Horse Feathers
Brigid O’Shaughnessy was huddled in the armchair by the table. Her forearms were up over her cheeks, her knees drawn up until they hid the lower part of her face. Her eyes were white-circled and terrified.
Joel Cairo stood in front of her, bending over her, holding in one hand the pistol Spade had twisted out of his hand. His other hand was clapped to his forehead. Blood ran through the fingers of that hand and down under them to his eyes. A smaller trickle from his cut lip made three wavy lines across his chin.
Cairo did not heed the detectives. He was glaring at the girl huddled in front of him. His lips were working spasmodically, but no coherent sound came from between them.
Dundy, the first of the three into the living-room, moved swiftly to Cairo’s side, put a hand on his own hip under his overcoat, a hand on the Levantine’s wrist, and growled: “What are you up to here?”
Cairo took the red-smeared hand from his head and flourished it close to the Lieutenant’s face. Uncovered by the hand, his forehead showed a three-inch ragged tear. “This is what she has done,” he cried. “Look at it.”
The girl put her feet down on the floor and looked warily from Dundy, holding Cairo’s wrist, to Tom Polhaus, standing a little behind them, to Spade, leaning against the doorframe. Spade’s face was placid. When his gaze met hers his yellow-grey eyes glinted for an instant with malicious humor and then became expressionless again.