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 unsurpassed 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 classicism; 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 assurance: “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 buttons. She was full-bosomed but slim, with straight shoulders and narrow hips, and she carried herself with a pride that would have been cockiness in one less graceful.