“We’ll soon know,” Spade said, his big fingers busy with the inner husk of coarse grey paper, three sheets thick, that the brown paper’s removal had revealed. His face was hard and dull. His eyes were shining. When he had put the grey paper out of the way he had an egg-shaped mass of pale excelsior, wadded tight. His fingers tore the wad apart and then he had the foot-high figure of a bird, black as coal and shiny where its polish was not dulled by wood-dust and fragments of excelsior.
Spade laughed. He put a hand down on the bird. His widespread fingers had ownership in their curving. He put his other arm around Effie Perine and crushed her body against his. “We’ve got the damned thing, angel,” he said.
“Ouch!” she said, “you’re hurting me.”
He took his arm away from her, picked the black bird up in both hands, and shook it to dislodge clinging excelsior. Then he stepped back holding it up in front of him and blew dust off it, regarding it triumphantly.
Effie Perine made a horrified face and screamed, pointing at his feet.
He looked down at his feet. His last backward step had brought his left heel into contact with the dead man’s hand, pinching a quarter-inch of flesh at a side of the palm between heel and floor. Spade jerked his foot away from the hand.
The telephone bell rang.
He nodded at the girl. She turned to the desk and put the receiver to her ear. She said: “Hello. … Yes. … Who? … Oh, yes!” Her eyes became large. “Yes. … Yes. … Hold the line. …” Her mouth suddenly stretched wide and fearful. She cried: “Hello! Hello! Hello!” She rattled the prong up and down and cried, “Hello!” twice. Then she sobbed and spun around to face Spade, who was close beside her by now. “It was Miss