The Adventures Of Sam Spade Read online

  The Adventures Of Sam Spade

  Dashiell Hammett

  Dashiell Hammett

  The Adventures Of Sam Spade

  TOO MANY HAVE LIVED

  THE MAN'S TIE was as orange as a sunset. He was a large man, tall and meaty, without softness. The dark hair parted in the middle, flattened to his scalp, his firm, full cheeks, the clothes that fit him with noticeable snugness, even the small, pink ears flat against the sides of his head—each of these seemed but a differently colored part of one same, smooth surface. His age could have been thirty-five or forty-five.

  He sat beside Samuel Spade's desk, leaning forward a little over his Malacca stick, and said, “No. I want you to find out what happened to him. I hope you never find him.” His protuberant green eyes stared solemnly at Spade.

  Spade rocked back in his chair. His face—given a not unpleasantly Satanic cast by the v's of his bony chin, mouth, nostrils, and thickish brows—was as politely interested as his voice. “Why?”

  The green-eyed man spoke quietly, with assurance: “I can talk to you, Spade. You've the sort of reputation I want in a private detective. That's why I'm here.”

  Spade's nod committed him to nothing.

  The green-eyed man said, “And any fair price is all right with me.”

  Spade nodded as before. “And with me,” he said, “but I've got to know what you want to buy. You want to find out what's happened to this—uh—Eli Haven, but you don't care what it is?”

  The green-eyed man lowered his voice, but there was no other change in his mien: “In a way I do.' For instance, if you found him and fixed it so he stayed away for good, It might be worth more money to me.”

  “You mean even if he didn't want to stay away?”

  The green-eyed man said, “Especially.”

  Spade smiled and shook his head. “Probably not enough more money—the way you mean it.” He took his long, thick-fingered hands from the arms of his chair and turned their palms up. “Well, what's it all about, Colyer?”

  Colyer's face reddened a little, but his eyes maintained their unblinking cold stare. “This man's got a wife. I like her. They had a row last week and he blew. If I can convince her he's gone for good, there's a chance she'll divorce him.”

  “I'd want to talk to her,” Spade said. “Who is this Eli Haven? What does he do?”

  “He's a bad egg. He doesn't do anything. Writes poetry or something.”

  “What can you tell me about him that'll help?”

  “Nothing Julia, his wife, can't tell you. You're going to talk to her.” Colyer stood up. “I've got connections. Maybe I can get something for you through them later.” . . .

  A small-boned woman of twenty-five or —six opened the apartment door. Her powder-blue dress was trimmed with silver buttons. She was full-bosomed but slim, with straight shoulders and narrow hips, and she carried herself with a pride that would have been cockiness in one less graceful.

  Spade said, “Mrs. Haven?”

  She hesitated before saying “Yes.”

  “Gene Colyer sent me to see you. My name's Spade. I'm a private detective. He wants me to find your husband.”

  “And have you found him?”

  “I told him I'd have to talk to you first.”

  Her smile went away. She studied his face gravely, feature by feature, then she said, “Certainly,” and stepped back, drawing the door back with her.

  When they were seated in facing chairs in a cheaply furnished room overlooking a playground where children were noisy, she asked, “Did Gene tell you why he wanted Eli found?”

  “He said if you knew he was gone for good maybe you'd listen to reason.”

  She said nothing.

  “Has he ever gone off like this before?”

  “Often.”

  “What's he like?”

  “He's a swell man,” she said dispassionately, “when he's sober; and when he's drinking he's all right except with women and money.”

  “That leaves him a lot of room to be all right in. What does he do for a living?”

  “He's a poet,” she replied, “but nobody makes a living at that.”

  “Well?”

  “Oh, he pops in with a little money now and then. Poker, races, he says. I don't know.”

  “How long've you been married?”

  “Four years, almost”—he smiled mockingly.

  “San Francisco all the time?”

  “No, we lived in Seattle the first year and then came here.”

  “He from Seattle?”

