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ever hiring him. Marlowe confronts Leslie
Murdock, revealing that he knew Murdock and Vannier had a plot to duplicate the coin using dental technology. They had Lois Magic hire Phillips to sell the fakes, but Phillips was frightened by the assignment and mailed the coin to Marlowe. Vannier killed Phillips and the coin dealer to cover his tracks. Leslie killed Vannier because he threatened to ruin Leslie if their scheme ever got out. Leslie confirms the plot, but Marlowe declines to turn him in. The police discover Vannier's role in the counterfeiting and the murders of Phillips and the coin dealer, but they rule his death a suicide.
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Morny demands to know why
Marlowe visited his wife, but eventually realizes he is not Marlowe's quarry. Morny offers to hire Marlowe to investigate Vannier, giving him a suspicious receipt for dentistry chemicals that Vannier lost. Marlowe also talks to Linda and decides she is probably not involved in the theft.
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Marlowe visits a rare coin dealer, Mr. Morningstar, who confirms that someone tried to sell him a
Brasher Doubloon. Marlowe agrees to buy it back the next day, and after leaving overhears the dealer trying to call Phillips. Marlowe keeps his appointment with Phillips but finds him dead. Police arrest
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Marlowe shows Merle the photograph of Horace Bright being pushed out the window, which shows it was actually Mrs. Murdock who killed her husband and then blamed Merle for it. Marlowe drives her cross country, to the home of her parents, safely away from Mrs. Murdock. He watches her and her family as
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Returning to the
Murdocks, Marlowe is told a story he doesn’t believe: Leslie Murdock gave the coin to Morny to secure his debts, then changed his mind and retrieved it. Marlowe leaves, beginning to suspect a dark secret involving Merle, the timid family secretary, and Mrs. Murdock's first husband,
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Marlowe receives an unaddressed package containing the coin. He calls Mrs. Murdock but she claims the coin has already been returned to her. Marlowe returns to the coin dealer and finds him dead. Alex Morny's henchman invites
Marlowe to visit Morny at his nightclub, where Linda Conquest is singing.
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Marlowe visits Mrs. Murdock and tells her he has figured out that Horace Bright once tried to force himself on Merle, and she either pushed him or allowed him to fall out of a window to his death. Vannier knew and was blackmailing the family. Mrs. Murdock says
Marlowe is right and that she regrets
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Merle arrives at
Marlowe's apartment having a nervous breakdown. She claims to have shot Vannier, although her story doesn’t make sense. Marlowe visits Vannier's home, finds him dead, and discovers a photo of a man falling from a window with a woman behind him. Morny and Magic arrive, and Marlowe
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Chandler often wrote about corruption in high places. The "Cassidy Case", which
Marlowe relates to Breeze in chapter 15, is actually a retelling of the real-life murder in Los Angeles of Ned Doheny, son of oil tycoon
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Horace Bright, who died falling out of a window. The police say the drunk has confessed to the murder of
Phillips, but Marlowe discovers he is covering for his landlord and is unlikely to be the real murderer.
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he drives away and says, "I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again".
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hides while Morny tricks his wife into leaving her fingerprints on the gun near the body to incriminate her. After they leave
Marlowe puts the dead man's prints on the gun instead.
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in the form of Merle. Chandler hints at the theme of Marlowe as a romantic knight in the language he uses in the novel to describe Marlowe, such as "shop-soiled
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The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country
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