She shook her head violently from side to side. “I waited and waited and she didn’t come, and I couldn’t get you on the phone, so I came down.”
Spade jerked his hands away from her shoulders, thrust them far down in his trousers-pockets, said, “Another merry-go-round,” in a loud enraged voice, and strode into his private office. He came out again. “Phone your mother,” he commanded. “See if she’s come yet.”
He walked up and down the office while the girl used the telephone. “No,” she said when she had finished. “Did—did you send her out in a taxi?”
His grunt probably meant yes.
“Are you sure she—Somebody must have followed her!”
Spade stopped pacing the floor. He put his hands on his hips and glared at the girl. He addressed her in a loud savage voice: “Nobody followed her. Do you think I’m a goddamned schoolboy? I made sure of it before I put her in the cab, I rode a dozen blocks with her to be more sure, and I checked her another half-dozen blocks after I got out.”
“Well, but—”
“But she didn’t get there. You’ve told me that. I believe it. Do you think I think she did get there?”
Effie Perine sniffed. “You certainly act like a goddamned schoolboy,” she said.
Spade made a harsh noise in his throat and went to the corridor door. “I’m going out and find her if I have to dig up sewers,” he said. “Stay here till I’m back or you hear from me. For Christ’s sake let’s do something right.”