The Hunter and Other Stories Part 25

Richmond chuckles. "I lie awake a lot with my conscience," he says mockingly. He looks around. "Well, there doesn't seem to be anything for me to do here. Night." He turns toward his roadster.

King touches his shoulder, says, "Uh-uh, Gene. We've got to take you in and book you. You know-there are formalities to go through with."

Richmond, unruffled, nods. "You'll let me stop at a phone on the way in and get hold of my lawyer, so he'll have bail arranged by the time we get there?"

King: "Sure-we're not being rough with you." He looks around. "Let's go. Pete and I'll ride with you." He raises his voice to call to one of the men over by the prisoners: "Harry, we're going in with Richmond."

A voice answers: "Right."

They crowd into the roadster, Richmond turns it around, and they ride toward town until they come to a cross-roads drug store. They go into the store together. Richmond enters a gla.s.s telephone booth, while the two narcotic agents loiter in sight, but some distance away, at the cigar counter.

Richmond calls a number, asks for Mr. Schwartz, and when he gets him says: "Schwartz, this is Gene Richmond. . . . Yes. . . . I'm in a jam and I want bail arranged. . . . I don't know exactly, better arrange for plenty. . . . Right, in about an hour. . . . Thanks."

He calls another number and asks for Mr. Keough. The other end of the wire-a newspaper office. Richmond says to Keough: "h.e.l.lo, Keough-this is Gene Richmond. I've got a story for you. We've just picked up four men on charges of rum-running, dope-smuggling, murder, and abduction of Ann Pomeroy. Is that news? . . . Right. . . . No, I didn't make the arrests myself, but they were made by narcotic agents and local deputies on information supplied by my office, so give me a good break on it. . . . Right. . . . Now here are the details. . . ."

FADE OUT.

The next morning. In Richmond's outer office Tommy, alone, is wide-eyed over the front page of a newspaper wherein Richmond's feat is described in glowing terms. Tommy looks admiringly up at Richmond as he comes in and says, "Good morning."

Richmond glances at the headlines in pa.s.sing with a faint smile.

"Gee, you're smart, Mr. Richmond," Tommy blurts out.

Richmond rumples the boy's hair and goes into his private office. He shuts the door behind him and leans back against it wearily. His smile is gone. He pushes his hat back and mutters: "Gee, I'm smart! I got thirty thousand dollars and will probably have to go to jail or at least blow town, where I could have had ten million and the one woman that's ever really meant anything to me-maybe." He touches his forehead with the back of his hand and repeats, "Gee, I'm smart!"

The telephone-bell rings. He goes to it. "Gene Richmond speaking," he says with mechanical suavity. "Oh, good morning, Mr. Fields. No, nothing new yet. . . ." He looks thoughtfully at the phone, then: "It might be wise to place another man in the Dartmouth Cement Company's offices and see what we can get from the inside. . . .Yes, I'd advise it. . . . All right, I'll do that."

He hangs up and presses the b.u.t.ton on his desk. Tommy opens the door, says, "Miss Crane hasn't showed up yet."

Richmond blinks, then laughs. "That's right," he says. "That'll be all."

Tommy shuts the door.

THE END.

APPENDIX: THE LOST SPADE.

COMMENTARY.

This collection closes with the beginnings of Das.h.i.+ell Hammett's only known unpublished Sam Spade story. In 1932, Hammett published three original short stories featuring Spade-"A Man Called Spade" and "Too Many Have Lived" in The American Magazine and "They Can Only Hang You Once" in Collier's. He'd needed the income. Despite the critical success of his first four novels (including The Maltese Falcon) and screen-story a.s.signments with Paramount and Warner Bros., Hammett was broke by late 1931. He ran through money or gave it away as fast or faster than he earned it. Ben Wa.s.son, the literary agent Hammett shared with drinking buddy William Faulkner, had encouraged him to return to short-story writing and Hammett obliged. The Sam Spade stories he submitted were hardly serious efforts, however. Two are rewrites of early Black Mask tales and the third unimpressively thin. Although Hammett was willing to capitalize on the popularity of his celebrated detective, he seemed reluctant to bring much vigor to the project. He'd set his sights higher.

"A Knife Will Cut for Anybody" had its genesis in this period, when Hammett was torn between cranking out quick crowd pleasers and struggling to meet his own literary ambitions. The story is set in San Francisco, with reappearances by The Maltese Falcon's Lieutenant Dundy and Detective-sergeant Polhaus. The scene of the crime, however, closely mirrors the main floor of the building at 133 East Thirty-eighth Street in the Murray Hill district of New York where Hammett lived in a rented apartment. The address appears on headings of both Hammett's aborted first draft of The Thin Man and an unfinished novella t.i.tled "The Darkened Face." And, in fact, "Knife Will Cut" and "Darkened Face" are two versions of the same tale.

