From Return of the Maltese Falcon

CHAPTER ONE
The Petite Client

Samuel Spade, leaning back in his swivel-chair, studied the modest pine tree that might have sprouted tinsel-trimmed from where his late partner’s desk had till lately stood.

Less than two weeks ago, that partner, Miles Archer, was shot and killed. A recent client of the Spade & Archer detective agency, a woman calling herself Brigid O’Shaughnessy among other names, currently resided in a cell in San Francisco County Jail #1, charged with Archer’s murder. Spade had put her there.

The private detective’s vaguely satanic face—with its V’s of heavy dark eyebrows over horizontal yellow-grey eyes, beaky hawk nose, and pointed chin—appeared at repose. Only a crease between those eyebrows bore any suggestion he might be mulling something.

His crisp brown suit with brown-and-yellow tie complemented dark blond hair, if fitting the slightly irregular six-foot frame less well due to wide sloping shoulders, narrow waist and long dancer’s legs. He and his office looked moderately successful though the amber desktop was spare, home only to a small clock, a brass ashtray, a spiral pad with #2 pencil, and a leather-framed green blotter. Morning sun passing through the window cast SPADE upon the floor, only hints of the archer remaining on the glass, tidbits not quite razored off.

Effie Perine, his secretary, came in from the outer office, boyishly pretty and sunburned despite temperatures in the forties this time of year. Her notebook and pencil were in hand. The lanky, tawny-haired girl was twenty-three and he was ten years older.

She said: "I hope you don’t mind the tree, Sam."

"It fills the space for now."

The secretary’s low heels clacked toward him over the linoleum flooring; her thin tan woolen dress clung to her. "I can add some decorations if you like," she said. "Just tinsel looks sad somehow."

"No, it’s festive enough." He looked at her. "Anything on the docket today?"

"You hate it."

She was still on the subject of the tree.

"It’s fine. What’s on the docket?"

Effie Perine sighed and sat in the client’s chair, legs crossed primly. Her habit was to perch on the edge of his desk, but she hadn’t done that lately. Right now the entire desk was between them. Among other things.

"A Miss Smith called and made an appointment," she said stiffly. "No referral."

He said: "You’re sure it wasn’t Miss Jones?"

She drew in a breath. "With the bad publicity we’ve had lately, I didn’t feel I could be too particular about what clients we took."

"Ah." His tone was light. "Your name is on the door now, is it?" He gestured over his shoulder. "Plenty of room for it on the window, now that Miles is gone."

The young woman’s chin came up. "That’s not fair, Sam. The Call made you look very bad last week and you know it. That nasty Lt. Dundy and pompous District Attorney gave out some most unflattering quotes."

"Remind me to bust out crying." He shrugged the slope of his shoulders. "Anyway, that kind of thing only builds business."

Something like a pout formed on pretty, lightly rouged lips. "From people named Smith or Jones, perhaps."

From his suitcoat pocket he took a sack of Bull Durham tobacco. A packet of brown rolling papers already waited on the desk. "Look, precious, if you’re fed up with me, and you want me to write you a letter of recommendation to prospective employers, just say so."

She dodged this suggestion with a question. "How is Mr. Archer’s widow holding up? This time of year can be difficult. After a tragedy and all."

His expression was soft with hard eyes in it. "I’m not seeing Iva socially any longer. We had what you might call a falling out."

The secretary brightened, momentarily, then said, "I may be out of line saying, Sam, but I think that’s for the best. You were a suspect in her husband’s murder, after all."

"You’re right," he said with a smile, "you are out of line."

She swallowed, closed her notepad, stood and swished out in a flurry of silk stockings and thin fabric, shutting the inner office door with not quite a slam. Soon the sound of her typing came through, louder than the norm.

Spade chuckled to himself as his thick fingers carefully dropped tan flakes down into a curve of rolling paper until each end appeared equal, with slightly less between them. His thumbs rolled the paper’s inner edge down, then up and under the outer edge where his forefingers could press it over, thumbs and fingers guiding the cylinder of paper at either end. He licked the flap, left forefinger and thumb pinching one end while the right forefinger and thumb smoothed a damp seam and twisted that end before settling one tip of the roll-your-own cigarette between Spade’s lips.

This ritual, which he repeated numerous times in any given day, he appeared to find soothing. It may have aided his thinking, or helped him avoid thinking at all. With his pigskin-and-nickel lighter, he set fire to the far tip.

