Someone is tailing Sam, and he needs to know who he can trust and who he shouldn't.

Dashil Hammett, today on the Classic Tales Podcast.

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Today we continue with the Maltese Falcon.

There is a little more coarse language in this story than in our usual fare,

and as with nearly all detective novels of the time, it's got its share of homophobia and misogyny. Take the time

to pause the show and point it out to your kids. And now, The Maltese Falcon, Part 3 of 8,

by Dashal Hammett.

Music Part 3 of 8 by Dashal Hammett Chapter 6 The Undersized Shadow

For half an hour after Joel Cairo had gone,

Spade sat alone, still and frowning at his desk.

Then he said aloud, in the tone of one dismissing a problem,

well, they're paying for it, and took a bottle of Manhattan cocktail in a paper drinking

cup from a desk drawer. He filled the cup two-thirds full,

drank, returned the bottle to the drawer, tossed the cup into the waistbasket, put on his

hat and overcoat, turned off the lights, and went down to the nightlit street. An undersized

youth of twenty or twenty-one, in neat gray cap and overcoat, was standing idly on the

corner below Spade's building. Spade walked up Sutter Street to Kearney, where he entered a cigar

...