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.”