 The adventures of Sam Spade, detective. The Sanderson Succulent Soup, a mushed chair for two hours. If it wasn't, they wouldn't let me touch it till after. And for the rest of the afternoon, I've been pulling up dots which will bear the legend, Samuel Spade, prominent San Francisco detective, says, but maybe so, maybe so, but fame is a sometimes thing, sweetheart, just a flash bulb in the pan. As you will agree, when you have heard my report on, and as it developed, it was a snap. Does that make you shatter? Well, have you got any photography jokes? No. All right, then we just save 30 seconds. And by the way, Miss Farane, statistics prove that nine out of ten private secretaries have the pencil ready when the boss comes in. Why do you always have to be number ten? Well, I'm ready, Sam. Here, here's the pencil. That's better. Two homicide divisions, San Francisco police department, attention to Lieutenant Kelsey from Samuel Spade, license number 17596, subject to Cheesecake Caper, there, Kelsey. Cheesecake. Cheesecake, to me, was something that cost a sense on the a la carte side of a menu up until now. As a matter of fact, the Cheesecake Fame didn't make itself felt until some time after the beginning of this, which was the phone call at high noon, just as I was wondering where I'd eat. Sam Spade. Mr. Spade. About to go to lunch, who's this? I'll tell you later, I gotta see you first, right now. Well, all right, do you want to come to my office? No, no, I'm at Barney's Grill. You know where that is? Yeah, I know where that is, who will I ask for? Just go in and order a sandwich. Nobody sent for you, see? You just come in for lunch. I just go, let me get this straight now. Are you marrying me? Yeah. Yeah, 50 bucks. It's usually an orderly fund, and made certain remarks to be affected a few of my pounds needed to be evaluated. So I decided on a sandwich. The business crowd hadn't arrived, so I slid into a vacant booth, ordered my sandwich, and waited for something to happen. Well, thanks. Huh? You remember me? Thanks for the noise. Yeah, afraid so. Last I heard you were in Cleveland. Yeah, but I'm in San Francisco now. Well, Cleveland's gain is our loss. I like it here. Maybe they had a hot spell in Cleveland, huh? Uh, heat never bothered me much. Yeah, you ought to be used to that by now. Let's talk about you, State. How's business, huh? Please, I'm eating. Yeah, yeah, so I know it's, uh, you like bodies, huh? As good as the next joint, yeah. I mean, you're coming here all the time, regularly. You ain't here on business now, are you, State? Yeah, sure, Freddie, sure. Yeah? Yeah, making a little deal. Yeah, yeah, who wins? Barney, corned beef on rye. Here you are, sir. One corned beef on... What's the matter? Uh, the cook lost it up, sir. You said rye, didn't you? This here's wheat. Well, that's all right here. No, no, no. I'll fix it up, sir. Only take it. Forget it. I said wheat's all right. Now, how about a cup of coffee, and I'm all set. Uh, Denny. Yeah? You said you were going off duty. Yeah, I know. I'm just finishing up a couple of orders. I'll get my hat. Never mind the hat. Come on, Denny. I'm parked out front. I hate to get wrong with cops. Yeah, okay. Tell the boss I... I already told the boss. Get going. So long, Spade. Just stay there and enjoy your sandwich, sir. Yeah, so long. Park in front of the restaurant, of all things, a limousine with a liveried chauffeur. I watched through the front doors and pulled away, picked up the license number, and called the Department of Motor Vehicles. The car belonged to Mike Sheldon, known to the voters of the North Beach section, as Uncle Mike. A white-haired, jolly-faced gentleman of dubious means and still more dubious methods, who had something to do with politics. What he had to do with a weasel like Freddie Malloy, much less a poor waiter boy at Barney's with something to ponder. I sidled back to my booth and attacked the corned beef on wheat. My teeth, instead of going all the way through the sandwich, which is the way I like it, struck something firm and unyielding. I pulled from between the letters and the bread a wax-paper envelope. Inside was a $50 bill and a small photograph of a blonde. Denny, the waiter, had scribbled three words in the corner of it. Find this girl. Can I have some more coffee, sir? I got plenty of coffee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bring the pot with you. And waiter. Yes, sir? This is Denny. The kid who was just here. What's his last name? Denny? It's Weston. Yeah, okay. Where's he lived, you know? Well, I'm not sure. I think he has an apartment out around Larkin Street somewhere, but I'm not sure. He's a funny kid. Yeah, what's funny about him? Well, I mean, working as a waiter and a joint like this one, his sister had all that dough living in that knob-hill apartment and all. Who's insisted? Monica Weston. You must have heard of her. She used to be a dancer at some joint over in North Beach. Well, I don't get around much anymore. Well, you saw the papers, didn't you? She was in the papers? Yeah, committed suicide. Denny nearly went off his rocker. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Look, is this here insisted? Oh, let me see. No, no, no. Monica was a redhead. This here's a blonde. Well, I better get you that coffee while it's out there. I examined my sandwich for further clothes, found nothing except corned beef, so I put it back together and began to eat it while I scrutinized the picture of the blonde. A nice-looking girl in her 20s, no scars, birthmarks, buck teeth, or anything else that set her apart from roughly 25,000 other blinds in San Francisco. There were a couple of points, though. The picture was about two inches square showing her head and shoulders, and her hand was up to her face as if she was surprised at something near the camera. On one of her fingers was a ring, which I couldn't quite make out. In the back of the picture were the letters L-P. Now, this is probably the credit stamp of some professional photographer. I abandoned my sandwich, thumb through the yellow section of the phone book, and strived to cry a triumph, as I discovered the firm of Leonard and Perkins, photographers, with an office on Bush Street where, forthwith, I went. You know, I'm sorry, Mr. Spade. I don't think we did that here. You're sure that's not your mark on the back, Mr. Leonard? Well, positive. And anyway, that's not the kind of work we do. Looks like an outdoor flash shot. Ours is all studio stuff. Funny, trimming it down like that. Trimming it down? Yeah, this is probably a standard 8x10. Someone just caught the center out of it. Thanks very much. Bye! The telephone book again, but instead of looking for the L-Dash-P as the front of message of the firm, I look for them in the medals in both ends of the photographer's credit stamp with crimmed off. And I ran across an outfit called Cal Fiction's on Harrison Street. Three of them. Mr. Murphy, Mr. Silverian, Mr. Brennitz. Take your pick. Uh, Murphy will do. He's out. How about Silverian? Tied up with Mr. Brennitz. Uh-huh. Where are they tied up? First door to your right. That's the main studio. Do not enter if the red light is on. Heaven for them. I've seen photographers at work in my time, but not like this. I saw now why they were tied up. They were fit to be tied. In the middle of the studio was a massive equipment that looked like a cross between the Palomar Telescope and an atom smasher with what seemed to be a stretched out accordion on the bottom. All of it pointed at something lit up by floodlights on a small table. When I got up close, I found out what it was. Brennitz and Silveria were photographing a plate of pork and beans. Now for crying out loud. Look at that pork. What is the matter with that pork? What? What's the matter with it? It just lies there. What do you expect it to do, Jimmy? Excuse me, fellas. Why did we hire you? You didn't. I only wanted... Don't pay any attention to him. John, now come on. Come on. Focus. Focus. Look at you. Why waste this shot? You know what he said? The pork's got to have get up and go. Get up and go. It's got to look sucky when a guy looks married to those beans. What do you want me to do? I'm going to call it with orange flowers. What flowers? I don't really want any. What's that going to run under the shot, don't you? Noose bombs, New England pork and beans, married in the can. Can I be best man? What? Okay. What do you want? I'm only Sam Spade, a private detective, trying to locate this girl here. A girl. Ever seen her? Sure. Sure. Where? Well, this is our shot. Look, you really remember how the cheesecake job the other night was. Oh, yeah. The cheesecake job? Down at the railroad. That was for Norby's nifty nylon. You mean this girl's a model? No, no, no. She walked in front of the camera just the wrong time and loused up this shot. We had her shoot it over. Yeah, we had a model with a pair of Norby's nylons on, see. A well-known brand of stocking. And the idea was to stand her up next to a train coming down at the depot there. At the depot. Then what we tried to do was get a shot of a fixing a guard, a lay guard, you know. Sure, fine. With a lot of admiring glances from the crowd. A brand new idea. Real train, real station, real people. Documentary. Yeah. So Al sets up the camera and a model makes with a guard. And I whistle to get the crowd's eye and we set off the