Effie Perine poked her head in. "She’s here. You’ll probably like her."

"Oh?"

"She’s young and she’s female. It’s Miss Smith, by the way. Not Jones."

The secretary ducked back out and, before disappearing into the outer office, gave a perfunctory nod to the blonde in a tan cloche hat who slipped in. Barely out of her teens if that, Miss Smith was pale and petite though she filled out her attire admirably; her white-collared brown tunic-style blouse and below-the-knee skirt went well with bright golden-brown eyes almost too big for the heart-shaped face. Her small hands were in off-white calfskin wrist-hugging gloves with which she hugged a modest matching purse.

For a moment Spade stared at her. Then he said: "Rhea Gutman. I didn’t know you at first."

She acknowledged that with a small smile and smaller nod, while Spade—after depositing his cigarette smoldering in the ashtray—came around to guide her into the oaken client’s chair opposite his desk.

Rhea Gutman said, with what seemed to be genuine embarrassment, "I was rather a fright when you saw me last."

"If you’ll forgive my bluntness," Spade said pleasantly, "that was a ruse."

"My late father’s doing," she said. "But he did give me a mild dose of whatever that stuff was to help me mimic a drug-induced stupor. You were actually a gentleman, helping me walk it off."

"I didn’t exactly believe the stupor, but felt it best to let it play out."

"Yes. To keep you busy while your office, and then your apartment, were searched. My father and his associates hoped to find a...certain item...and avoid having to deal with you further."

"I had that ‘item’ salted safely away, not that it mattered in the end." Spade tossed the words carelessly aside. "After all, that supposedly priceless Maltese falcon was a phony."

She seemed about to reply but then didn’t.

Spade filled the silence emotionlessly. "My condolences on the death of your father."

"Thank you."

"We had our differences, but Casper Gutman was nothing if not an interesting specimen. He raised you?"

She shook her head, blonde arcs slipping past her hat to shimmer in morning sun filtering through the buff-curtained window behind him. "No, my mother did. In New York...Manhattan. They divorced when I was a child. We saw him from time to time, and he was an avuncular if only occasional presence. Mother said he was handsome and slender when they met. She’d been a waitress at the time...she still was when she passed, having worked her way to assistant manager in a nice restaurant in the theater district. She died of tuberculosis a year and a half ago, my mother."

Spade seemed to have exhausted his capacity for condolences. He said, "And your father came back into your life at that point?"

One gloved hand removed a handkerchief from the purse. "Yes. I was sixteen then. I’ve only recently turned eighteen. I didn’t finish high school, but I certainly got an advanced education, traveling with my father. In the Orient, mostly. He said he valued me."

"I’m sure he did," Spade said ambiguously.

"He liked to show me off. Would comment on my..." She blushed, her cheeks reddening like a china doll’s. "...comeliness. Introduced me to various men with whom he was doing business."

The vertical crease between Spade’s brows deepened. "Was he your father or your procurer?"

Rhea Gutman swallowed and her eyes went to the handkerchief she was torturing in her lap. "I deserve that, after...the way I fooled you."

"Tried to fool me," he corrected.

She made herself look at him. The big golden-brown eyes begged for understanding. "My father was many things, Mr. Spade, not all of them pleasant or socially acceptable. But he was not his daughter’s procurer. He made use of me, yes, but as a...distraction. For the men he did business with. In return I saw parts of the world, experienced things other girls my age and social class might only dream of. Fine cuisine, the best hotels, exotic locales...all of these constituted my advanced education."

Spade said: "Is that why you made an appointment to see me, Miss Gutman? To explain yourself? I assure you it’s unnecessary."

Her manner became suddenly businesslike. "I came to hire you for a specific purpose, Mr. Spade. It may not appeal to you, however."

"Try me."

She shifted in her seat, her eyes on the ash of Spade’s cigarette writhing in the brass tray. "I am not destitute."

"I’m relieved to hear as much."

"But neither am I...flush. What I have is the ten thousand dollars that had been found on my father at the time of his death. The police returned it to me. Ten one-thousand-dollar bills." She snapped open her purse and swapped her handkerchief for an off-white leather wallet that matched her gloves.

Spade raised a stop palm in a gentle gesture. "Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Miss Gutman. Or do you prefer ‘Smith’?"

"Gutman is fine. I didn’t know if you’d see me if I used my real name."

Spade smiled, tight-lipped. "I hold you no animosity for our previous encounter. The farce you and I played out was your father’s doing. We each played our roles, so let’s get on with the next performance."

