Trouble Is My Business

As Marlowe begins working the case, he first calls on a forgery expert named Arbogast, who has been investigating Gerald’s gambling notes to see if they are legitimate. Much to Marlowe’s surprise, he finds Arbogast shot dead in his office. After wiping away traces of his own fingerprints, Marlowe leaves the crime scene. 

The detective then goes to call on Harriet at her apartment. When Harriet invites Marlowe in, he says of her:

She wore a street dress of pale green wool and a small cockeyed hat that hung on her ear like a butterfly. Her eyes were wide-set and there was thinking room between them. Their color was lapis-lazuli blue and the color of her hair was dusky red, like a fire under control but still dangerous (15).

Harriet offers Marlowe a glass of expensive Scotch. He asks what price Harriet would accept to stop seeing Gerald. She explains that she can’t be bribed because she wants revenge. Old Jeeter destroyed her family’s fortune, and she wants payback. Since Gerald will come into an inheritance of five million dollars at the age of twenty-eight, she plans to marry him and spend his money. Gerald arrives in time to hear this conversation and knocks Marlowe out for offering Harriet a bribe.

Marlowe later awakens in the empty apartment after Harriet and Gerald leave. He takes the bottle of Scotch and lets himself out. Back at his own flat, Marlowe is assaulted by two hoodlums that he dubs Waxnose and Frisky. They warn him off the Jeeter case. Once the two thugs leave, Marlowe drinks more Scotch and ponders who might have hired them. As he continues to eliminate possible suspects, his phone rings. Jeeter is on the line and summons the detective to his mansion for a chat. Marlowe is told to wait for Jeeter’s chauffeur, George, to collect him.

As the two drive to the Jeeter mansion, they’re intercepted on the road by the same two thugs who earlier accosted Marlowe. In the attempted robbery that follows, George shoots Frisky. He concludes that the thugs were really after Gerald because George usually drives him home at this hour. Marlowe advises that George should drive him back to his flat to avoid connecting Jeeter to the murder. 

At Marlowe’s apartment, the two men discuss the reason for the hold-up and whether the thugs were hired by Marty Estel, Harriet’s paramour. Jeeter calls to order them back to the mansion. Marlowe refuses and sends George on alone. Just after the chauffeur leaves, two detectives named Finlayson and Sebold arrive to question Marlowe about Frisky’s death. They received an anonymous tip that he might be implicated in the case. Marlowe denies knowing anything about the matter. After the detectives search his flat and satisfy themselves that his gun hasn’t been fired, they leave.

Marlowe waits a few minutes and then drives back to Harriet’s place. Inside her apartment, he finds Estel waiting for him. The two men talk about the murders of Arbogast and Frisky. Estel protests his innocence; it wouldn’t be in his best interest to interfere with Gerald since he would never be able to collect his gambling debts. He says, “Listen, Marlowe, there are lots of ways to play any game. I play mine on the house percentage, because that’s all I need to win. What makes me get tough?” (39-40). Estel then warns Marlowe to leave Harriet alone and exits the apartment.

Marlowe takes a fresh bottle of Scotch and decides to search the place before he leaves. He finds Gerald’s body stashed in a bedroom closet. The young heir has been shot with a woman’s purse gun. Marlowe concludes that the weapon belongs to Harriet, and he pockets it before wiping down his fingerprints and going on his way.

Back at home, Marlowe is once again confronted by Waxnose, who intends to kill him as revenge for murdering Frisky. The P.I. manages to subdue and bind Waxnose before informing him that someone else killed Frisky. Marlowe says, “I left him laying on his back, a little sideways, his nose as white as ever, his eyes empty now, his lips moving a little as if he were talking to himself. A funny lad, not all bad, but not so pure I had to weep over him either” (47).

Next, Marlowe drives to the Jeeter mansion to give the millionaire an update. He finds the old man meeting with George and Harriet. Marlowe breaks the news about Gerald’s death to all three, trying to gauge which of them is the murderer. He gives Harriet her purse gun, but she appears surprised that it was used to kill Gerald. Then, Marlowe explains his theory about who stood to gain the most from Gerald’s death.

The detective says that, under California law, Jeeter would be Gerald’s heir if the latter died without a will. It stands to reason that Jeeter ordered George to kill his stepson and also Arbogast because the latter had begun to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Killing Frisky was an accident. Since Marlowe has guessed the truth, George tries to shoot him, but Harriet shoots the chauffeur in the wrist with her pistol. As all this gunplay is going on, Jeeter falls to the floor and suffers a stroke. 

Marlowe calls in the law and has George arrested. Jeeter is taken to the hospital to recover. George later makes up a story that he killed Gerald in a jealous squabble over Harriet. Even though he also killed Arbogast and Frisky, he’s never accused of the other crimes. Jeeter isn’t prosecuted at all because he never fully recovers from his stroke. Marlowe begins to see Harriet socially for a brief while after the case ends. He says:

It was nice, but I didn’t have the money, the clothes, the time or the manners. Then she stopped being at the El Milano and I heard she had gone to New York. I was glad when she left—even though she didn’t bother to tell me goodbye (60).