The Maltese falcon by Dashiell Hammett Page B

and went out.
    He went to the Coronet, letting himself into the building and into her apartment with the key. To the eye there was nothing furtive about h'is going in: he entered boldly and directly. To the ear his going in was almost unnoticeabhe: he made as little sound as might be.
    In the girl's apartment he switched on all the lights. He searched the place from wall to wall. His eyes and thick fingers moved without apparent haste, and without ever lingering or fumbling or going back, from one inch of their fields to the next, probing, scrutinizing, testing with expert certainty. Every drawer, cupboard, cubbyhole, box, bag, trunk-locked or unlocked-was opened and its contents subjected to examination by eyes and fingers. Every piece of clothing was tested by hands that felt for telltale bulges and ears that listened for the crinkle of paper between pressing fingers. He stripped the bed of bedclothes. He looked under rugs and at the under side of each piece of furniture. He pulled down blinds to see that nothing had been rolled up in them for concealment. He leaned through windows to see that nothing hung below them on the outside. He poked with a fork into powder and cream-jars on the dressing-table. He held atomizers and bottles up against the light. He examined dishes and pans and food and food-containers. He emptied the garbage-can on spread sheets of newspaper. He opened the top of the flush-box in tIme bathroom, drained the box, and peered down into it. He examined and tested the metal screens over the drains of bathtub, wash-bowl, sink, and laundry tub.
    He did not find the black bird. He found nothing that seemed to have any connection with a black bird. The only piece of writing he found was a week-old receipt for the month's apartment-rent Brigid O'Shaughnessy had paid. The only thing he found that interested him enough to delay his search while he hooked at it was a double-handful of rather fine jewelry in a polychrome box in a lockel dressing-table-drawer.
    When he had finished he made and drank a cup of coffee. Then he unlocked the kitchen-window, scarred the edge of its hock a little with his pocket-knife, opened the window-over a fire-escape-got his hat and overcoat from the settee in the living-room, and left the apartnient as he had come.
    On his way home he stopped at a store that was being opened by a puffy-eyed shivering plump grocer amid bought oranges, eggs, rolls, butter, and cream.
    Spade went quietly into his apartment, but before he had shut the corridor-door behind him Brigid O'Shaughnessy cried: "Who is that?"
    "Young Spade bearing breakfast."
    "Oh, you frightened me!"
    The bedroom-door he had shut was open. The girl sat on the side of the bed, trembling, with her right hand out of sight under a pillow'.
    Spade put his packages on the kitchemi-table and went into the bedroom. He sat on the bed beside the girl, kissed her smooth shoulder, and said: "I wanted to see if that kid was still on the job, and to get stuff for breakfast."
    "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 coatpocket 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