The Little Sister [R. Chandler]

1888 – 1959

In Raymond Chandler’s 1949 novel The Little Sister, Philip Marlowe takes on what seems like a fairly routine missing persons case. Orrin Quest was a young man from Manhattan, Kansas who arrived in LA and then disappeared from sight. His sister hires Marlowe to find him. The trail leads to a couple of corpses, an up-and-coming movie starlet and an out-of-town gangster. From there on the plot, in typical Chandler fashion, becomes more and more devious, culminating in not one twist but a whole series of twists at the end.

If you’re already a Chandler fan you pretty much know what to expect – lots of snappy dialogue (the kind of dialogue that has been copied countless times but no-one does it quite as well as Chandler does it), fascinatingly perverse characters, delightfully seedy settings and an abundance of cynicism.

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The pebbled glass door panel is lettered in flaked black paint: «Philip Marlowe . . . Investigations.» It’s a reasonably shabby door at the end of a reasonably shabby corridor in the sort of building that was new about the year the all-tile bathroom became the basis of civilization.  Come on in – there’s nobody in here but me and a big bluebottle fly.

I had been stalking the bluebottle fly for five minutes… He didn’t want to sit down. He just wanted to do wing-overs and sing the prologue to Pagliacci. There was a patch of bright sunlight on the corner of the desk and I knew that sooner or later that was where he was going to light.  The buzzing stopped and there he was. Then the phone rang.

I reached for it inch by inch with a slow and patient left hand. I lifted the phone slowly and spoke into it softly: «Hold the line a moment, please.»

I laid the phone down gently on the brown blotter. He was still there, shining and blue-green and full of sin. I took a deep breath and swung. What was left of him sailed halfway across the room and dropped to the carpet. I went over and picked him up by his good wing and dropped him into the wastebasket.

«Thanks for waiting,» I said into the phone.

«Is this Mr. Marlowe, the detective?» It was a small, rather hurried, little-girlish voice. I said it was Mr. Marlowe, the detective. «How much do you charge for your services, Mr. Marlowe?»

«What was it you wanted done?»

The voice sharpened a little. «I can’t very well tell you that over the phone. It’s-it’s very confidential. Before I’d waste time coming to your office I’d have to have some idea-«

«Forty bucks a day plus expenses. Unless it’s the kind of job that can be done for a flat fee.»

«That’s far too much,» the little voice said. «Why, it might cost hundreds of dollars and I only get a small salary and-«

«Where are you now?»

«Why, I’m in a drugstore. It’s right next to the building where your office is.»

«You could have saved a nickel. The elevator’s free.»

The small voice said very firmly. «This is a very delicate matter, very personal. I couldn’t talk to just anybody.»

«If it’s that delicate,» I said, «maybe you need a lady detective.»

«Goodness, I didn’t know there were any.» Pause. «But I don’t think a lady detective would do at all. You see, Orrin was living in a very tough neighborhood, Mr. Marlowe.  The manager of the rooming house is a most unpleasant person. He smelled of liquor. Do you drink, Mr. Marlowe?»

«Well, now that you mention it-«

«I don’t think I’d care to employ a detective that uses liquor in any form. I don’t even approve of tobacco.»

«Would it be all right if I peeled an orange?», I said. Then I hung up.

It was a step in the right direction, but it didn’t go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hid under the desk.

Five minutes later the buzzer sounded. I got my feet off the desk, stood up and looked out… Nobody ever looked less like Lady Macbeth. She was a small, neat, rather prissy-looking girl with primly smooth brown hair and rimless glasses. From a strap over her shoulder hung one of those awkward-looking square bags that make you think of a Sister of Mercy taking first aid to the wounded. On the smooth brown hair was a hat that had been taken from its mother too young. She had no make-up, no lipstick, no jewelry. The rimless glasses gave her that librarian’s look.

I said. «Come on in.»  Then I held the chair for her.

She sat down on about two inches of the edge. «That’s no way to talk to someone over the telephone,» she said sharply. «You ought to be ashamed of yourself. If I talked like that to one of Dr. Zugsmith’s patients,» she said, «I’d lose my position. «

«How is the old boy? I haven’t seen him since that time I fell off the garage roof.»

She looked surprised and quite serious. «Why surely you can’t know Dr. Zugsmith… Dr. Alfred Zugsmith, in Manhattan. Manhattan, Kansas, you know, not Manhattan, New York.»

«Must be a different Dr. Zugsmith,» I said. «And your name?»

«I’m not sure I’d care to tell you.»

«Just window shopping, huh?»

«I suppose you could call it that. If I have to tell my family affairs to a total stranger, I at least have the right to decide whether he’s the kind of person I could trust.»

«Anybody ever tell you you’re a cute little trick?»

The eyes behind the rimless cheaters flashed. «I should hope not.»

