from the sofa.
"This is terrible."
Spade did not rise.
He shook his head and said:
"Not until you've told me about it."
"But look at the time," she protested, "and it would take hours to tell you."