  She shook her head. “Some place in Delaware.”

  “What place?”

  “I don't know.”

  Spade drew his thickish brows together a little. “Where are you from?”

  She said sweetly, “You're not hunting for me.”

  “You act like it,” he grumbled. “Well, who are his friends?”

  “Don't ask me!”

  He made an impatient grimace. “You know some of them,” he insisted.

  “Sure. There's a fellow named Minera and a Louis James and somebody he calls Conny.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Men,” she replied blandly. “I don't know anything about them. They phone or drop by to pick him up, or I see him around town with them. That's all I know.”

  “What do they do for a living? They can't all write poetry.”

  She laughed. “They could try. One of them, Louis James, is a—member of Gene's staff, I think. I honestly don't know any more about them than I've told you.”

  “Think they'd know where your husband is?”

  She shrugged. “They're kidding me if they do. They still call up once in a while to see if he's turned up.”

  “And these women you mentioned?”

  “They're not people I know.”

  Spade scowled thoughtfully at the floor, asked, “What'd he do before he started not making a living writing poetry?”

  “Anything—sold vacuum cleaners, hoboed, went to sea, dealt blackjack, railroaded, canning houses, lumber camps, carnivals, worked on a newspaper—anything.”

  “Have any money when he left?”

  “Three dollars he borrowed from me.”

  “What'd he say?”

  She laughed. “Said if I used whatever influence I had with God while he was gone he'd be back at dinnertime with a surprise for me.”

  Spade raised his eyebrows. “You were on good terms?”

  “Oh, yes. Our last fight had been patched up a couple of days before.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “Thursday afternoon; three o'clock, I guess.”

  “Got any photographs of him?”

  “Yes.” She went to a table by one of the windows, pulled a drawer out, and turned towards Spade again with a photograph in her hand.

  Spade looked at the picture of a thin face with deep-set eyes, a sensual mouth, and a heavily lined forehead topped by a disorderly mop of coarse blond hair.

  He put Haven's photograph in his pocket and picked up his hat. He turned towards the door, halted. “What kind of poet is he? Pretty good?”

  She shrugged. “That depends on who you ask.”

  “Any of it around here?”

  “No.” She smiled. “Think he's hiding between pages?”

  “You never can tell what'll lead to what. I'll be back some time. Think things over and see if you can't find some way of loosening up a little more. 'By.”

  He walked down Post Street to Mulford's book store and asked for a volume of Haven's poetry.

  “I'm sorry,” the girl said. “I sold my last copy last week”—she smiled—“to Mr. Haven himself. I can order it for you.”

  “You know him?” />
  “Only through selling him books.”

  Spade pursed his lips, asked, “What day was it?” He gave her one of his business cards. “Please. It's important.”

  She went to a desk, turned the pages of a red-bound sales-book, and came back to him with the book open in her hand. “It was last Wednesday,” she said, “and we delivered it to a Mr. Roger Ferris, 1981 Pacific Avenue.”

  “Thanks a lot,” he said.

  Outside, he hailed a taxicab and gave the driver Mr. Roger Ferris's address. …

  The Pacific Avenue house was a four-story, graystone one set behind a narrow strip of lawn. The room into which a plump-faced maid ushered Spade was large and high-ceiled.

  Spade sat down, but when the maid had gone away he rose and began to walk around the room. He halted at a table where there were three books. One of them had a salmon-colored jacket on which was printed in red an outline drawing of a bolt of lightning striking the ground between a man and a woman, and in black the words Colored Light, by Eli Haven.

  Spade picked up the book and went back to his chair.

  There was an inscription on the flyleaf—heavy, irregular characters written with blue ink:

  To good old Buck, 'who knew his colored lights,' in memory of them there days.EH

  Spade turned pages at random and idly read a verse:

  STATEMENT

  Too many have lived As we live For our lives to be Proof of our living.

  Too many have died As we die

  For their deaths to be Proof of our dying.