I reached for a pipe and started to fill it. «Hope isn’t exactly the word,» I said. «Get rid of that hat and get yourself a pair of those slinky glasses with colored rims. You know, the ones that are all cockeyed and oriental-«

«Dr. Zugsmith wouldn’t permit anything like that,» she said quickly. Then, «Do you really think so?» she asked, and blushed ever so slightly.

I said, «So you need help. What’s your name and trouble? You talk too much.»

«Yes,» I said, «I talk too much. Lonely men always talk too much. Either that or they don’t talk at all. Shall we get down to business? You don’t look like the type that goes to see private detectives, and especially private detectives you don’t know.»

«I know that,» she said quietly. «And Orrin would be absolutely livid. Mother would be furious too. I just picked your name out of the phone book-«

«What’s your name?» I almost snarled.

«Orfamay Quest.» She crinkled her eyes as if she could cry.  «I live with my mother,» she went on, her voice getting rapid now as if my time is costing her. «My father died four years ago. He was a doctor. My brother Orrin was going to be a surgeon, too, but he changed into engineering after two years of medical. Then a year ago Orrin came out to work for the Cal-Western Aircraft Company in Bay City. It wasn’t like Orrin not to write to us regularly. He only wrote twice to mother and three times to me in the last six months.  Mother and I got worried. So it was my vacation and I came out to see him. He’d never been away from Kansas before.» She stopped. «Aren’t you going to take any notes?» she asked.

I grunted.

She continued…«I’d written to Orrin that I was coming but I didn’t get any answer. So all I could do was go down where he lived. It’s an awful long way. I went in a bus. It’s in Bay City. No. 449 Idaho Street.»

She stopped again, then repeated the address, and I still didn’t write it down. . «I know something has happened. It was just a cheap rooming house, and I didn’t like the manager at all. A horrid kind of man. He said Orrin had moved away a couple of weeks before and he didn’t know where to and he didn’t care, and all he wanted was a good slug of gin. I don’t know why Orrin would even live in a place like that.»

«Did you say slug of gin?» I asked.

She blushed. «That’s what the manager said. I’m just telling you.»

«All right,» I said. «Go on.»

«Well, I called the place where he worked.  And they said he’d been laid off like a lot of others … So then I began to get a little frightened. He might have had an accident or something.»

«Did it occur to you to ask the police about that?»

«I wouldn’t dare ask the police. Orrin would never forgive me. He’s difficult enough at the best of times.  Just what do you think might have happened?»

She put her slim forefinger to her lips and touched it very carefully with the tip of that tongue. «I guess if I knew that I wouldn’t have to come and see you. How much would you charge to find him?»

I didn’t answer for a long moment, then I said: «You mean alone, without telling anybody?»

«Yes. I mean alone, without telling anybody.»

«Uh-huh. Well that depends. I told you what my rates were.»

She clasped her hands on the edge of the desk and squeezed them together hard. She had about the most meaningless set of gestures I had ever laid eyes on. «I thought you being a detective and all you could find him right away,» she said. «I couldn’t possibly afford more than twenty dollars. I’ve got to buy my meals here and my hotel and the train going back and you know the hotel is so terribly expensive and the food on the train-«

«Which one are you staying at?»

«I-I’d rather not tell you, if you don’t mind.»

«Why?»

«I’d just rather not. I’m terribly afraid of Orrin’s temper.»

«Uh-huh. Just what is it you’re scared of, besides Orrin’s temper, Miss Quest?» I had let my pipe go out. I struck a match and held it to the bowl, watching her over it.

«Pipesmoking is a dirty habit. Mother never let father smoke in the house, even the last two years after he had his stroke. He used to sit with that empty pipe in his mouth sometimes. But she didn’t like him to do that really. We owed a lot of money too and she said she couldn’t afford to give him money for useless things like tobacco. The church needed it much more than he did.»

«I’m beginning to get it,» I said slowly. «Take a family like yours and somebody in it has to be the dark meat.»

She stood up sharply and clasped the first-aid kit to her body. «I don’t like you,» she said. «I don’t think I’m going to employ you. If you’re insinuating that Orrin has done something wrong, well I can assure you that it’s not Orrin who’s the black sheep of our family.»

I didn’t move an eyelash. She swung around and marched to the door and put her hand on the knob and then she swung around again and marched back and suddenly began to cry. I reacted to that just the way a stuffed fish reacts to cut bait. She got out her little handkerchief and tickled the corners of her eyes.

◊  Stirling Siliphant’s adaptation of R. Chandler’s The Little Sister ↓ ‘Marlowe’

Updated to contemporary Los Angeles, ‘Marlowe’ (the movie) tracks a missing person case through a trail that leads to blackmail and murder. The many suspects and shills are vividly brought to life by the likes of Carroll O’Connor, Rita Moreno, Jackie Coogan and Bruce Lee.