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stiffly over his hat once more and said: "I ani 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 eves 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 girl made a mock-placatory face at him. "I'll have it in a week at the most, though," she said. "Where is it?" Cairo used politeness of mien to express skepticism. "Where Floyd hid it." "Floyd? Thursby?" She nodded. "And you know where that is?" he asked. "I think I do." "Then why must we wait a week?" "Perhaps not a whole week. Whom are you buying it for, Joe?" Cairo raised his eyebrows. "I told Mr. Spade. For its owner." Surprise illuminated the girl's face. "So you went back to him?" "Naturally I did." She laughed softly in her throat and said: "I should have liked to have seen that." Cairo shrugged. "That was the logical development." He rubbed the back of one hand with the palm of the other. His upper lids came down to shade his eyes. "Why, if I in turn may ask a question, are you willing to sell to me?" "I'm afraid," she said simply, "after what happened to Floyd. That's why I haven't it now. I'm afraid to touch it except to turn it over to somebody else right away." Spade, propped on an elbow on the sofa, looked at and listened to them impartially. In the comfortable slackness of his body, in the easy stillness of his features, there was no indication of either curiosity or impatience. "Exactly what," Cairo asked in a low voice, "happened to Floyd?" The tip of Brigid O'Shaughnessy's right forefinger traced a swift C in the air. Cairo said, "I see," but there was something doubting in his smile. "Is he here?" "I don't know." She spoke impatiently. "What difference does it make?" The doubt in Cairo's smile deepened. "It might make a world of difference," he said, and rearranged his hands in his lap so that, intentionally or not, a blunt forefinger pointed at Spade. The girl glanced at the pointing finger and made an impatient motion with her head. "Or me," she said, "or you." "Exactly, and shall we add more certainly the boy outside?" "Yes," she agreed and laughed. "Yes, unless he's the one you had in Constantinople." Sudden blood mottled Cairo's face. In a shrill enraged voice he cried: "The one you couldn't make?" Brigid O'Shaughnessy jumped up from her chair. Her lower lip was between her teeth. Her eyes were dark and wide in a tense white face. She took two quick steps towards Cairo. He started to rise. Her right hand went out and cracked sharply against his cheek, leaving the imprint of fingers there. Cairo grunted and slapped her cheek, staggering her side-wise, bringing from her mouth a brief muffled scream. Spade, wooden of face, was up from the sofa and close to them by then. He caught Cairo by the throat and shook him. Cairo gurgled and put a hand inside his coat. Spade grasped the Levantine's wrist, wrenched it away from the coat, forced it straight out to the side, and twisted it until the clumsy flaccid fingers opened to let the black pistol fall down on the rug. Brigid O'Shaughnessy quickly picked up the pistol. Cairo, speaking with difficulty because of the fingers on his throat, said: "This is the second time you've put your hands on me." His eyes, though the throttling pressure on his throat made them bulge, were cold and menacing. "Yes," Spade growled. "And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it." He released Cairo's wrist and with a thick open hand struck the side of his face three times, savagely. Cairo tried to spit in Spade's face, but the dryness of the Levantine's mouth made it only an angry gesture. Spade slapped the mouth, cutting the lower lip. The door-bell rang. Cairo's eyes jerked into focus on the passageway that led to the corridor-door. His eyes had become unangry and wary. The girl had gasped and turned to face the passageway. Her face was frightened. Spade stared gloomily for a moment at the blood trickling from Cairo's lip, and then stepped back, taking his hand from the Levantine's throat. "Who is it?" the girl whispered, coming close to Spade; and Cairo's eyes jerked back to ask the same question. Spade gave his answer irritably: "I don't know." The bell rang again, more insistently. "Well, keep quiet," Spade said, and went out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Spade turned on the light in the passageway and opened the door to the corridor. Lieutenant Dundy and Tom Polhaus were there. "Hello, Sam," Tom said. "We thought maybe you wouldn't've gone to bed yet." Dundy nodded, but said nothing. Spade said good-naturedly: "Hello. You guys pick swell hours to do your visiting in. What is it this time?" Dundy spoke then, quietly: "We want to talk to you, Spade." "Well?" Spade stood in the doorway, blocking it. "Go ahead and talk." Tom Polhaus advanced saying: "We don't have to do it standing here, do we?" Spade stood in the doorway and said: "You can't come in." His tone was very slightly apologetic. Tom's thick-featured face, even in height with Spade's, took on an expression of friendly scorn, though there was a bright gleam in his small shrewd eyes. "What the hell, Sam?" he protested and put a big hand playfully on Spade's chest. Spade leaned against the pushing hand, grinned wolfishly, and asked: "Going to strong-arm me, Toni?" Tom grumbled, "Aw, for God's sake," and took his hand away. Dundy clicked his teeth together and said through them: "Let us in." Spade's lip twitched over his eyetooth. He said: "You're not coming in. What do you want to do about it? Try to get in? Or do your talking here? Or go to hell?" Tom groaned. Dundy, still speaking through his teeth, said: "It'd pay you to play along with us a little, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |