Adventures of Sam Spade Part 1

Adventures of Sam Spade.

Hammett, Das.h.i.+ell.

INTRODUCTION BY ELLERY QUEEN.

Acknowledgment is gratefully made to the jallowing magazines in which these stones originally appeared: BLACK MASK; COLLIER'S; THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE; MYSTERY LEAGUE. The stories appear in their original form and have not been cut.

MEET SAM SPADE.

Meet the rough, tough d.i.c.k of THE MALTESE FALCON.

Meet the man with a V-for-Victory face who looks like a blond satan; the man who hated his partner's guts but who tracked down his killer; the man who believes it's bad business to let a killer get away with it, no matter who gets hurt, even if it's the woman you love.

Meet the private agency detective whom Casper Gut-man (The Fat man) called wild, astonis.h.i.+ng, unpredictable, amazing - a most headstrong individual who's not afraid of a bit of trouble -an uncommonly difficult person to get the best of- a man of many resources and nice judgment; a man who can mix his Bacardi, Manhattans, and knockout-drops, and still land on his feet right side up; who is a son of a gun when it comes to plain speaking and a clear understanding; whose dialogue can telescope to two words, the first a short guttural verb, and the second "you"; who can play both ends against the middle, have his pie and eat it, outwit, outfight, and outbluff, whichever way the cards fall.

Meet that rough-and-tumble operative who is most dangerous when his smile flickers with a dreamy quality; who hates to be hit without hitting back; who won't play the sap for anyone, man or woman, dead or alive; who can call a $2,000,000 rara avis a dingus and who, when asked in the latest movie version what the heavy lead falcon was made of, answered: "the stuff of dreams."

Meet the wild man from Frisco who always calls a spade a spade.

Meet Sam.

There are only four Sam Spade stories -THE MALTESE FALCON and the three short stories now collected in book form for the first time. If there were more, we'd fill the book with Sam Spade. But as a great actress once said: "That's all there is, there isn't any more."

To give you full measure in this first volume of Ham-mett short stories, we've added to THE ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE four a.s.sorted tales, all genuine 24-carat Hammett. The first, The a.s.sistant Murderer, is a novelette out of Hammet's "Black Mask" days, written three years before the fabulous Falcon; it introduces Alec Rush, the ugliest detective in fiction, one of Hammett's most authentic private ops. The second, Nightshade, is a short-short story penned with bitter-poison ink. The third, The Judge Laughed Last, is Hammett in a wryly humorous and ironically playful mood. The fourth, His Brother's Keeper, is a story of murder and the prizefighting racket, one of Hammett's finest studies of character and background.

Many adjectives have been wrapped around Hammett's neck. His style has been called hard, hardbitten, and hard-boiled; lean, dynamic, and unsentimental; penetrating, virile, and shocking. But the adjective used most often is probably the word "realistic." Hammett is the acknowledged founder of the contemporary realistic school. But despite the unanimity of this critical opinion, it is neither fair nor accurate to describe Hammett's style as simply "realistic." It's a bit more complicated than that -and strangely enough, a bit more paradoxical.

In our considered judgment we would not label Hammett a "realist" and merely let it go at that. We would add an adjective of our own, to fill out the picture, to put the finger on the very heart of Hammett. We would call him a "romantic realist."

Examine the plot of Hammett's most famous story, THE MALTESE FALCON: the seventeen years' crusade to win that fabulous, solid-gold, gem-loaded bird; the trail of theft, murder, doublecross, chicanery, blood, sweat, and tears. Can you imagine a more romantic theme?

Every incident in the main line of the plot is 2oth Century fairy tale. Against this background of sheer melodrama and sensational romanticism, how does Hammett achieve the hard lacquer of realism? What makes critics and readers, one and all, think of THE MALTESE FALCON - and RED HARVEST and THE DAIN CURSE before the FALCON-as hardboiled stories?

The secret is in Hammett's method. Hammett tells his modern fables in terms of realism. He blends, intermingles, combines extreme romanticism of plot with extreme realism of characterization. His stories are the stuff of dreams; his characters are the flesh-and-blood of reality. The stories are flamboyant extravaganzas, but the characters in those stories are authentic human beings who talk, think, and act like real people. Their speech is tough, earthy, two-syllabled; their desires, their moods, their frustrations, are cut open, laid bare, probed with frank, hard fingers.

The skin of realism hides the inner body of romance. All you see at first glance is that tough outer skin. But inside - deep in the core of his plots and counterplots - Hammett is one of the purest and most uninhibited romantics of us all.

Reader, take from Hammett what you crave: escape to a dreamworld of Maltese treasure - a modern Arabian Nights of crime and detection; or the down-to-earth story of a professional detective at work (and play), told with a realism comparable to Hemingway's. Or, enjoy both ends of the stick, Hammett's as yet unsurpa.s.sed mixture of real people and unreal events, fact and fancy, the intellectual and the sensational.

That we owe a great debt to Hammett no honest writer, reader or reviewer of detective fiction can deny. He broke away - violently - from the overpowering influence of the polished English writers; he divorced us from effete, nambypamby cla.s.sicism; he gave us the first 100 per cent American, the first truly native, detective story. He is our most important modern originator. He didn't invent a new kind of detective story - he invented a new way of telling it.

ELLERY QUEEN.

THE ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE.

TOO MANY HAVE LIVED.

THE MAN'S TIE was as orange as a sunset. He was a large man, tall and meaty, without softness. The dark hair parted in the middle, flattened to his scalp, his firm, full cheeks, the clothes that fit him with noticeable snugness, even the small, pink ears flat against the sides of his head - each of these seemed but a differently colored part of one same, smooth surface. His age could have been thirty-five or forty-five.

He sat beside Samuel Spade's desk, leaning forward a little over his Malacca stick, and said, "No. I want you to find out what happened to him. I hope you never find him." His protuberant green eyes stared solemnly at Spade.

Spade rocked back in his chair. His face - given a not unpleasantly Satanic cast by the v's of his bony chin, mouth, nostrils, and thickish brows - was as politely interested as his voice. "Why?"

The green-eyed man spoke quietly, with a.s.surance: "I can talk to you, Spade. You've the sort of reputation I want in a private detective. That's why I'm here."

Spade's nod committed him to nothing.

The green-eyed man said, "And any fair price is all right with me."

Spade nodded as before. "And with me," he said, "but I've got to know what you want to buy. You want to find out what's happened to this - uh - Eli Haven, but you don't care what it is?"

The green-eyed man lowered his voice, but there was no other change in his mien: "In a way I do.' For instance, if you found him and fixed it so he stayed away for good, It might be worth more money to me."

"You mean even if he didn't want to stay away?"

The green-eyed man said, "Especially."

Spade smiled and shook his head. "Probably not enough more money - the way you mean it." He took his long, thick-fingered hands from the arms of his chair and turned their palms up. "Well, what's it all about, Colyer?"

Colyer's face reddened a little, but his eyes maintained their unblinking cold stare. "This man's got a wife. I like her. They had a row last week and he blew. If I can convince her he's gone for good, there's a chance she'll divorce him."

"I'd want to talk to her," Spade said. "Who is this Eli Haven? What does he do?"

"He's a bad egg. He doesn't do anything. Writes poetry or something."

"What can you tell me about him that'll help?"

"Nothing Julia, his wife, can't tell you. You're going to talk to her." Colyer stood up. "I've got connections. Maybe I can get something for you through them later." . . .

A small-boned woman of twenty-five or -six opened the apartment door. Her powder-blue dress was trimmed with silver b.u.t.tons. She was full-bosomed but slim, with straight shoulders and narrow hips, and she carried herself with a pride that would have been c.o.c.kiness in one less graceful.

Spade said, "Mrs. Haven?"

She hesitated before saying "Yes."

"Gene Colyer sent me to see you. My name's Spade. I'm a private detective. He wants me to find your husband."

"And have you found him?"

"I told him I'd have to talk to you first."

Her smile went away. She studied his face gravely, feature by feature, then she said, "Certainly," and stepped back, drawing the door back with her.

When they were seated in facing chairs in a cheaply furnished room overlooking a playground where children were noisy, she asked, "Did Gene tell you why he wanted Eli found?"

"He said if you knew he was gone for good maybe you'd listen to reason."

She said nothing.

"Has he ever gone off like this before?"

"Often."

"What's he like?"

"He's a swell man," she said dispa.s.sionately, "when he's sober; and when he's drinking he's all right except with women and money."

"That leaves him a lot of room to be all right in. What does he do for a living?"

"He's a poet," she replied, "but n.o.body makes a living at that."

"Well?"

"Oh, he pops in with a little money now and then. Poker, races, he says. I don't know."

"How long've you been married?"

"Four years, almost" - he smiled mockingly.

"San Francisco all the time?"

"No, we lived in Seattle the first year and then came here."

"He from Seattle?"

She shook her head. "Some place in Delaware."

"What place?"

"I don't know."

Spade drew his thickish brows together a little. "Where are you from?"

She said sweetly, "You're not hunting for me."

"You act like it," he grumbled. "Well, who are his friends?"

"Don't ask me!"

He made an impatient grimace. "You know some of them," he insisted.

"Sure. There's a fellow named Minera and a Louis James and somebody he calls Conny."

"Who are they?"

"Men," she replied blandly. "I don't know anything about them. They phone or drop by to pick him up, or I see him around town with them. That's all I know."

"What do they do for a living? They can't all write poetry."

She laughed. "They could try. One of them, Louis James, is a - member of Gene's staff, I think. I honestly don't know any more about them than I've told you."

"Think they'd know where your husband is?"

She shrugged. "They're kidding me if they do. They still call up once in a while to see if he's turned up."

"And these women you mentioned?"

"They're not people I know."

Spade scowled thoughtfully at the floor, asked, "What'd he do before he started not making a living writing poetry?"

"Anything - sold vacuum cleaners, hoboed, went to sea, dealt blackjack, railroaded, canning houses, lumber camps, carnivals, worked on a newspaper - anything."

"Have any money when he left?"

"Three dollars he borrowed from me."

"What'd he say?"

She laughed. "Said if I used whatever influence I had with G.o.d while he was gone he'd be back at dinnertime with a surprise for me."

Spade raised his eyebrows. "You were on good terms?"

"Oh, yes. Our last fight had been patched up a couple of days before."

"When did he leave?"

"Thursday afternoon; three o'clock, I guess."

"Got any photographs of him?"

"Yes." She went to a table by one of the windows, pulled a drawer out, and turned towards Spade again with a photograph in her hand.

Spade looked at the picture of a thin face with deep-set eyes, a sensual mouth, and a heavily lined forehead topped by a disorderly mop of coa.r.s.e blond hair.

He put Haven's photograph in his pocket and picked up his hat. He turned towards the door, halted. "What kind of poet is he? Pretty good?"

She shrugged. "That depends on who you ask."

"Any of it around here?"

"No." She smiled. "Think he's hiding between pages?"