Her eyes, sharp now, went to his face. "You really don’t trust me, do you?"

He flipped a thick-fingered hand. "Trust is earned. But for the right retainer, we’ll consider it earned. I do need to know what the job is."

Her sigh started from deep in her bosom. "I’m afraid it’s the same job, Mr. Spade. Or that is, a job you’ve undertaken before."

"I’m listening."

Her words came out in an earnest rush. "My father’s only legacy is the jeweled golden statuette known as the Maltese falcon. He invested heavily in its pursuit, of his time and his energy and his savings. He had been, in his day, a millionaire, at least if he was to be believed. That affluent period, at his passing, was long since over."

Spade’s cigarette had burned down in the brass tray; he began to roll another, absentmindedly methodical. "I was not aware that Casper Gutman had any legal claim on the artifact."

She leaned toward Spade. "I have a bill of sale from the Russian general, Kemidov...not with me—but in the hotel safe at the Alexandria. That’s where I’m staying."

One V-shaped eyebrow lifted. "Still in 12C?"

"Yes. Kemidov, it seems, was...not reliable."

"A four-flusher."

"I don’t know what that is, Mr. Spade."

"A cheat. A double-crosser. A crook."

She gave several short nods. "He is certainly all of those things. Those very unpleasant things. Mr. Spade, my only inheritance is my father’s quest for that golden bejeweled bird. Completing that quest is the only way I have of honoring him."

Spade’s smile was fleeting. "I doubt, should you lay hands on it, that statuette would live on a shelf of honor in your home."

Rhea Gutman lifted her chin and lowered her eyelids. "I have no home, Mr. Spade. And you are correct that I would sell that antiquity to the highest bidder." She leaned forward in her chair. "If you can recover it for me...for my late father and me...I would make you a partner in the enterprise. A full partner."

The yellow-grey eyes narrowed. "Your father seemed to think the dingus was worth something like two million."

She blinked. "The what?"

Thick fingers brushed the air. "Dingus. Object. Thing. My guess is it may be worth well into the high thousands. Six figures, perhaps. But my experience with that...dingus...is that a lot more money is talked about than actually shows itself."

"Will you take on the job, Mr. Spade?" She got into the wallet and withdrew a thousand-dollar bill. When Spade had last seen that particular slice of currency, it had been crisp and new. Now the bill had been folded into the wallet and looked fairly shopworn. It also bore brown splotches in a few spots. She handed the bill toward him.

He took it.

"You could start by seeing Joel Cairo," she said, again business-like, referring to an associate of her late father’s who Spade had encountered more than once, including in this office. "I understand he’s behind the same iron bars as the O’Shaughnessy woman."

"Well," Spade said, as he lighted up his latest roll-your-own with his lighter, "they don’t share a cell. But they do share an address—the county jail."

The lighter snapped shut.

His client said, "Cairo may have leads for you. And there are rumors that the Russian general is in the States. Perhaps may even be here in San Francisco. If so, finding him might be a priority."

Spade frowned, issuing smoke that coiled like a snake. "Where did you get that information?"

"Oh, uh, the police. They were most cooperative and sympathetic."

"Uh-huh."

She scooted back her chair, arose and extended a gloved hand. "Thank you, Mr. Spade. I just knew this was the right place to come."

He shook the coolness of the leather-bound hand without rising. "Yes, this agency rather has a lock on Maltese falcon-related inquiries."

Ignoring the remark, looking very pleased with herself, Rhea Gutman went into and through the outer office and Effie Perine’s typing ceased.

His secretary, coming through the inner office door with pad and pencil, threw a glance behind her just as the door onto the corridor closed.

She said to her boss, "You mind my asking what that was about?"

"Sit," he told her, and gestured to the chair that Rhea Gutman had emptied. "She warmed it up nicely for you."

Effie Perine made a face and sat. And Spade told her everything.

"That damned statue again," she said, shaking her head, tawny curls dancing. "Why are you fiddling with it? It got at least three people killed this month. And the Gutman girl isn’t that good-looking."

"She’s good-looking enough. Here." He slid the thousand-dollar bill toward his secretary like a playing card he was dealing. "Bank that on your lunch hour."

Her big brown eyes got bigger. "Good lord. I’ve never seen a bill this size. What are these stains?"

With terrible casualness, he said: "Casper Gutman’s blood."

She dropped the bill as if it were burning.

