Gutman looked up at Spade’s hard face and laughed outright. “By Gad, sir, I believe you would. I really do. You’re a character, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“You palmed it,” Spade said.
“Yes, sir, that I did.” The fat man took a crumpled bill from his vest-pocket, smoothed it on a wide thigh, took the envelope holding the nine bills from his coat-pocket, and put the smoothed bill in with the others. “I must have my little joke every now and then and I was curious to know what you’d do in a situation of that sort. I must say that you passed the test with flying colors, sir. It never occurred to me that you’d hit on such a simple and direct way of getting at the truth.”
Spade sneered at him without bitterness. “That’s the kind of thing I’d expect from somebody the punk’s age.”
Gutman chuckled.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy, dressed again except for coat and hat, came out of the bathroom, took a step towards the living-room, turned around, went to the kitchen, and turned on the light.
Cairo edged closer to the boy on the sofa and began whispering in his ear again. The boy shrugged irritably.
Spade, looking at the pistols in his hand and then at Gutman, went out into the passageway, to the closet there. He opened the door, put the pistols inside on the top of a trunk, shut the door, locked it, put the key in his trousers-pocket, and went to the kitchen door.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy was filling an aluminum percolator.
“Find everything?” Spade asked.