flash. But the dame here walked in front of the camera. However, it was not hurtful. No, no. It was an awful night. Can we go and drop by? We'd give her the shot. Great. Well, what's her name? I don't know. Did she come by? Yeah, a couple of mornings ago. I gave her the print and the negative, too. Got any other copies of them? I don't know. It'll take us a while to check the file. Oh, a third? Yeah. Well, look, do that, will you? And if you find anything, here's my phone number. Yeah, yeah. Now, as I was saying about that fork, John... Again, with a fork. Your fork is your fork. There is nothing you can do to figure out where it is. I glamorize the number on one hand. I went back to the office to take the load off my feet and mull over this latest turn of events. I mulled, decided to contact Denny Weston, my client, found his phone number in the book, was about to call and the phone went off in my hand. Damn space. Space. This is Denny Weston. It's the waiter. I'm the guy... Yeah, I know. I was about to call you. Don't call. You don't know me. I never saw you. Wait a minute. Now, I've been chasing that blonde all afternoon. You got your 50 bucks, didn't you? What's the matter? Is Freddy standing there with a gun at your back? Shut up. I'm afraid. OK, then let's talk about your system moniker. Or maybe this blonde just stuck in my corn beef sandwich. And don't let Freddy throw a scare into you. Hello. Hello, Denny. Grim suspicions, a $50 bill I put my feet up in the desk and opened the paper. Then I put my feet back down on the floor. On the front page was a picture of my blonde with a caption over it reading, You know this girl. I took the other picture out of my pocket and compared them. They were the same except for one thing. The picture in the paper was taken on a slab in the city morgue. But the shape is something. Understand? The pork and beans will have to wait until we find who put the lady in the bay. You're close to look at the ring in her hand. It seemed to be black shaped like a shield with a gold center that looked like the company that made it for an honor society at the University of California. Blue and gold office. Is that the canvas yearbook, the blue and gold? Yes. It's one of the members of the society. Have you got the yearbook files in your office? We're back to 1895. Well good. Get out the book from about 1940 on. I'll be over 41. Her name was Helen McKelvie. I know her name McKelvie. The city I don't know anything. Sit down. Be good to get it off your mind. I told you I'm on your side, private detective. Now, you know where Helen McKelvie is right now, I suppose. I do. Well, I'm trying to find out who put her there and why. Then what? I'll hang it on him if I can. That's why I'm here. Now tell me what did Helen have to do with Mike Shelton? Come on. I don't know much about it. She was a lovely girl. It's strange. You know, she kept things to herself mostly. What kind of things? She was doing some kind of political work in the North Beach District. You mean she was working for Mike Shelton? Oh, again soon. Oh? Never trying to defeat him, expose his racket and his gambling and heaven knows what else he was involved in. Heaven knows indeed. She took it also seriously. Petitions and leaflets and telephone calls. I see. I kept telling her she was working too hard and the health would go on the big last election time. She spent a week in the hospital but it was all useless. Shelton was too big, too powerful. Well, he never even heard of it. I can guarantee he didn't know about sight. I know. Then last week a strange thing happened. I arranged for her to spend the weekend with my sister in Palo Alto. Mm-hmm. She came back Monday. I'll be excited that at last she had a weapon against Mike Shelton. What did she mean? I don't know. But it wasn't just Shelton. It was his whole organization. And she sounded crazy like she was going to tackle them all by herself. Then what? And she passed her suitcase and moved out to some hotel. She wouldn't say where. I was worried about her. I looked through her room after her. That's when I found this clip in it. Last Thursday's chronicle. Does it help? Police seek motive and show girl suicide. Investigations and circumstances surrounding the suicide of Monica Weston, a nightclub dancer, moved into a third day without the dosing of reason why the girl apparently took her own life Friday night by leaping from a softbound train. Train! Well, Kelsey, we went over the file and the show girl capers. You'll also recall we came up with nothing that wasn't in the newspaper. The girl had apparently climbed aboard the train at third and town. He eased down the aisle to the end of the car where a porter left the