The Maltese Falcon (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

Chapter 1: Spade & Archer

The Maltese Falcon begins when a beautiful woman, who gives her name as "Miss Wonderly," comes into the Spade & Archer Detective Agency and who wants to have a man named Floyd Thursby followed. Miles Archer, one of the partners in the firm, agrees with a lecherous grin to help Miss Wonderly personally.

Chapter 2: Death in the Fog

Sam Spade is phoned in the middle of the night and told that Miles Archer has been shot dead. He goes to the scene of the crime and then phones his secretary, Effie Perine, and tells her to break the news to Archer's widow, Iva. When he returns to his apartment, he is met by two policemen, who ask if he knows anything about the death of Archer or the subsequent shooting of Thursby.

Chapter 3: Three Women

When Spade arrives at his office the next morning, Iva Archer is there. They are having an affair. Effie later tells him that Iva had been out when Effie arrived at her house in the middle of the night. Spade goes to Miss Wonderly's hotel, only to find her gone. There is a message from her when he returns to the office, telling him to come to a different hotel, where she is registered under the name "Leblanc."

Chapter 4: the Black Bird

At her hotel, Spade finds out that she is neither Wonderly nor Leblanc, but Brigid O'Shaughnessy. She acts frightened and begs Spade to help her. She admits to having been untruthful and says she met Thursby in Hong Kong and counted on him for protection against enemies who might try to kill her.

After stopping at his attorney's office to ask how far he can go in refusing to answer the police's questions, Spade returns to his office. There he meets Joel Cairo, who offers him five thousand dollars to find a statue of a bird. Before leaving, Cairo draws a gun to make Spade sit still while he searches the office.

Chapter 5: the Levantine

Spade takes the pistol from Cairo, knocks him unconscious, and then searches his pockets. When Cairo comes to, he asserts that he is still willing to pay five thousand dollars for the statue. When Spade returns his belongings, Cairo aims the gun at him again and proceeds to search the office.

Chapter 6: the Undersized Shadow

That night, Spade goes to the Geary Theatre, having noted earlier that Cairo had tickets to the show there. He sees a young man following them. He sees the same youth later, on his way to meet Brigid, and loses him. When he mentions having met Cairo, she says that she must talk to him, but not at her place. They take a cab to Spade's apartment for a meeting. When they arrive, Iva Archer is waiting there for Spade and is upset when he says she cannot come upstairs with him.

Chapter 7: G in the Air

Waiting for Cairo, Spade tells Brigid a story about a man who, after a near-death experience, abandoned his wife and children, only to eventually settle down to the same kind of life with the same kind of family. Cairo arrives, and he and Brigid talk about how the black bird was smuggled out of Hong Kong. At one point she slaps him, and Spade intervenes. While he is standing between them, though, the doorbell rings.

At the door are Dundy and Polhaus, the two policemen who interrogated Spade on the night of Archer's murder. Spade refuses to let them in, until they hear Cairo inside screaming for help.

Chapter 8: Horse Feathers

The two detectives find that Cairo has blood on his head. Brigid accuses him of attacking her, and Cairo accuses her and Spade of holding him prisoner. Just as the policemen are about to take everyone to jail, Spade laughs and says that it has all been a joke. His claim that he did it to trick the policemen angers Dundy, who punches him in the jaw. Enraged, Spade refuses to answer any more questions and insists that they leave. Cairo leaves with them.

Chapter 9: Brigid

Alone with Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Spade lies and says the apartment is still being watched by the boy he saw before. He insists that she tell him the truth about what is going on: She reveals some facts about having been to Marmora and Constantinople, but he still accuses her of lying. She pulls him down against her for a long kiss.

