Mystery Books

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... » Complete The Maltese Falcon Summary