“Is he?”
“No.”
She sighed and leaned against him. “I awakened and you weren’t here and then I heard someone coming in. I was terrified.”
Spade combed her red hair back from her face with his fingers and said: “I’m sorry, angel. I thought you’d sleep through it. Did you have that gun under your pillow all night?”
“No. You know I didn’t. I jumped up and got it when I was frightened.”
He cooked breakfast—and slipped the flat brass key into her coat-pocket again—while she bathed and dressed.
She came out of the bathroom whistling “ En Cuba .” “Shall I make the bed?” she asked.
“That’d be swell. The eggs need a couple of minutes more.”
Their breakfast was on the table when she returned to the kitchen. They sat where they had sat the night before and ate heartily.
“Now about the bird?” Spade suggested presently as they ate.
She put her fork down and looked at him. She drew her eyebrows together and made her mouth small and tight. “You can’t ask me to talk about that this morning of all mornings,” she protested. “I don’t want to and I won’t.”
“It’s a stubborn damned hussy,” he said sadly and put a piece of roll into his mouth.
The youth who had shadowed Spade was not in sight when Spade and Brigid O’Shaughnessy crossed the sidewalk to the waiting taxicab. The