Spade slowly replaced receiver on prong, telephone on shelf. He wet his lips and looked down at his hands. Their palms were wet. He filled his deep chest with air. His eyes were glittering between straightened lids. He turned and took three long swift steps into the living-room.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy, startled by the suddenness of his approach, let her breath out in a little laughing gasp.
Spade, face to face with her, very close to her, tall, big-boned and thick-muscled, coldly smiling, hard of jaw and eye, said: “They’ll talk when they’re nailed—about us. We’re sitting on dynamite, and we’ve only got minutes to get set for the police. Give me all of it—fast. Gutman sent you and Cairo to Constantinople?”
She started to speak, hesitated, and bit her lip.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “God damn you, talk!” he said. “I’m in this with you and you’re not going to gum it. Talk. He sent you to Constantinople?”
“Y-yes, he sent me. I met Joe there and—and asked him to help me. Then we—”
“Wait. You asked Cairo to help you get it from Kemidov?”
“Yes.”
“For Gutman?”
She hesitated again, squirmed under the hard angry glare of his eyes, swallowed, and said: “No, not then. We thought we would get it for ourselves.”
“All right. Then?”