Dundy withdrew the tapping fingers, but there was no change in his voice: “Tom says you were in too much of a hurry to even stop for a look at your partner.”
Tom growled apologetically: “Well, damn it, Sam, you did run off like that.”
“And you didn’t go to Archer’s house to tell his wife,” the Lieutenant said. “We called up and that girl in your office was there, and she said you sent her.”
Spade nodded. His face was stupid in its calmness.
Lieutenant Dundy raised his two bent fingers towards Spade’s chest, quickly lowered them, and said: “I give you ten minutes to get to a phone and do your talking to the girl. I give you ten minutes to get to Thursby’s joint—Geary near Leavenworth—you could do it easy in that time, or fifteen at the most. And that gives you ten or fifteen minutes of waiting before he showed up.”
“I knew where he lived?” Spade asked. “And I knew he hadn’t gone straight home from killing Miles?”
“You knew what you knew,” Dundy replied stubbornly. “What time did you get home?”
“Twenty minutes to four. I walked around thinking things over.”
The Lieutenant wagged his round head up and down. “We knew you weren’t home at three-thirty. We tried to get you on the phone. Where’d you do your walking?”
“Out Bush Street a way and back.”
“Did you see anybody that—?”