Well, not too bad, Marlowe is nicer than usual, I'd say. As always the story is a bit complicated, and Marlowe bumps in a corpse after the other, but at the end he reveals the whole truth. Just like that. Part of it he can deduce from the clues he finds, part of it he simply says he's thought about it a lot and knows how it is... he gets it right, of course, but it left me with the feeling that he just guessed it, that he couldn't 'know'...
The story: Mrs Murdock hires him because her very valuable coin has been stolen: 'the Brasher Doubloon', and she's sure her daughter-in-law Linda took it. His first lead is a coin expert: Morningstar, who called the house asking about the coin. Marlowe notices he's being followed and talks to the man who says he's Phillips, a private detective like him. A simple, not very bright one, but their jobs are connected so they plan to meet later. Mrs Murdock's son Leslie owes money to little boss Morny, and his wife Lois is often in the company of vicious Vannier. When Marlowe finds Phillips dead he calls the police, but he has trouble because he refuses to tell them all about his job and his client. When he finds Morningstar dead, he goes away, so not to be connected to it. Mrs Murdock tells him to stop because the coin has been given back to her, which surprises him since he has a doubloon in his pocket that Phillips sent to him before being killed. Of Phillips' murder is blamed Hench, a drunk who had the murder weapon in the house, only it's not his own weapon, his gun has disappeared. When Merle, Mrs Murdock's secretary, goes to Marlowe still in shock, she tells him a strange story: that she's killed Vannier, that she was going there to pay him because he had been blackmailing her for eight years, and Mrs Murdock was paying the money. Vannier knew her secret, that eight years ago Merle had murdered Mrs Murdock's first husband, who had behaved badly with her. Marlowe goes to Vannier himself. He's been dead a long time, a whole day, so she did not kill him. Morny thinks Lois did it, Lois thinks Morny did it, Marlowe finds Hench's gun and the pictures Vannier kept secret to blackmail Mrs Murdock, and is sure Leslie did it! He could deduce it all in a moment. Leslie took the doubloon and gave it to Vannier for money, to use it to make copies of it, copies to be sold for lots of money. To test the idea Vannier and Lois had used Phillips to try to sell it to Morningstar, who had thought it was the real one, stolen. After Marlowe was hired Vannier had been afraid, and Leslie too, so Leslie demanded the original back and gave it back to his mother. Vannier killed Phillips to get back the one he did not know was now in Marlowe's hands, and also assaulted Morningstar for the same reason. That night Leslie went to him to stop the blackmail, threatened him with the gun he found there and (he says) a shot was accidentally fired. Marlowe cleaned the gun and make it look like suicide. After the police could connect Vannier to the two deaths, they accepted the suicide happily. Marlowe did not involve the Murdock family, although he had Vannier's proof that the old woman had killed her first husband, letting little crazy Merle think she did it all that time. Marlowe took Merle back to her family. Marlowe deeply disliked the Murdock family, but he liked Merle and wanted to protect her . He could not convince that crazy head of hers of the truth, that she was innocent and Mrs Murdock used her as a scapegoat, but she let him take her back to her family. Marlowe cared about her, and was angry for what the Murdocks had done to her.
There were a lot of descriptions, I didn't need so many, but Marlowe was sweet to Merle, nice.
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