Read "The Dain Curse" by Dashiell Hammett online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"It doesn't make sense," I said. "It's dizzy. When we grab our man -- or woman -- we're going to find it's a goof, and Napa will get it instead of the gallows."
"That," Owen Fitzstephan said, "is characteristic of you. You're stumped, bewildered, flabbergasted. Do you admit you've met your master, have run into a criminal too wily for you? Not you. He's outwitted you: therefore he's an idiot or a lunatic. Now really. Of course there's a certain unexpected modesty to that attitude."