Hammett, it seems, was so pleased with the setup he'd invented for his fourth Spade story that he opted to repurpose the narrative into a more substantial work. He antic.i.p.ated twenty-five thousand words, replaced Spade with a Continental Detective Agency operative named Fox, changed the nationality of the victim from Argentine to German, and s.h.i.+fted the locale from the West to the East Coast. His draft typescript for "A Knife Will Cut for Anybody" was abandoned and eventually made its way to the antiquarian marketplace and the safekeeping of a savvy collector-a writer and Hammett enthusiast. Hammett's incomplete novella, in contrast, was cached among his "keepers" and is now preserved in his archives at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin.

While Hammett lightly expanded and developed his revised crime narrative, the text of the original draft is offered here. It is both a tribute to Sam Spade as America's seminal hard-boiled detective and a singular opportunity for readers to enjoy a bittersweet sample of a great, untold story.

A KNIFE WILL CUT FOR ANYBODY.

When Samuel Spade knocked on the door it swung open far enough to let him see the mutilated dead face of a woman. She lay on her back on the floor in a lot of blood and a red-stained hunting-knife with a heavy six-inch blade lay in blood beside her. She was tall and slender, her hair was dark, her dress was green: her face and body had been hacked so that little beyond this could be said about her.

Spade breathed out sharply once and his face became wooden except for the alertness of his yellow-grey eyes. He flattened his left hand against the door and slowly pushed it farther back. The fingers of his right hand, held a little away from his side, curved as if they held a ball. He glanced swiftly to right and left, up and down the ground-floor hallway in which he stood, then into as much of the room as was visible from where he stood.

The room was wide, and open double doors made it and the room behind it one long room. Grey and black were the predominant colors and the furniture, modern in design, was obviously new.

Spade went into the room, walking around the dead woman, avoiding the blood on the floor, and saw in the next room a pale grey telephone. He called the San Francisco Police Department's number and asked for Lieutenant Dundy of the Homicide Detail. He said: "h.e.l.lo, Dundy, Sam Spade. . . . I'm at 1950 Green Street. There's a woman here's been killed." He listened. "I wouldn't kid you: somebody's made hamburger of her . . . Right." He put down the telephone and made a cigarette.

Lieutenant Dundy turned his short, stocky back to the corpse and addressed Spade: "Well?"

Two of the men-one was small, one very large-who had come in with Dundy were bending over the dead woman. A uniformed policeman stood at attention near one of the front windows.

Spade said: "Well, the Argentine Consul hired me to find a Teresa Moncada, for her family or something." He nodded at the dead woman. "Looks like I did."

"This her?"

Spade moved his thick, sloping shoulders a little. "What you can see of her fits the photo and description they gave me. There's a fellow at the consulate who knows her. I phoned him to come over. He ought to-" He broke off as the men who had been examining the dead woman stood up.

The smaller man-he had a lean dark intelligent face-wiped his hands carefully with a blue-bordered handkerchief and said: "Dead an hour, I'd say. This knife all right."

Dundy nodded. "You found her?" he asked Spade.

"Yes. The street-door was open, so when n.o.body answered the bell I came on in and tried this one, and there it was. There wasn't anybody else here. Looks like there's n.o.body else in the house. I rang both upstairs-flat bells, but no luck. Another thing, there's no clothes here except her hat and coat there on the chair, and there's nothing in her handbag except about twenty bucks, lipstick, powder, and that kind of stuff. That's the works."

Dundy's lips worked together under his close-clipped grizzled mustache. He was about to speak when a grey-faced man wearing a wide-brimmed black hat stuck his head in at the door and said: "There's a fellow says his name's Sanchez Cornejo here wanting to see Spade."

"That's the fellow from the consulate," Spade told Dundy.

"Send him in."

The man at the door stepped aside and said, "O.K., come on," to someone behind him.

A very tall, very thin young man appeared in the doorway. His glossy black hair, parted in the middle, was brushed smooth to his somewhat narrow head. His face was long and dark, his eyes large and dark. He wore dark clothes and carried a black derby hat and a dark walking-stick in his hands.

He dropped his stick when he saw the woman on the floor, his eyes opened to show whites all around the irises, and blood going out of his face left it a dingy yellow. "Virgen santsima!" He went down on one knee beside her. Then he mumbled something to himself and stood up again. Color began to come back into his face. He bent over to pick up his stick.

Dundy, scowling suspiciously at him, asked, "You're Sanchez Cornejo?"

Cornejo winced a little, as if at the Lieutenant's p.r.o.nunciation of his name, and said, "Yes, sir."

"You know Teresa Moncada?"

Cornejo began to tremble. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He nodded his reply.

"This her?"

Cornejo dropped his stick again and jumped nervously when it clattered on the floor. His dark eyes were wide with bewilderment. "Si-yes, sir," he stammered. "Of course."

"Sure?"

The dark young man had recovered his composure. "Yes, sir, I am," he said with conviction.

"Right. Come on back here." Dundy led the way into the next room. He waved a stubby hand at a metal chair and the young man sat down. "Now give me what you've got."

Cornejo stared at the detective. "I do not understand."

Spade sat on the corner of a table near Cornejo. "What you know about her," he explained. "I'm Sam Spade, a private detective. Your Consul, Mr. Navarrete, hired me to find her and told me you knew her. That's how I happened to run into this and call you."

The young man nodded several times. "I understand. Senor Navarrete had the kindness to tell me." He smiled at Dundy. "Please excuse my not understanding. I will tell you all I know."

"All right." Dundy's face and voice responded in no way to the young man's smile. "Do that little thing."

Cornejo moistened his lips and looked uneasily at the Lieutenant.

Spade's manner was more friendly. "How long have you known her?"

"Three years. That is I met her three years ago in the house of her uncle and guardian, Doctor Felix Haya de la Torre, in Buenos Ayres, but I have not seen her for quite a year and a half-" he swallowed "-until today."

"An orphan?"

"Yes, and supposedly the second wealthiest woman in our country." He frowned earnestly. "That is why her uncle was so afraid-so anxious to find her. You see, she did not like her uncle, and she resented his perhaps too careful guardians.h.i.+p, and so when, on her twenty-first birthday last August, she came into control of her estate and was her own mistress, she left his house."

"And came to America?" Dundy asked.

"To North America? No, not immediately, but her uncle thought her too young and inexperienced and too wealthy to be quite safe alone and considered it his duty to continue to watch over her in spite of her objections." Cornejo shrugged. "As I say, she resented that, and last month she, with a distant cousin, a Camilla Cerro, disappeared, presumably coming here and a.s.suming fict.i.tious names."

Spade nodded. "This flat was rented under the name of Thelma Magnin."

"Yes?" Dundy said. "Well, Cornejo, or whatever your name is, who killed her?"

The young man's voice and eyes were steady. "I do not know."

"Who'd have reason to?"

"I do not know."

"Who'd get her dough?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Her heirs?" Spade explained.

"Oh! I don't know. Her uncle and his sons Federico and Victor are her nearest relatives, but she may have made a will, of course."

Dundy scowled at Spade. "What do you think?"

"Nothing yet."

Dundy looked at Cornejo thoughtfully, surveyed him deliberately from head to foot, and turned to Spade again. "I guess we're safe in calling it a spick job. They like knives."

Cornejo's face flushed. He said stiffly: "A knife will cut for anybody, I believe. That knife is not-"

Spade, grinning wolfishly, interrupted the young man. "How do you know she was killed with that knife?"

Cornejo stared blankly at Spade.

Dundy growled: "All right. What does this other girl, this Camilla Cerro, look like?"

Spade, still grinning, said softly: "I bet she looks more like that girl lying in there on the floor than Teresa Moncada does."

Dundy said: "What?"

Cornejo opened his mouth as if he were trying to say something, but no sound came out. His face was ghastly with fear.

Spade said: "Though they must look something alike or he wouldn't've tried to pa.s.s one off as the other when he found we'd guessed wrong."

The young man could speak now and did, very rapidly, so that his accent, barely noticeable before, became more p.r.o.nounced. "It is true. It is true that they look somewhat alike, I mean, and I may have made a mistake. It may be Camilla Cerro and not Senorita Moncada who was killed. I have not seen them since a year and a half ago and-"

Spade said, "Tch, tch, tch," reprovingly and asked: "How do you suppose I found this place?"

"I don't know."

"By shadowing you."

The young man lowered his head and stared miserably at the floor.

Detective-sergeant Polhaus-a burly carelessly shaven florid man-appeared in the doorway. "All through with the body. Want it anymore?"

Dundy's attention did not waver from Cornejo. Only a corner of his mouth moved slightly. "No."