Chapter 10: the Belvedere Divan

In the morning, Spade sneaks out before Brigid wakes up and, with the key he found in her purse, goes to her hotel, where he finds a receipt showing that she rented it the month before. Returning with breakfast, he puts the key back before she knows it was gone. He takes her back to her hotel and then goes to Cairo's hotel. Waiting in the lobby, he sits next to the young man who has been tailing him and talks cheerfully. The young man takes a threatening tone, but Spade tells him to tell G. to call him. He then humiliates the young man by bringing the house detective over and asking him, "What do you let these cheap gunmen hang out in your lobby for, with their tools bulging in their clothes?" After the young man has been forced to leave, Cairo comes in and says that he has been interrogated by the police all night but that he stayed with the same story Spade made up in his apartment.

Spade returns to his office and learns that G. has tried to reach him. Brigid is there, afraid because her apartment has been searched. Spade arranges for her to stay with Effie, his secretary.

Chapter 11: the Fat Man

Mr. Gutman calls Spade and tells him to come to his hotel. Iva Archer comes to Spade and says that she sent the police to his apartment, jealous of the other woman she saw. He tells her that lying to the police might be illegal and sends her to his lawyer, Sid Wise.

Gutman is a cheerful fat man who is very interested in finding the black bird. He is amiable, yet unwilling to tell Spade any details about the value of the bird or why it is interesting to so many people. At the end, the friendly conversation turns hostile. Spade stands up, throws his glass down so that it breaks, and shouts that he will not deal with Gutman unless he is told the truth.

Chapter 12: Merry-Go-Round

Spade's attitude in the elevator while leaving Gutman's suite reveals that his anger was just a bluff. He stops at Sid Wise's office and finds out what Iva said about her whereabouts on the night Archer was killed. At the office, Effie says that Brigid never arrived at her house. Spade hunts down the cabdriver who drove her. The cabdriver says that after picking up a newspaper, she asked to be dropped off at the Ferry Building.

Wilmer, the tough young man, is waiting for Spade at his office building. He leads Spade to Gutman's hotel at gunpoint, but before going into the suite, Spade takes his guns away from him.

Chapter 13: the Emperor's Gift

Gutman tells Spade the history of the Maltese falcon: how it was created as a present for Emperor Charles V in 1530 but disappeared in transit, showing up in various places over the course of centuries. He himself came on the trail seventeen years earlier, following it from one place to another, up to a Russian named Kemidov, in Constantinople. Gutman sent Brigid and Thursby to get it from the Russian, and they never brought it back. Spade says that he can get the bird for Gutman in a few days, but while they are talking, Gutman receives a secret message. He drugs Spade's drink, and as Spade loses consciousness, he feels Wilmer kick him in the face.

Chapter 14: La Paloma

Spade returns to his office where Effie tends to his bruise, and he offers to see her cousin, a history professor, about Gutman's tale about the Maltese falcon. He goes around to the hotels and cannot find Brigid or Gutman. At Cairo's hotel he has the house detective let him into the room, where he finds that the piece of the newspaper regarding ship arrivals is missing. Checking against another newspaper, he notes that the ship La Paloma is coming from Hong Kong, the last place the search for the falcon stopped. Effie returns to the office and says that she saw La Paloma ablaze in the harbor.

Chapter 15: Every Crackpot

Spade has lunch with Detective-sergeant Tom Polhaus and then meets with District Attorney Bryan, who tries out various theories about the murders, including one that has Thursby killed by rivals of the mobster he used to work for. Spade ends the interview by declaring that he will find the killers and give them to the authorities.

Chapter 16: the Third Murder

Spade meets with a prospective new client, talks to his lawyer about the district attorney, and then goes out to find Brigid. When he returns, he tells Effie that Brigid had been to the La Paloma, along with Gutman and Cairo. The ship's captain, Jacobi, met with them all in his cabin and then left the ship with them around midnight. As Spade is telling the story, a man comes into the office, staggers a few steps, and then falls to the floor. It is Jacobi, and he has a parcel in his arms that contains the Maltese falcon. At the same time, a call comes from Brigid O'Shaughnessy, who says that she is in trouble and needs Spade's help. Spade takes the package, tells Effie to phone the police about the dead man, but not to mention the falcon or the phone call.

