Spade grinned at him and asked: “Where’d you pick up all this news about Thursby?”
“Some of it’s on the records. The rest—well—we got it here and there.”
“From Cairo, for instance?” Now Spade’s eyes held the prying gleam.
Polhaus put down his coffee cup and shook his head. “Not a word of it. You poisoned that guy for us.”
Spade laughed. “You mean a couple of high-class sleuths like you and Dundy worked on that lily-of-the-valley all night and couldn’t crack him?”
“What do you mean—all night?” Polhaus protested. “We worked on him for less than a couple of hours. We saw we wasn’t getting nowhere, and let him go.”
Spade laughed again and looked at his watch. He caught John’s eye and asked for the check. “I’ve got a date