Brigid O’Shaughnessy said to Cairo: “Sam told me about your offer for the falcon. How soon can you have the money ready?”
Cairo’s eyebrows twitched. He smiled. “It is ready.” He continued to smile at the girl for a little while after he had spoken, and then looked at Spade.
Spade was lighting his cigarette. His face was tranquil.
“In cash?” the girl asked.
“Oh, yes,” Cairo replied.
She frowned, put her tongue between her lips, withdrew it, and asked: “You are ready to give us five thousand dollars, now, if we give you the falcon?”
Cairo held up a wriggling hand. “Excuse me,” he said. “I expressed myself badly. I did not mean to say that I have the money in my pockets, but that I am prepared to get it on a very few minutes’ notice at any time during banking hours.”
“Oh!” She looked at Spade.
Spade blew cigarette-smoke down the front of his vest and said: “That’s probably right. He had only a few hundred in his pockets when I frisked him this afternoon.”
When her eyes opened round and wide he grinned.
The Levantine bent forward in his chair. He failed to keep eagerness from showing in his eyes and voice. “I can be quite prepared to give you the money at, say, half-past ten in the morning. Eh?”
Brigid O’Shaughnessy smiled at him and said: “But I haven’t got the falcon.”