The Black Bird
Miss Wonderly, in a belted green crêpe silk dress, opened the door of apartment 1001 at the Coronet. Her face was flushed. Her dark red hair, parted on the left side, swept back in loose waves over her right temple, was somewhat tousled.
Spade took off his hat and said: “Good morning.”
His smile brought a fainter smile to her face. Her eyes, of blue that was almost violet, did not lose their troubled look. She lowered her head and said in a hushed, timid voice: “Come in, Mr. Spade.”
She led him past open kitchen-, bathroom-, and bedroom doors into a cream and red living-room, apologizing for its confusion: “Everything is upside-down. I haven’t even finished unpacking.”
She laid his hat on a table and sat down on a walnut settee. He sat on a brocaded oval-backed chair facing her.
She looked at her fingers, working them together, and said: “ Mr. Spade, I’ve a terrible, terrible confession to make.”
Spade smiled a polite smile, which she did not lift her eyes to see, and said nothing.
“That—that story I told you yesterday was all—a story,” she stammered, and looked up at him now with miserable frightened eyes.
“Oh, that,” Spade said lightly. “We didn’t exactly believe your story.”
“Then—?” Perplexity was added to the misery and fright in her eyes.