Farewell, My Lovely

Alone in his office, Marlowe examines the marijuana cigarettes. He takes them apart and notices a business card in the mouthpiece. “It was a man’s calling card,” a man by the name of Jules Amthor, a “Psychic Consultant” (101).

Randall calls and questions Marlowe about Anne’s presence at the crime scene. Apparently, Anne visited Randall to get information because he knew her father. Marlowe admits he lied about Anne, and Randall reminds him to “[r]emember what [Randall] told [Marlowe] last night. Don’t try getting ideas about this case. All we want from you is silence” (102).

Marlowe calls Amthor’s office, and a woman with a “dry, husky-sounding foreign voice” answers (104). Marlowe asks to see Amthor same-day, and says that it’s “very urgent. It is a matter of life and death” (104). At first, it doesn’t seem like Marlowe will be able to see Amthor anytime soon, but once he mentions Marriott, the woman calls him back quickly to say that Amthor will see him at 6 p.m.

Marlowe calls a fellow he once knew and asks him who owns the deed for Jessie Florian’s home. The man looks into it and says that the deed is in Lindsay Marriott’s name.

Marlowe goes to Jessie’s neighborhood to visit her nosey old neighbor. He says he’s a detective inquiring about Mrs. Florian, and the old woman lets him in. The woman answers most of Marlowe’s questions, until she smells liquor on his breath. Then she begins to think that he’s untrustworthy. She stops answering his questions, and he readies himself to leave. On his way out, he compliments a piece of her furniture. This warms her up, and she says that Mrs. Florian “[g]ets a registered letter [the] first of every month” (111). 

Marlowe goes to Mrs. Florian’s house. He knocks, but she doesn’t answer. The door is unlocked and he goes inside. Since his last visit, “[n]othing was changed, not even the smell of gin. There were still no bodies on the floor. A dirty glass stood on the small table beside the chair where Mrs. Florian had sat yesterday” (112). He calls her name, but she doesn’t answer. Marlowe hears a sick moaning sound coming from the back room so he goes to investigate.

Mrs. Florian is tucked into bed. Her room “had a sickening smell of sleep, liquor and dirty clothes” (113). He asks her if she’s sick, but she can barely talk. She asks if they arrested Moose Malloy yet. He says no, and she’s annoyed by this fact. She asks him for some gin, and he says maybe later. He says that he knows her house has a “large trust deed on it” in Lindsay Marriott’s name, and he asks her how she knows him (115). She says that she used to be a servant in his family, and that he now “takes care of [her] a little” (115).

Marlowe tells Florian that Marriott hired him for a job, and says sarcastically that it must be a coincidence that he also owns her home. He says, “By the way, I don’t think you’ll get a registered letter tomorrow morning,” implying to her that something has happened to Marriott (116). It’s presumed that Marriott sends her money each month. She pulls a gun out from under the covers and says that he better tell her what’s going on. But then her hand trembles and she drops the gun. Marlowe leaves and goes to visit Nulty. He asks Nulty if he can have the photo of Velma, and Nulty gives it to him. Marlowe tells Nulty that he’ll tell him what’s going on if his hunch is right. He goes back to his office and gets a phone call from Mrs. Grayle’s butler, asking Marlowe to come to her house right away.

Marlowe pulls up to Mr. and Mrs. Grayle’s extravagant estate. A guard is hesitant to let him through, but eventually Marlowe gets in. He is escorted down a hallway to a room where Mr. and Mrs. Grayle sit with Anne. Marlowe immediately notices Mrs. Grayle’s obvious beauty, and her “full set of curves which nobody had been able to improve on” (123). While she looked about thirty, her husband appeared old and ill. Mr. Grayle makes Marlowe a drink, and Mrs. Grayle asks him if he thinks he can do anything about her missing necklace. Marlowe says, “I don’t know whether I can do anything. […] I doubt it. What is there to go on?” (125). Mrs. Grayle implies that she wants her husband to leave, and so he does. Then Anne gets up to leave, saying, “I don’t work for Mr. Marlowe, you know. Just a friend,” implying that the details she’s about to tell Marlowe are for his ears only (126).

Marlowe and Mrs. Grayle share many drinks, and she shares the details of the jewelry heist. They are similar to how Marriott remembered them. She adds that she knew Marriott from the radio station that her husband owns. Marriott was a radio personality but was hoping to get into acting.

Mrs. Grayle asks Marlowe to sit next to her and says that her name is Helen. Then she tells him to kiss her:

She fell softly across my lap and I bent down over her face and began to browse on it. She worked her eyelashes and made butterfly kisses on my cheeks. When I got to her mouth it was half-open and burning and her tongue was a darting snake between her teeth (135).

The door opens; it’s Mr. Grayle, and he looks horribly disappointed. He leaves, and she says that he knows about her extramarital affairs. Marlowe throws her off his lap and feels guilty. She asks him to meet her at the Belvedere Club later that night, and he agrees. 

Marlowe leaves the home and Anne is waiting for him beyond the gates of the estate. She asks how it went; Marlowe says, “I bet she snaps a mean garter” (137). Anne isn’t pleased by his sexual joke and says, “Do you always have to say things like that? […] Sometimes I hate men. Old men, young men, football players, opera tenors, smart millionaires, beautiful men who are gigolos and almost-heels who are—private detectives” (137). He asks who told her that Marriott was a gigolo, and she says it was just a good guess. She immediately apologizes, and says that he can snap Mrs. Grayle’s garter if he wants, revealing a subtle jealousy over Marlowe’s attraction to Grayle. She drives away, and he thinks “There’s a nice little girl […] for a guy that’s interested in a nice little girl […] But I’m not” (139).

An Indian man shows up at Marlowe’s office to escort him to see Amthor. Marlowe thinks:

The Indian smelled. He smelled clear across the little reception room […] He stood just inside the corridor door looking as if he had been cast in bronze. He was a big man from the waist up and he had a big chest. He looked like a bum (140).

The Indian man says that they will take his car to see Amthor, but Marlowe objects and says that he can take his own car, adding that to get Marlowe in the man’s car, it will cost Amthor “a hundred bucks as a retainer. Me no money, me no come. Savvy?” (142). The man pulls a hundred-dollar bill out of the band of his hat, and Marlowe says, “Psychic is right,” implying that Amthor knew Marlowe would ask for money before leaving with the Indian man (142).