"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."
"The police won't have to know about me?"
She sighed happily and sat on the walnut settee.
Her face relaxed and her body relaxed.
She smiled up at him with admiring eyes.
"However did you manage it?" she asked more in wonder than in curiosity.
"Most things in San Francisco can be bought, or taken."
"And you won't get into trouble?
Do sit down."
She made room for him on the settee.
"I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble," he said with not too much complacence.
He stood beside the fireplace and looked at her with eyes that studied, weighed, judged her without pretense that they were not studying, weighing, judging her.
She flushed slightly under the frankness of his scrutiny, but she seemed more sure of herself than before, though a becoming shyness had not left her eyes.
He stood there until it seemed plain that he meant to ignore her invitation to sit beside her, and then crossed to the settee.