slip one of these days," [Dundy] said.
Spade made a depreciative mouth, raising his eyebrows. "Everybody's foot slips sometime," he replied with derisive mildness.
Spade smiled and shook his head. "No, I'll do nicely, thank you." He stopped smiling. . . . "I don't like this. What are you sucking around for? Tell me, or get out and let me go to bed" (Hammett 306).
It turns out that Iva Archer, Miles's faithless wife and Spade's lover, has accused Spade because she thought he (Spade) was two-timing her with BO. It develops, too, that Iva actually thinks that Spade might have killed Miles to get him out of the way: "Oh, Sam," she moaned, "did you kill him?" (Hammett 310). In the depiction of Sam's physical reaction to that question, Hammett conveys the message that Spade is not without emotional content, still less not without honor. He is genuinely shocked that Iva could think him so mean-spirited (or so in love with her) as to murder for reasons of selfish love. His response to Iva's question:
Spade stared at her with bulging eyes. His bony jaw fell down. He took his arms from her and st
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