  He looked up from the book as a man in dinner clothes came into the room. He was not a tall man, but his erect-ness made him seem tall even when Spade's six feet and a fraction of an inch were standing before him. He had bright blue eyes undimmed by his fifty-some years, a sunburned face in which no muscle sagged, a smooth, broad forehead, and thick, short, nearly white hair. There was dignity in his countenance, and amiability.

  He nodded at the book Spade still held. “How do you like it?”

  Spade grinned, said, “I guess I'm just a mug,” and put the book down. “That's what I came to see you about, though, Mr. Ferris. You know Haven?”

  “Yes, certainly. Sit down, Mr. Spade.” He sat in a chair not far from Spade's. “I knew him as a kid. He's not in trouble, is he?”

  Spade said, “I don't know. I'm trying to find him.”

  Ferris spoke hesitantly: “Can I ask why?”

  “You know Gene Colyer?”

  “Yes.” Ferris hesitated again, then said, “This is in confidence. I've a chain of picture houses through northern California, you know, and a couple of years ago when I had some labor trouble I was told that Colyer was the man to get in touch with to have it straightened out. That's how I happened to meet him.”

  “Yes,” Spade said dryly. “A lot of people happen to meet Gene that way.”

  “But what's he got to do with Eli?”

  “Wants him found. How long since you've seen him?”

  “Last Thursday he was here.”

  “What time did he leave?”

  “Midnight—a little after. He came over in the afternoon around half past three. We hadn't seen each other for years. I persuaded him to stay for dinner—he looked pretty seedy—and lent him some money.”

  “How much?”

  “A hundred and fifty—all I had in the house.”

  “Say where he was going when he left?” Ferris shook his head. “He said he'd phone me the next day.”

  “Did he phone you the next day?”

  “No.”

  “And you've known him all his life?”

  “Not exactly, but he worked for me fifteen or sixteen years ago when I had a carnival company—Great Eastern and Western Combined Shows—with a partner for a while and then by myself, and I always liked the kid.”

  “How long before Thursday since you'd seen him?”

  “Lord knows,” Ferris replied. “I'd lost track of him for years. Then, Wednesday, out of a clear sky, that book came, with no address or anything, just that stuff written in the front, and the next morning he called me up. I was tickled to death to know he was still alive and doing something with himself. So he came over that afternoon and we Put in about nine hours straight talking about old times.”

  “Tell you much about what he'd been doing since then?”

  “Just that he'd been knocking around, doing one thing and another, taking the breaks as they came. He didn't complain much; I had to make him take the hundred and fifty.”

  Spade stood up. “Thanks ever so much, Mr. Ferris. I —” Ferris interrupted him: “Not at all, and if there's anything I can do, call on me.”

  Spade looked at his watch. “Can I phone my office to see if anything's turned up?—”

  “Certainly; there's a phone in the next room, to the right.”

  Spade said “Thanks” and went out. When he returned he was rolling a cigarette. His face was wooden.

  “Any news?” Ferris asked.

  “Yes. Colyer's called the job off. He says Haven's body's been found in some bushes on the other side of San Jose, with three bullets in it.” He smiled, adding mildly, “He told me he might be able to find out something through his connections.” . . .

  Morning sunshine, coming through the curtains that screened Spade's office windows, put two fat, yellow rectangles on the floor and gave everything in the room a yellow tint.

  He sat at his desk, staring meditatively at a newspaper. He did not look up when Effie Ferine came in from the outer office.

  She said, “Mrs. Haven is here.”

  He raised his head then and said, “That's better. Pus her in.”

  Mrs. Haven came in quickly. Her face was white and she was shivering in spite of her fur coat and the warmth of the day. She came straight to Spade and asked, “Did Gene kill him?” Spade said, “I don't know.”

  “I've got to know,” she cried.

  Spade took her hands. “Here, sit down.” He led her to a chair. He asked, “Colyer tell you he'd called the job off?” She stared at him in amazement. “He what?”

