morning. He noticed it particular because he’d never saw one just like it before. I never saw one. You say they don’t make them any more. It ain’t likely there’d be another around and—anyway—if that wasn’t Thursby’s what happened to his? And that’s the gun the slug in Miles come out of.” He started to put a piece of bread into his mouth, withdrew it, and asked:
“You say you’ve seen them before: where was that at?” He put the bread into his mouth.
“In England before the war.”
“Sure, there you are.”
Spade nodded and said: “Then that leaves Thursby the only one I killed.”
Polhaus squirmed in his chair and his face was red and shiny. “Christ’s sake, ain’t you never going to forget that?” he complained earnestly. “That’s out. You know it as well as I do. You’d think you wasn’t a dick yourself the way you bellyache over things. I suppose you don’t never pull the same stuff on anybody that we pulled on you?”
“You mean that you tried to pull on me, Tom—just tried.”
Polhaus swore under his breath and attacked the remainder of his pig’s foot.
Spade said: “All right. You know it’s out and I know it’s out. What does Dundy know?”
“He knows it’s out.”
“What woke him up?”
“Aw, Sam, he never really thought you’d—” Spade’s smile checked Polhaus. He left the sentence incomplete and said: “We dug up a record