The work follows the investigation of a detective into the murder of a promising young investigator who had been shadowing a man suspected of stealing from his business partner. Initially, the victim was assigned to monitor a nervous partner in a farm development firm. This partner, involved in dubious financial dealings with his silent colleague, had been making false entries and misappropriating substantial sums. The victim, noted for his competence despite his brief experience, had been tracking the suspect secretly before he was ambushed and shot in a deserted lot. The investigation leads the detective from the agency to key figures in the case. At the firm’s office, the partner expresses disbelief that his associate could commit murder and describes his last known movements. Soon after, the detective visits the suspect’s residence, where he interviews a shrewd woman identified as the partner’s wife—or, as she later claims, by a false name—who provides both misleading details and unexpected clues. Her testimony reveals that the suspect had recently become jumpy, had lost his firearm, and had seemingly been involved in a scheme to cover up his financial crimes. A taxi ride tracked by the detective further points to secretive meetings and locations that might serve as hideouts. Further inquiries into an apartment used by the conspirators uncover evidence that hints at a hastily abandoned living space—minimal personal effects, a supply of specific cigarettes, and missing ammunition cartridges. These clues, along with a visit to marginalized tenants in the building, gradually expose inconsistencies in the suspects’ stories. The detective’s careful observation of trace evidence like mud and the condition of the recovered weapon begins to contradict the earlier cover-up attempts by those close to the firm. A turning point occurs when the detective pieces together the behavior and timing of appearances by the firm’s manager, who had initiated the scheme by alleging his partner’s dishonesty and employing the victim to shadow the suspect. The victim’s death, occurring in circumstances where he held no personal stake that could justify an external attack, leads the detective to conclude that the murderer must be someone the victim trusted. Details such as the proximity of the gunfire, the positioning of the body, and the accidental traces left behind converge to implicate the man who assigned the task, rather than the suspect being followed. In a sequence of confrontations and revelations, it becomes evident that the manager, working in tandem with the woman (who in reality is an accomplice rather than a loyal wife), had hatched a plan to commit the perfect crime. They had orchestrated a complex fraud involving the sale of land development shares, planning to vanish with the proceeds. When the victim discovered that his target had discovered the location of the stolen money, the manager saw an opportunity: by eliminating the trusted investigator, he could both silence potential complications and shift suspicion away from himself. Subsequent events include a dramatic ambush in which the manager uses the victim as collateral to cover his real crime, leaving behind a trail of physical and circumstantial evidence. In the aftermath, the true orchestration of the crime is gradually revealed through intercepted communications, forensic clues, and crucial witness testimony. The suspect, whose own criminal past made him vulnerable, eventually surrenders after realizing that the web of deceit was designed to pin the murder on him. At trial, the collected evidence and the coerced confession of the fleeing suspect support the detective’s hypothesis. The narrative concludes with the manager being convicted and executed, while the woman receives a long prison sentence. The other partner avoids prosecution by cooperating and testifying against them. In the end, the carefully constructed fraud is exposed, and the brutal murder is revealed as the result of an internal betrayal orchestrated by the very person who had sent the victim on the job.
By Dashiell Hammett · First published 1934 · Genre: Detective Fiction, Hard-Boiled, Crime Fiction