“I dare you to take us in, Dundy,” he said. “We’ll laugh at you in every newspaper in San Francisco. You don’t think any of us is going to swear to any complaints against the others, do you? Wake up. You’ve been kidded. When the bell rang I said to Miss O’Shaughnessy and Cairo: ‘It’s those damned bulls again. They’re getting to be nuisances. Let’s play a joke on them. When you hear them going one of you scream, and then we’ll see how far we can string them along before they tumble.’ And—”
Brigid O’Shaughnessy bent forward in her chair and began to laugh hysterically.
Cairo started and smiled. There was no vitality in his smile, but he held it fixed on his face.
Tom, glowering, grumbled: “Cut it out, Sam.”
Spade chuckled and said: “But that’s the way it was. We—”
“And the cut on his head and mouth?” Dundy asked scornfully. “Where’d they come from?”
“Ask him,”