Jacobi is shot and brings the black bird to Spade’s office

Captain Jacobi’s arrival at Sam Spade’s office brings the pursuit of the black bird into the detective’s own rooms. Wounded while carrying the parcel away from Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s apartment, Jacobi reaches Spade before collapsing and dying; his protection of the package delivers the object to Spade, where its contents can finally be examined.

The pursuit reaches the office

Casper Gutman later recounts how his party tracked Brigid to her apartment at the Coronet. They spent the day searching and found the apartment late in the afternoon. At first, they were not certain Brigid was inside. Listening at the door, however, they heard movement, rang the bell, and identified themselves. The sound of a window opening told them that someone inside was preparing to leave by another route.

Wilmer Cook hurried downstairs and went around to cover the fire escape. In the alley he encountered Captain Jacobi, who was already escaping with the falcon under his arm. The chase had shifted from a search at a closed door to a sudden confrontation behind the building, with the prized parcel still in Jacobi’s possession.

Jacobi carries the parcel to Spade

By the time Jacobi appears in Spade’s doorway, he is nearly seven feet tall and visibly exhausted. His long black overcoat and angular frame make his entrance striking, but the parcel is the crucial detail: wrapped in brown paper, tied with thin rope, and held tightly against his chest. He has carried it out of immediate danger and into Spade’s office.

Spade springs from his chair and catches Jacobi as he falls. The parcel slips from Jacobi’s hands and rolls across the floor until it is stopped by the desk. Spade lowers him carefully and sees that he is still. The sequence makes the delivery inseparable from the collapse: Jacobi reaches the office with the package, but does not survive the arrival.

The alley encounter and its cost

Gutman’s account explains how Jacobi came to be carrying the falcon. Wilmer says that he shot Jacobi more than once, but Jacobi continued on with the parcel and knocked Wilmer down when the two came close together. A policeman was approaching from the next block, so Wilmer abandoned the pursuit and escaped through a neighboring building. The encounter happened in broad daylight, and Wilmer’s account presents the escape as a hurried decision made under the pressure of both Jacobi and the approaching officer.

The story thus links Jacobi’s delivery to the failure of Gutman’s party to recover the bird at Brigid’s apartment. Their attempt to cover the fire escape placed Wilmer in Jacobi’s path, but Jacobi retained the parcel and got away. The cost of that escape becomes clear when he reaches Spade: the bird has made it into the office, while its bearer has not.

Unwrapping the black bird

After confirming that Jacobi has been shot, Spade washes his hands, then returns to the inner office and steps over the dead man’s legs to retrieve the parcel. He tests its weight, places it on his desk, turns the knotted rope upward, and cuts it with his pocketknife. His attention shifts at once from the dead courier to the protected object.

Inside the brown paper are three sheets of coarse grey paper, followed by tightly packed excelsior. Spade tears through the packing and finds a foot-high figure of a bird, black and polished in places, with wood dust and fragments of excelsior clinging to it. Jacobi’s last act has therefore brought the object itself within reach, but its arrival does not settle the larger search; it gives Spade the opportunity to inspect what the parcel contains.