  “He left word here last night that your husband had been found and he wouldn't need me any more.”

  She hung her head and her words were barely audible. “Then he did.”

  Spade shrugged. “Maybe only an innocent man could've afforded to call it off then, or maybe he was guilty, but had brains enough and nerve enough to—”

  She was not listening to him. She was leaning towards him, speaking earnestly: “But, Mr. Spade, you're not going to drop it like that? You're not going to let him stop you?” While she was speaking his telephone bell rang. He said, “Excuse me,” and picked up the receiver. “Yes? . . . Uh-huh. . . . So?” He pursed his lips. “I'll let you know.” He pushed the telephone aside slowly and faced Mrs. Haven again. “Colyer's outside.”

  “Does he know I'm here?” she asked quickly. “Couldn't say.” He stood up, pretending he was not watching her closely. “Do you care?”

  She pinched her lower lip between her teeth, said “No” hesitantly.

  “Fine. I'll have him in.”

  She raised a hand as if in protest, then let it drop, and her white face was composed. “Whatever you want,” she said.

  Spade opened the door, said, “Hello, Colyer. Come on in. We were just talking about you.”

  Colyer nodded and came into the office holding his stick ' in one hand, his hat in the other. “How are you this morning, Julia? You ought to've phoned me. I'd've driven you back to town.”

  “I—I didn't know what I was doing.”

  Colyer looked at her for a moment longer, then shifted the focus of his expressionless green eyes to Spade's face. “Well, have you been able to convince her I didn't do it?”

  “We hadn't got around to that,” Spade said. “I was just trying to find out how much reason there was for suspecting you. Sit down.”

  Colyer sat down somewhat carefully, asked, “And?”

  “And then you a
rrived.”

  Colyer nodded gravely. “All right, Spade,” he said; “you're hired again to prove to Mrs. Haven that I didn't have anything to do with it.”

  “Gene!” she exclaimed in a choked voice and held her hands out toward him appealingly. “I don't think you did—I don't want to think you did—but I'm so afraid.” She put her hands to her face and began to cry.

  Colyer went over to the woman. “Take it easy,” he said. “We'll pick it out together.”

  Spade went into the outer office, shutting the door behind him.

  Effie Perine stopped typing a letter. He grinned at her, said, “Somebody ought to write a book about people sometime—they're peculiar,” and went over to the water bottle. “You've got Wally Kellogg's number. Call him up and ask him where I can find Tom Minera.”

  He returned to the inner office.

  Mrs. Haven had stopped crying. She said, “I'm sorry.” Spade said, “It's all right.” He looked sidewise at Colyer. “I still got my job?”

  “Yes.” Colyer cleared his throat. “But if there's nothing special right now, I'd better take Mrs. Haven home.”

  “O.K., but there's one thing: According to the Chronicle, you identified him. How come you were down there?”

  “I went down when I heard they'd found a body,” Colyer replied deliberately. “I told you I had connections. I heard about the body through them.”

  Spade said, “All right; be seeing you,” and opened the door for them.

  When the corridor door closed behind them, Effie Perine said, “Minera's at the Buxton on Army Street.” Spade said, “Thanks.” He went into the inner office to get his hat. On his way out he said, “If I'm not back in a couple of months tell them to look for my body there.” …

  Spade walked down a shabby corridor to a battered green door marked “411.” The murmur of voices came through the door, but no words could be distinguished. He stopped listening and knocked.

  An obviously disguised male voice asked, “What is it?”

  “I want to see Tom. This is Sam Spade.”

  A pause, then: “Tom ain't here.”

  Spade put a hand on the knob and shook the frail door. “Come on, open up,” he growled.

  Presently the door was opened by a thin, dark man of twenty-five or —six who tried to make his beady dark eyes guileless while saying, “I didn't think it was your voice at first.” The slackness of his mouth made his chin seem even smaller than it was. His green-striped shirt, open at the neck, was not clean. His gray pants were carefully pressed.