The Ferry Building is the crucial transfer point in Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s journey: a cab brings her there alone, but what happens after she leaves it leads Sam Spade to reconstruct her meeting with Captain Jacobi and the later gathering aboard La Paloma. The building’s importance rests on a gap in observation: the driver can say where he left her, but not where she went or whom she met.

Brigid’s Arrival

After dropping Spade, the chauffeur continued along Sacramento Street. Near Polk Street, Brigid asked him to stop so she could buy a newspaper; a boy brought her The Call. After the cab crossed Van Ness, she knocked on the glass again and directed the driver to take her to the Ferry Building. He remembered no particular excitement in her manner.

The chauffeur initially hesitated when Spade questioned him, uncertain whether he should provide the information. Spade reassured him with a business card and offered to accompany him to his office to obtain his superintendent’s approval if he wanted to be cautious. The driver then confirmed that Brigid had gone to the Ferry Building by herself.

The Unobserved Departure

The driver could not say whether anyone was waiting for Brigid. He had not seen anyone meet her, but his testimony leaves open the possibility that someone was there outside his view. Asked which way she went, he could only guess that she might have gone upstairs or toward the stairs. He was likewise unsure whether she took the newspaper with her.

These limits make the building more than a location on the route: it is where the account stops being a cab journey and becomes an investigation. The driver establishes Brigid’s arrival and solitude in the cab, but cannot identify her destination within the building or the person she sought. Spade must piece together what followed from other information.

The Route to La Paloma

Spade’s later reconstruction places Brigid at La Paloma shortly after noon on the previous day, only a few piers from the Ferry Building. She had asked for Captain Jacobi by name, but Jacobi was uptown on business and had not expected her at that time. Brigid waited until he returned at four o’clock; she and Jacobi then spent time together in his cabin, where she ate with him.

The proximity between the Ferry Building and the ship gives Brigid’s cab destination a specific consequence. What the driver could describe only as a possible movement upstairs or toward some stairs, Spade connects to her arrival at the waterfront and her meeting with Jacobi. The first account fixes the last point at which the cab driver saw her; the later account supplies a destination beyond his knowledge.

The Gathering and Its Aftermath

After the meal aboard La Paloma, Jacobi received three more visitors: Gutman, Cairo, and the young man who had delivered Gutman’s message to Spade. Brigid was still present, so five people were together in the captain’s cabin. Spade learned that there was a quarrel and that a gun went off there at about eleven o’clock. A watchman hurried to the cabin, but Jacobi met him outside and said everything was all right. A fresh bullet hole high in one corner suggested to Spade that the bullet had not passed through anyone, though he acknowledged that his information was incomplete.

Around midnight, Jacobi and all four visitors left together, and the watchman said they appeared to be walking normally. Jacobi did not return afterward and missed a noon appointment with shipping agents; they had been unable to find him to tell him about the fire. The Ferry Building thus marks the beginning of a trail whose consequences extend to the ship: from Brigid’s unobserved departure, the investigation reaches a meeting, a gunshot, and the captain’s disappearance.