”Let us talk about the black bird by all means, but first, sir, answer me a question, please, though maybe it’s an unnecessary one, so we’ll understand each other from the beginning. You’re here as Miss O’Shaughnessy’s representative?”

Spade blew smoke above the fat man’s head in a long slanting plume. He frowned thoughtfully at the ash-tipped end of his cigar. He replied deliberately: “I can’t say yes or no. There’s nothing certain about it either way, yet.” He looked up at the fat man and stopped frowning. “It depends.”

“It depends on—?”

Spade shook his head. “If I knew what it depends on I could say yes or no.”

The fat man took a mouthful from his glass, swallowed it, and suggested: “Maybe it depends on Joel Cairo?”

Spade’s prompt “Maybe” was noncommittal. He drank.

The fat man leaned forward until his belly stopped him. His smile was ingratiating and so was his purring voice. “You could say, then, that the question is which one of them you’ll represent?”

“You could put it that way.”

“It will be one or the other?”

“I didn’t say that.”

The fat man’s eyes glistened. His voice sank to a throaty whisper asking: “Who else is there?”

Spade pointed his cigar at his own chest. “There’s me,” he said.

His black coat, cut tight to narrow shoulders, flared a little over slightly plump hips. His trousers fitted his round legs more snugly than was the current fashion. The uppers of his patent-leather shoes were hidden by fawn spats. He held a black derby hat in a chamois-gloved hand and came towards Spade with short, mincing, bobbing steps. The fragrance of chypre came with him