'Is he here, in San Francisco, now?' Cairo asked in a less shrill, but still excited, voice.
Spade blinked his eyes sleepily and suggested: 'It might be better all around if we put our cards on the table.'
Cairo recovered composure with a little jerk. 'I do not think it would be better.' His voice was suave now. 'If you know more than I, I shall profit by your knowledge, and so will you to the extent of five thousand dollars. If you do not then I have made a mistake in coming to you, and to do as you suggest would be simply to make that mistake worse.'
Spade nodded indifferently and waved his hand at the articles on the desk, saying: 'There's your stuff'; and then, when Cairo was returning them to his pockets: 'It's understood that you're to pay my expenses while I'm getting this black bird for you, and five thousand dollars when it's done?'
'Yes, Mr. Spade; that is, five thousand dollars less whatever moneys have been advanced to you—five thousand in all.'
'Right. And it's a legitimate proposition.' Spade's face was solemn except for wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. 'You're not hiring me to do any murders or burglaries for you, but simply to get it back if possible in an honest and lawful way.'
'If possible,' Cairo agreed. His face also was solemn except for the eyes. 'And in any event with discretion.' He rose and picked up his hat. 'I am at the Hotel Belvedere when you wish to communicate with me— room six-thirty-five. I confidently expect the greatest mutual benefit from our association, Mr. Spade.' He hesitated. 'May I have my pistol?'
'Sure. I'd forgotten it.'
Spade took the pistol out of his coat-pocket and handed it to Cairo.
Cairo pointed the pistol at Spade's chest.
'You will please keep your hands on the top of the desk,' Cairo said earnestly. 'I intend to search your offices.'
Spade said: 'I'll be damned.' Then he laughed in his throat and said: 'All right. Go ahead. I won't stop you.'
VI.The Undersized Shadow
For half an hour after Joel Cairo had gone Spade sat alone, still and frowning, at his desk. Then he said aloud in the tone of one dismissing a problem, 'Well, they're paying for it,' and took a bottle of Manhattan cocktail and a paper drinking-cup from a desk-drawer. He filled the cup two-thirds full, drank, returned the bottle to the drawer, tossed the cup into the wastebasket, put on his hat and overcoat, turned off the lights, and went down to the night-lit street.
An undersized youth of twenty or twenty-one in neat grey cap and overcoat was standing idly on the corner below Spade's building.
Spade walked up Sutter Street to Kearny, where he entered a cigarstore to buy two sacks of Bull Durham. When he came out the youth was one of four people waiting for a street-car on the opposite corner.
Spade ate dinner at Herbert's Grill in Powell Street. When he left the Grill, at a quarter to eight, the youth was looking into a nearby haberdasher's window.
Spade went to the Hotel Belvedere, asking at the desk for Mr. Cairo. He was told that Cairo was not in. The youth sat in a chair in a far corner of the lobby.
Spade went to the Geary Theatre, failed to see Cairo in the lobby, and posted himself on the curb in front, facing the theatre. The youth loitered with other loiterers before Marquard's restaurant below.
At ten minutes past eight Joel Cairo appeared, walking up Geary Street with his little mincing bobbing steps. Apparently he did not see Spade until the private detective touched his shoulder. He seemed moderately surprised for a moment, and then said: 'Oh, yes, of course you saw the ticket.'
'Uh-huh. I've got something I want to show you.' Spade drew Cairo back towards the curb a little away from the other waiting theatre-goers. 'The kid in the cap down by Marquard's.'
Cairo murmured, 'I'll see,' and looked at his watch. He looked up Geary Street. He looked at a theatre-sign in front of him on which George Arliss was shown costumed as Shylock, and then his dark eyes crawled sidewise in their sockets until they were looking at the kid in the cap, at his cool pale face with curling lashes hiding lowered eyes.
'Who is he?' Spade asked.
Cairo smiled up at Spade. 'I do not know him.'
'He's been tailing me around town.'
Cairo wet his lower lip with his tongue and asked: 'Do you think it was wise, then, to let him see us together?'
'How do I know?' Spade replied. 'Anyway, it's done.'
Cairo removed his hat and smoothed his hair with a gloved hand. He replaced his hat carefully on his head and said with every appearance of candor: 'I give you my word I do not know him, Mr. Spade. I give you my word I have nothing to do with him. I have asked nobody's assistance except yours, on my word of honor.'
'Then he's one of the others?'
'That may be.'
'I just wanted to know, because if he gets to be a nuisance I may have to hurt him.'
'Do as you think best. He is not a friend of mine.'
'That's good. There goes the curtain. Good night,' Spade said, and crossed the street to board a westbound street-car.
The youth in the cap boarded the same car.
Spade left the car at Hyde Street and went up to his apartment. His rooms were not greatly upset, but showed unmistakable signs of having been searched. When Spade had washed and had put on a fresh shirt and collar he went out again, walked up to Sutter Street, and boarded a westbound car. The youth boarded it also.
Within half a dozen blocks of the Coronet Spade left the car and went into the vestibule of a tall brown apartment-building. He pressed three bell-buttons together. The street-door-lock buzzed. He entered, passed the elevator and stairs, went down a long yellow-walled corridor to the rear of the building, found a back door fastened by a Yale lock, and let himself out into a narrow court. The court led to a dark back street, up which Spade walked for two blocks. Then he crossed over to California Street and went to the Coronet. It was not quite half-past nine o'clock.
The eagerness with which Brigid O'Shaughnessy welcomed Spade suggested that she had been not entirely certain of his coming. She had put on a satin gown of the blue shade called Artoise that season, with chalcedony shoulder-straps, and her stockings amid slippers were Artoise.
The red and cream sitting-room had been brought to order and livened with flowers in squat pottery vases of black and silver. Three small rough-barked logs burned in the fireplace. Spade watched them burn while she put away his hat and coat.
'Do you bring me good news?' she asked when she came into the room again. Anxiety looked through her smile, and she held her breath.
'We won't have to make anything public that hasn't already been made public.'
'The police won't have to know about me?'
She sighed happily and sat on the walnut settee. Her face relaxed and her body relaxed. She smiled up at him with admiring eyes. 'However did you manage it?' she asked more in wonder than in curiosity.
'Most things in San Francisco can be bought, or taken.'
'And you won't get into trouble? Do sit down.' She made room for him on the settee.
'I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble,' he said with not too much complacence.
He stood beside the fireplace and looked at her with eyes that studied, weighed, judged her without pretense that they were not studying, weighing, judging her. She flushed slightly under the frankness of his scrutiny, but she seemed more sure of herself than before, though a becoming shyness had not left her eyes. He stood there
