bottles of powders, creams, unguents, perfumes, lotions, and tonics. Two suits and an overcoat hung in the closet over three pairs of carefully treed shoes.
The valise and smaller bag were unlocked. Luke had the trunk unlocked by the time Spade had finished searching elsewhere.
“Blank so far,” Spade said as they dug down into the trunk.
They found nothing there to interest them.
“Any particular thing we’re supposed to be looking for?” Luke asked as he locked the trunk again.
“No. He’s supposed to have come here from Constantinople. I’d like to know if he did. I haven’t seen anything that says he didn’t.”
“What’s his racket?”
Spade shook his head. “That’s something else I’d like to know.” He crossed the room and bent down over the wastebasket. “Well, this is our last shot.”
He took a newspaper from the basket. His eyes brightened when he saw it was the previous day’s Call . It was folded with the classified advertising page outside. He opened it, examined that page, and nothing there stopped his eyes.
He turned the paper over and looked at the page that had been folded inside, the page that held financial and shipping news, the weather, births, marriages, divorces, and deaths. From the lower left-hand corner, a little more than two inches of the bottom of the second column had been torn out.
Immediately above the tear was a small caption “Arrived Today” followed by: