The Maltese falcon by Dashiell Hammett Page A

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