I'm going to wait right here till you come back."
He said,
"Do as you damned please," put his hat on, flinched, took it off, and went out carrying it in his hand.
An hour and a half later, at twenty minutes past five, Spade returned.
He was cheerful. He came in asking:
"What makes you so hard to get along with, sweetheart?"
"Me?"
"Yes, you."
He put a finger on the tip of Effie Perine's nose and flattened it. He put his hands under her elbows, lifted her straight up, and kissed her chin.
He set her down on the floor again and asked:
"Anything doing while I was gone?"
"Luke—what's his name?—at the Belvedere called up to tell you Cairo has returned.
That was about half an hour ago."
Spade snapped his mouth shut, turned with a long step, and started for the door.
"Did you find her?" the girl called.
"Tell you about it when I'm back," he replied without pausing and hurried out.
A taxicab brought Spade to the Belvedere within ten minutes of his departure from his office.
He found Luke in the lobby.
The hotel-detective came grinning and shaking his head to meet Spade.
"Fifteen minutes late," he said.
"Your bird has fluttered."
Spade cursed his luck.
"Checked out—gone bag and baggage," Luke said.
He took a battered memorandum-book from a vest-pocket, licked his thumb, thumbed pages, and held the book out open to Spade.
"There's the number of the taxi that hauled him.
I got that much for you."
"Thanks."
Spade copied the number on the back of an envelope.
"Any forwarding address?"
"No.
He just come in carrying a big suitcase and went upstairs and packed and come down with his stuff and paid his bill and got a taxi and went without anybody being able to hear what he told the driver." "How about his trunk?" Luke's lower lip sagged. "By God," he said, "I forgot that! Come on." They went up to Cairo's room. The trunk was there. It was closed, but not locked. They raised the lid. The trunk was empty. Luke said: "What do you know about that!" Spade did not say anything.
Spade went back to his office.
Effie Perine looked up at him, inquisitively.
"Missed him," Spade grumbled and passed into his private room.
She followed him in.
He sat in his chair and began to roll a cigarette.
She sat on the desk in front of him and put her toes on a corner of his chair-seat.
"What about Miss O'Shaughnessy?" she demanded.
"I missed her too," he replied, "but she had been there."
"On the La Paloma?"
"The La is a lousy combination," he said.
"Stop it.
Be nice, Sam. Tell me."
He set fire to his cigarette, pocketed his lighter, patted her shins, and said:
"Yes, La Paloma. She got down there at a little after noon yesterday."
He pulled his brows down.
"That means she went straight there after leaving the cab at the Ferry Building.
It's only a few piers away.
The Captain wasn't aboard.
His name's Jacobi and she asked for him by name.