'How hong's he been here?'
'Four days. This is the fifth.'
'What about him?'
'Search me, Sam. I got nothing against him but his looks.'
'Find out if he came in last night?'
'Try to,' the hotel-detective promised and went away. Spade sat on the divan until he returned. 'No,' Luke reported, 'he didn't sleep in his room. What is it?'
'Nothing.'
'Come clean. You know I'll keep my clam shut, but if there's anything wrong we ought to know about it so's we can collect our bill.'
'Nothing hike that,' Spade assured him. 'As a matter of fact, I'm doing a little work for him. I'd tell you if he was wrong.'
'You'd better. Want me to kind of keep an eye on him?'
'Thanks, Luke. It wouldn't hurt. You can't know too much about the men you're working for these days.'
It was twenty-one minutes past eleven by the clock over the elevatordoors when Joel Cairo came in from the street. His forehead was bandaged. His clothes had the limp unfreshness of too many hours' consecutive wear. His face was pasty, with sagging mouth and eyelids.
Spade met him in front of the desk. 'Good morning,' Spade said easily.
Cairo drew his tired body up straight and the drooping lines of his face tightened. 'Good morning,' he responded without enthusiasm.
There was a pause.
Spade said: 'Let's go some place where we can talk.'
Cairo raised his chin. 'Please excuse me,' he said. 'Our conversations in private have not been such that I am anxious to continue them. Pardon my speaking bluntly, but it is the truth.'
'You mean last night?' Spade made an impatient gesture with head and hands. 'What in hell else could I do? I thought you'd see that. If you pick a fight with her, or let her pick one with you, I've got to throw in with her. I don't know where that damned bird is. You don't. She does. How in hell are we going to get it if I don't play along with her?'
Cairo hesitated, said dubiously: 'You have always, I must say, a smooth explanation ready.'
Spade scowled. 'What do you want me to do? Learn to stutter? Well, we can talk over here.' He led the way to the divan. When they were seated he asked: 'Dundy take you down to the Hall?'
'Yes.'
'How long did they work on you?'
'Until a very little while ago, and very much against my will.' Pain and indignation were mixed in Cairo's face and voice. 'I shall certainly take the matter up with the Consulate General of Greece and with an attorney.'
'Go ahead, and see what it gets you. What did you let the police shake out of you?'
There was prim satisfaction in Cairo's smile. 'Not a single thing. I adhered to the course you indicated earlier in your rooms.' His smile went away. 'Though I certainly wished you had devised a more reasonable story. I felt decidedly ridiculous repeating it.'
Spade grinned mockingly. 'Sure,' he said, 'but its goofiness is what makes it good. You sure you didn't give them anything?'
'You may rely upon it, Mr. Spade, I did not.'
Spade drummed with his fingers on the leather seat between them. 'You'll be hearing from Dundy again. Stay dummied-up on him and you'll be all right. Don't worry about the story's goofiness. A sensible one would've had us all in the cooler.' He rose to his feet. 'You'll want sleep if you've been standing up under a police-storm all night. Sec you later.'
Effie Perine was saying, 'No, not yet,' into the telephone when Spade entered his outer office. She looked around at him and her lips shaped a silent word: 'Iva.' He shook his head. 'Yes, I'll have him call you as soon as he comes in,' she said aloud and replaced the receiver on its prong. 'That's the third time she's called up this morning,' she told Spade.
He made an impatient growling noise.
The girl moved her brown eyes to indicate the inner office. 'Your Miss O'Shaughnessy's in there. She's been waiting since a few minutes after nine.'
Spade nodded as if he had expected that and asked: 'What else?'
'Sergeant Pohhaus called up. He didn't leave any message.'
'Get him for me.'
'And G. called up.'
Spade's eyes brightened. He asked: 'Who?'
'G. That's what he said.' Her air of personal indifference to the subject was flawless. 'When I told him you weren't in he said: 'When he comes in, will you please tell him that G., who got his message, phoned and will phone again?'.'
Spade worked his lips together as if tasting something he liked. 'Thanks, darling,' he said. 'See if you can get Tom Polhaus.' He opened the inner door and went into his private office, pulling the door to behind him.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy, dressed as on her first visit to the office, rose from a chair beside his desk and came quickly towards him. 'Somebody has been in my apartment,' she exclaimed. 'It is all upside-down, every which way.'
He seemed moderately surprised. 'Anything taken?'
'I don't think so. I don't know. I was afraid to stay. I changed as fast as I could and came down here. Oh, you must've let that boy follow you there!'
Spade shook his head. 'No, angel.' He took an early copy of an afternoon paper from his pocket, opened it, and showed her a quarter-column headed SCREAM ROUTS BURGLAR. A young woman named Carolin Beale, who lived alone in a Sutter Street apartment, had been awakened at four that morning by the sound of somebody moving in her bedroom. She had screamed. The mover had run away. Two other women who lived alone in the same building had discovered, later in the morning, signs of the burglar's having visited their apartments. Nothing had been taken from any of the three.
'That's where I shook him,' Spade explained. 'I went into that building and ducked out the back door. That's why all three were women who lived alone. He tried the apartments that had women's names in the vestibule-register, hunting for you under an alias.'
'But he was watching your place when we were there,' she objected.
Spade shrugged. 'There's no reason to think he's working alone. Or maybe he went to Sutter Street after he had begun to think you were going to stay all night in my place. There are a lot of maybes, but I didn't lead him to the Coronet.'
She was not satisfied. 'But he found it, or somebody did.'
'Sure.' He frowned at her feet. 'I wonder if it could have been Cairo. He wasn't at his hotel all night, didn't get in till a few minutes ago. He told me he had been standing up under a police-grilling all night. I wonder.' He turned, opened the door, and asked Effie Perine: 'Cot Tom yet?'
'He's not in. I'll try again in a few minutes.'
'Thanks.' Spade shut the door and faced Brigid O'Shaughuessy.
She looked at him with cloudy eyes. 'You went to see Joe this morning?' she asked.
'Yes.'
She hesitated. 'Why?'
'Why?' He smiled down at her. 'Because, my own true love, I've got to keep in some sort of touch with all the loose ends of this dizzy affair if I'm ever going to niake heads or tails of it.' He put an arm around her shoulders and led her over to his swivel-chair. He kissed the tip of her nose lightly and set her down in the chair. He sat on the desk in front of her. FIe said: 'Now we've got to find a new' home for you, haven't we?'
