The chauffeur rubbed his cheek with a grimy hand and looked doubtfully at Spade. “I don’t know about this.”
“It’s all right,” Spade assured him, giving him one of his cards. “If you want to play safe, though, we can ride up to your office and get your superintendent’s OK.”
“I guess it’s all right. I took her to the Ferry Building.”
“By herself?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Didn’t take her anywhere else first?”
“No. It was like this: after we dropped you I went on out Sacramento, and when we got to Polk she rapped on the glass and said she wanted to get a newspaper, so I stopped at the corner and whistled for a kid, and she got her paper.”
“Which paper?”
“The Call . Then I went on out Sacramento some more, and just after we’d crossed Van Ness she knocked on the glass again and said take her to the Ferry Building.”
“Was she excited or anything?”
“Not so’s I noticed.”
“And when you got to the Ferry Building?”
“She paid me off, and that was all.”
“Anybody waiting for her there?”
“I didn’t see them if they was.”