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.”