Cairo’s face was darkened by a flush of annoyance. He put an ugly hand on either arm of his chair, holding his small-boned body erect and stiff between them. His dark eyes were angry. He did not say anything.
The girl made a mock-placatory face at him. “I’ll have it in a week at the most, though,” she said.
“Where is it?” Cairo used politeness of mien to express skepticism.
“Where Floyd hid it.”
“Floyd? Thursby?”
She nodded.
“And you know where that is?” he asked.
“I think I do.”
“Then why must we wait a week?”
“Perhaps not a whole week. Whom are you buying it for, Joe?”
Cairo raised his eyebrows. “I told Mr. Spade. For its owner.”
Surprise illuminated the girl’s face. “So you went back to him?”
“Naturally I did.”
She laughed softly in her throat and said: “I should have liked to have seen that.”
Cairo shrugged. “That was the logical development.” He rubbed the back of one hand with the palm of the other. His upper lids came down to shade his eyes. “Why, if I in turn may ask a question, are you willing to sell to me?”