Maltese Falcon

6 Pages 1603 Words

The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett (1894 - 1961)
Type of Work:
Detective mystery novel
Setting
San Francisco; 1920s
Principal Characters
Sam Spade, a young hard-boiled detective
Miles Archer, Spade's older partner Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a beautiful young woman (alias Miss Wonderly)
Joel Cairo, an effeminate gangster-type
Casper Gutman, a rotund, older man
Iva Archer, Archer's wife and Spade's mistress
Story Overview
Effie Perine, secretary to private detective Sam Spade, opened his door to announce that a client, Miss Wonderly, was there to see him. A stunning young woman entered and shyly took a seat. She stammered and bit her lip as she tried to relate her story. Finally the detective assured her it would be best to begin at the beginning. Miss Wonderly said that she was concerned for her seventeen-year-old sister, who had run off with an older man named Thursby. She had arranged a meeting with Thursby for that evening, and now wanted to hire a detective to follow him from the meeting - straight to her sister, she hoped.

Spade gave his partner, Miles Archer, the details of Miss Wonderly's case. She paid them two hundred dollars, and left with the agreement that Archer would tail Thursby that evening.

That night Spade was awakened by a phone call: Archer had been murdered. Spaae rushed to the scene. According to the police ' Archer was shot with a British-made Webley revolver. Spade phoned his secretary and asked her to call Iva, his partner's wife, to break the bad news. Then he returned to his apartment.

Sam had just "drunk his third glass Of Bicardi and was lighting his fifth cigarette" when the doorbell rang. It was the police; Lieutenants Dundy and Polhaus wanted to question Sam about the death of yet another man. Thursby, it turned out, had been shot outside his hotel shortly after Spade left the Archer murder scene. Considering the circumstances of Archer's death, the police reasoned Spade m...