Free The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett Page B

here in a moment. Get your business with him over, and then we’ll see how we’ll stand.”
    “And you’ll let me go about it—with him—in my own way?”
    “Sure.”
    She turned her hand under his so that her fingers pressed his. She said softly: “You’re a God-send.”
    Spade said: “Don’t overdo it.”
    She looked reproachfully at him, though smiling, and returned to the padded rocker.
    Joel Cairo was excited. His dark eyes seemed all irises and his high-pitched thin-voiced words were tumbling out before Spade had the door half-open.
    “That boy is out there watching the house, Mr. Spade, that boy you showed me, or to whom you showed me, in front of the theatre. What am I to understand from that, Mr. Spade? I came here in good faith, with no thought of tricks or traps.”
    “You were asked in good faith.” Spade frowned thoughtfully. “But I ought to’ve guessed he might show up. He saw you come in?”
    “Naturally. I could have gone on, but that seemed useless, since you had already let him see us together.”
    Brigid O’Shaughnessy came into the passageway behind Spade and asked anxiously: “What boy? What is it?”
    Cairo removed his black hat from his head, bowed stiffly, and said in a prim voice: “If you do not know, ask Mr. Spade. I know nothing about it except through him.”
    “A kid who’s been trying to tail me around town all evening,” Spade said carelessly over his shoulder, not turning to face the girl. “Come on in, Cairo. There’s no use standing here talking for all the neighbors.”
    Brigid O’Shaughnessy grasped Spade’s arm above the elbow and demanded: “Did he follow you to my apartment?”
    “No. I shook him before that. Then I suppose he came back here to try to pick me up again.”
    Cairo, holding his black hat to his belly with both hands, had come into the passageway. Spade shut the corridor-door behind him and they went into the living-room. There Cairo bowed stiffly over his hat once more and said: “I am delighted to see you again, Miss O’Shaughnessy.”
    “I was sure you would be, Joe,” she replied, giving him her hand.
    He made a formal bow over her hand and released it quickly.
    She sat in the padded rocker she had occupied before. Cairo sat in the armchair by the table. Spade, when he had hung Cairo’s hat and coat in the closet, sat on an end of the sofa in front of the windows and began to roll a cigarette.
    Brigid O’Shaughnessy said to Cairo: “Sam told me about your offer for the falcon. How soon can you have the money ready?”
    Cairo’s eyebrows twitched. He smiled. “It is ready.” He continued to smile at the girl for a little while after he had spoken, and then looked at Spade.
    Spade was lighting his cigarette. His face was tranquil.
    “In cash?” the girl asked.
    “Oh, yes,” Cairo replied.
    She frowned, put her tongue between her lips, withdrew it, and asked: “You are ready to give us five thousand dollars, now, if we give you the falcon?”
    Cairo held up a wriggling hand. “Excuse me,” he said. “I expressed myself badly. I did not mean to say that I have the money in my pockets, but that I am prepared to get it on a very few minutes’ notice at any time during banking hours.”
    “Oh!” She looked at Spade.
    Spade blew cigarette-smoke down the front of his vest and said: “That’s probably right. He had only a few hundred in his pockets when I frisked him this afternoon.”
    When her eyes opened round and wide he grinned.
    The Levantine bent forward in his chair. He failed to keep eagerness from showing in his eyes and voice. “I can be quite prepared to give you the money at, say, half-past ten in the morning. Eh?”
    Brigid O’Shaughnessy smiled at him and said: “But I haven’t got the falcon.”
    Cairo’s face was darkened by a flush of annoyance. He put an ugly hand on either arm of his chair, holding his small-boned body erect and stiff between them. His dark eyes were angry. He did not say anything.
    The