Spade laughed. "Don’t worry, angel. It’s dry by now."

Effie Perine shuddered. "Oh, Sam. That’s awful. That’s horrible."

"The bank won’t mind. Put it in the agency account. How are you doing with that report for our Market Street client? I heard you typing furiously out there."

"I’ll have it finished this afternoon. You’ve got the goods on them."

The manager of a Market Street moving-picture theater suspected a cashier and doorman of colluding to defraud him. Spade had discovered two other employees involved. It would be up to the manager whether Spade’s information be given to the police or if the embezzling employees simply dismissed. Spade would advise the latter if full restitution was made.

"You have an appointment," Effie Perine reminded him, "with the movie-house man first thing tomorrow."

Spade leaned back in the swivel-chair. "I’ll come in early and go over your report and my notes. He gave us a fifty-dollar retainer and I’ll soak him for another fifty. Be well worth it for him—they’ve been picking him clean."

She nodded and retreated back into her domain, pad and pencil in hand. Soon he could hear her typing again, with no furor now.

#
The next morning Spade, who usually prepared his own breakfast in his small Post Street apartment, stopped at John’s Grill on Ellis Street. He had eggs over easy, crisp bacon and light toast, with a side of sliced tomatoes. Belly warm, he strolled out into a chill foggy morning, dark grey fedora tucked down, tweed topcoat buttoned up.

At a quarter till eight a.m., Spade entered his darkened office. He hung his topcoat and hat on the coat tree near the burbling water cooler; his suit today was light grey, his shirt white with green stripes, his Florsheims brown and minorly scuffed. Effie Perine, coming in at eight-thirty, would have time to go over her report and his notes, and he would have time to make any additions or corrections.

Without turning the outer-office lights on, Spade moved into the semi-darkness of the inner office and his hand went reflexively for the light switch, which clicked but summoned no light. He was mid-frown when the blow came.

This came not from a blunt object but a forearm that shoved against Spade’s lower neck and into the back of his head with considerable impact. It would have been sufficient to drop him but the unseen assailant at his back added insult to injury by taking Spade’s legs out from under with a sweeping calf that came around catching the detective below the knees and toppling him. Hitting the linoleum floor face-down and hard, a stunned Spade was momentarily helpless as the assailant came down forcefully to sit on Spade’s hips and begin pummeling him, big fists smashing into the detective’s ribs on either side like a schoolyard bully. Then the attacker grabbed Spade by the hair and smashed his head repeatedly into the flooring.

As if the repeated bashing had woken him up rather than disoriented and pained him, Spade bucked the figure off his back and scrambled to his feet, pausing at the door jamb in dizziness for a moment; but the figure, a man in a dark business suit, slipped by, rushing out through the outer office and into the corridor.

Spade staggered a few steps in hopeless pursuit, then fell to his knees, and onto his face again. A scent of sandalwood and citrus lingered in the air and on Spade’s clothes. He passed out while his nose bled a teardrop trickle.

#
When Spade awoke, he was in Effie Perine’s desk chair in the outer office. He didn’t know how she’d got him there and never asked. She was daubing his face with a cool cloth and her expression was distressed.

"What happened, darling?" she asked.

She rarely called him that—never, since he’d taken up with Iva Archer, his partner’s wife."Somebody jumped me," he said. "In the inner office."

Her words came quick. "The light bulbs in the overhead fixture were unscrewed. Whoever it was waited for you for a while. Any idea who it was?"

"No. Maybe something to do with this falcon rearing its jeweled goddamn head again."

A cool hand caressed his cheek. "You want me to get Dr. Ames?"

Spade’s doctor had an office two floors down.

"No. The only damage was to my self-esteem. Do you smell that?"

She nodded, curls bouncing. "Yes. It’s a man’s cologne, I think. Probably 4711 Eau de Cologne."

"How many male colognes can you recognize by sniff, angel? And how is it you can?"

"Every girl has her secrets," Effie Perine said.

"I bet she does." Spade rose from the chair and she steadied him. "Get me some aspirin, honey. After my appointment with that movie-house manager, I’m back on the falcon job."

She began to say something, thought better of it, then complied.

He made it into his office, got a bottle of Heublin Manhattan cocktail from a drawer, and poured himself a paper cup’s worth. He saluted the tinsel-draped tree where his partner used to sit. "Goddamn early in the day for it," he said to nobody between sips, "but I earned it."

Copyright © 2026 by Max Allan Collins

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