door open and flung herself off on the straightaway stretch near South City where the train hits it up around 70 miles an hour. She'd been pretty, unaccountably prosperous and hardly a candidate for suicide. But nothing had turned up in her background to set her up as a candidate for murder, either. So that's where it stood. Two dead young ladies in a missing cheese cake photograph of Norby's nifty nylon. Feeling this is enough for a day, I limped back to my apartment. I tossed my hat on the bed and started to pour myself a drink. Well, you never want to do that, Spade. Huh? Oh, Freddie. Dumb stunt pushing your hat on the bed? That's not so bad, Freddie. Well, well, I expect to go home to a cold, empty apartment and I find you. How about a drink? Oh, no, thanks, I didn't come to drink. Oh, how'd you get in? Walk under the door? Oh, in a game mood, ain't you? I'm a cheerful type. Had a busy day, you think? Oh, man, a few errands. Say, you know, there's an ugly rumor running around town, Freddie. Huh? They're saying Uncle Mike Sheldon played sucker for this Monica Weston game that she was shaking him down and he got tired of it, what with the election coming up and all. Yeah? It's a fact. And they say she didn't commit suicide at all. Well, where'd you hear this? In Union Square while I was beating the pigeons. You think I'm kitten, huh? You think I'm kitten? Oh, wait. You know what happens to boys who play with guns, Freddie? Sheldon. Go on, answer it. Okay. Hello? Mr. Speed? Yeah? Oh, no, Luella. Don't take on. So I didn't mean it that way. Luella. Luella, honey, the girl is only a good friend. It's all your imagination. Well, it's not my imagination. We felt the print in the fire. Whatever do you mean? Ah, girl, she's all worked up about nothing. The pigeons. You want to know what you were doing? Of course. I'll take it. 1.30 p.m. went to a photographer on Haverton Street. 3.00 p.m. across to the campus at Berkeley. 10 after 4.00 to a lumen house on Bay Street. And from 5.30 to 7.00 at headquarters. The pigeons. The pigeons. You're just like Luella, Freddie. Your imagination's running away at you. Come on, have a drink. Now, I told you, I don't want a drink. The bottle was half full, but it seemed like a good investment. Freddie took it just over to the left of your side and sat on the floor. I dragged him into the closet, locked it and took her off the couch section. 2 days worked. Hey, what's the big deal? Then we hit it with my elbow. I'll buy you a new can tomorrow. Where's the picture? On the table there. I'm blocking out the model of the garter, but the shop wasn't entirely worthless since directly behind her about to get on the train, looking squarely into the camera was Monica Weston, the dead showgirl. And were they? Were these white man applying? Was you know who? No, wait a minute. You can't find him. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out. We feel better, but not much better. They closed the door and the room was pitch dark again except for the spot of light in the center. Okay, Spade, where is it? You're a little late, Sheldon. We sent it to headquarters. Well, I think you've got it right here. She had a negative, you know. Mail them around like postcard. I'm not worried about the others. Come on now, let's have it. You know what I said, Spade? Yeah. Come and get it. Okay, Spade. I'll come and get it. I've been worried to death. The peril didn't start until the next day, sweetheart. The next day? Well, that's when Brenna's looked at me, squinted and said, you know, Alice, guys got just the face for Branigan's box, the whiskey that smells like old Ireland. Oh, how awful. A fate worse than death, sweetheart, but that is all behind me while directly in front of you is, of course, the... Yes, sir. I'll have it right away. The blonde, Sam. Yeah. What was she trying to do with a picture of Uncle Mike with the other girl at the station? You mean, why didn't she go to the police like any normal human being? Oh! Well, that's hard to say, F. She was really a sincere reformer. From here, it looks like she was trying to work up a partnership with the Dead Showgirl's brother. Maybe put the squeeze on Uncle Mike and force him to come across with names, numbers, and salaries of the members of his graph machine. Besides, uh... What? She was a woman. I'm here. A mad, unpredictable, illogical creature. F. E. F. E. Purine, a non-alcoholic secretary that contains Lanolin. Well, that's better than Branigan's bag. A whiskey that smells like old Ireland. It's a train and brought to the girls' yard. I'll be seeing good night, sweetheart. Shuttle is F. This is the United States Armed Forces Radio Service, the voice of information and education.