Detective and mystery stories
The Maltese falcon
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Chapters
1. Part 1
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any mechanical means, including mimeograph and tape recorder, without permission in writing from th...
2. Part 2Spade’s tinny alarm-clock said three-forty when he turned on the light in the suspended bowl again. He dropped his hat and overcoat on the bed and went into his kitchen, returni...
3. Part 3“She wants to see you.” The girl picked up a slip of paper from her desk and read the memorandum penciled on it: “She’s at the Coronet, on California Street, apartment one thous...
4. Part 4Spade’s elbow dropped as Spade spun to the right. Cairo’s face jerked back not far enough: Spade’s right heel on the patent-leathered toes anchored the smaller man in the elbow’...
5. Part 5He looked away from her, down the street. In front of a garage on the next corner an undersized youth of twenty or twenty-one in neat grey cap and overcoat loafed with his back...
6. Part 6The girl put her feet down on the floor and looked warily from Dundy, holding Cairo’s wrist, to Tom Polhaus, standing a little behind them, to Spade, leaning against the door-fr...
7. Part 7Spade squinted at her and suggested: “But you wouldn’t have known where to take it to get more money than he’d give you, the larger sum that you knew he expected to sell it for?”
8. Part 8“But I was, I was.” Her lips twisted and anger darkened her eyes. “Effie Perine told you that,” she said indignantly. “I saw her looking at my clothes and snooping around. You k...
9. Part 9Spade walked down to the corner and stood by the curb until the red-faced blond chauffeur had parked his cab and got out. Then Spade went up to him and said: “I got into your ca...
10. Part 10He put his hand on the knob and turned it with care that permitted neither rattle nor click. He turned the knob until it would turn no farther: the door was locked. Holding the...
11. Part 11“We don’t intend asking you to sign anything,” Bryan assured him. “I wish you wouldn’t regard this as a formal inquiry at all. And please don’t think I’ve any belief—much less c...
12. Part 12He looked down at his feet. His last backward step had brought his left heel into contact with the dead man’s hand, pinching a quarter-inch of flesh at a side of the palm betwee...
13. Part 13Gutman lowered himself into the padded rocking chair. Cairo chose the armchair by the table. The boy Wilmer did not sit down. He stood in the doorway where Cairo had stood, lett...
14. Part 14Gutman flung a fat hand out at the boy’s wrist, caught the wrist, and bore it and the gun down while Gutman’s fat body was rising in haste from the rocking chair. Joel Cairo scu...
15. Part 15Brigid O’Shaughnessy, dressed again except for coat and hat, came out of the bathroom, took a step towards the living-room, turned around, went to the kitchen, and turned on the...
16. Part 16“And you didn’t know then that Gutman was here hunting for you. You didn’t suspect that or you wouldn’t have shaken your gunman. You knew Gutman was here as soon as you heard Th...