“He went to John”s Grill, asked the waiter to hurry his order of chops, baked potato, and sliced tomatoes, ate hurriedly, and was smoking a cigarette with his coffee…”
Hammet, The Maltese Falcon, Page 165
I find Spade’s use of time extremely interesting in the conversation of his moral compass. In this scene, Spade is taking time to order and eat a meal before he leaves to go find Shaughnessy. I think this can give the reader a chance to interpret his own inner monologue or conscious and how he is never really in a rush to approach serious problems, like Shaughnessy possibly being in danger or when Archer was murdered. Maybe this alludes that Spade knows more than we do and there is a reason he is not so quick to act on things.