Chapter 17: Saturday Night

Spade checks the parcel at a locker at a bus terminal, mails the key to his post office box, and then goes to Gutman's suite, where he finds Gutman's daughter, Rhea, drugged. He helps her walk around to stay awake, and she tells him that Brigid has been taken to an address in a faraway suburb. He goes to that address and finds it empty and showing no sign that anyone has been there recently. Returning to Gutman's hotel, he finds that Rhea left before the ambulance that he called for her could arrive. He stops to talk to Effie at her house and then returns home. Brigid meets him out on the street, and when he brings her inside his apartment, Gutman, Cairo, and Wilmer are there — with guns.

Chapter 18: the Fall Guy

Spade expresses pleasure at seeing them so that he can sell them the falcon. Gutman gives him an envelope with ten thousand dollars in it, which is less than they had talked about, but, as he explains, actual money is worth more than talk. As a condition for selling the falcon, Spade insists that they have to provide a fall guy, so that the police can consider the murders solved. At first, his suggestion that they provide Wilmer is met with derision, but after he explains his case, Gutman and Cairo help him knock Wilmer unconscious.

Chapter 19: the Russian's Hand

Spade has Gutman explain the details about how Thursby and Jacobi were killed. Gutman goes through the envelope with ten thousand dollars, which Brigid has been holding, and only finds nine thousand-dollar bills: Spade takes Brigid into the bathroom and makes her take off all of her clothes, eventually coming to the decision that Gutman has palmed the missing bill in order to make him distrust her. In the meantime, Wilmer escapes.

When morning comes, Effie picks up the falcon at the bus station and brings it to Spade's apartment. Gutman is excited, until he scratches away the black enamel coating and finds out that it is not gold but lead. He comes to the conclusion that the Russian in Constantinople must have substituted a fake bird for the real one, and he extends invitations to Cairo, Brigid, and Spade to join him in going after it. Cairo accepts, and they leave.

Chapter 20: If They Hang You

Spade immediately calls the police and tells them all that he knows about the Maltese falcon, the murders, and the suspects who are escaping. Then he talks with Brigid, explaining that he knows that she must be the one who killed Miles Archer. She tells him that if he loved her, it would not matter, and he admits that he actually might but that there are too many reasons on the other side of the equation to make love matter much. When the police arrive, they tell Spade that they caught up with the others just as Wilmer was in the process of killing Gutman. Spade turns Brigid O'Shaughnessy over to them.

The next morning, Spade arrives at the office to find that his faithful secretary, Effie, is angry at him for turning on Brigid. When he enters his private office, Iva is there, and the novel ends with his preparing to face her again.

Media Adaptations

• The first screen adaptation of The Maltese Falcon was the film Dangerous Female (1931). It was directed by Roy Del Ruth and stars Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as "Ruth Wonderly."
• Another adaptation was made in 1936, as Satan Met a Lady. Starring Bette Davis and Warren William, this version gives Dashiell Hammett credit for his novel but alters the characters and situations: In it, detective Ted Shayne is hired by Valerie Purvis to locate a ram's horn covered with precious jewels. It was directed by William Dieterle and is available on videocassette from Warner Home Video.
• The 1941 film of The Maltese Falcon is one of the most influential Hollywood movies ever made, defining the detective picture for generations to come. It is noted for its close adherence to Hammett's original dialogue, its near-perfect casting, and for being the first film in legendary director John Houston's long and distinguished career. Starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Elisha Cook Jr., the film is available on DVD and VHS from Warner.
• The 1974 film The Black Bird parodied the The Maltese Falcon, presenting the son of Sam Spade, who has inherited his father's detective agency and set out on his own quest for the Maltese falcon. The film stars George Segal, Lee Patrick, and Elisha Cook Jr. (from the 1941 version), and was directed by David Giler. It is available on videocassette from Columbia/Tristar.
• In the 1982 film Hammett, directed by Wim Wenders and produced by Francis Ford Copella, the author becomes involved in investigating the disappearance of a cabaret singer. This fictional story is based in fact and recreates the world in which Hammett lived and traveled. Frederick Forrest plays Hammett. It is available on VHS from Warner.