The Maltese Falcon Dramatis Personae
As refresher for those who haven’t read The Maltese Falcon in a while, here is a brief description of the characters from the novel that also appear in my Sam Spade pastiches.
SPOILER ALERT: this pretty much gives the whole plot away, so don’t go any further if you haven’t read the book (and want to do so in blissful ignorance).
Miles Archer – Spade’s business partner, whose murder at the beginning of the novel sets the plot in motion. Archer is portrayed as less scrupulous and less competent than Spade. As the book progresses, it becomes clear that Spade had little respect for Archer and that Spade was having an affair with Archer’s wife. Ross Macdonald’s private eye protagonist Lew Archer is supposedly named for the character.
Joel Cairo – Greek national who sometimes works for Casper Gutman— and sometimes operates on his own— in pursuit of the falcon. He is small, dapper, effeminate, and wears perfume (chypre), leading Spade and others to assume he is gay. The novel suggests that he and Wilmer Cook have been intimate. At the end of the book, he is arrested when Spade alerts the police to his and Gutman’s intention to flee the city.
Wilmer Cook – Casper Gutman’s young, hot-tempered, and violent enforcer. He carries two automatic pistols and is quick to use them. Spade refers to him variously as “the punk” or “the gunsel” and they have several physical confrontations. Some Falcon scholars believe that he is also Gutman’s lover. At the end of the book, he turns on Gutman and shoots him just before the police arrive to make arrests.
Detective Lieutenant Dundy – Police officer in charge of the investigation of the murders of Miles Archer, Floyd Thursby, and later, Captain Jacobi. Detective Sergeant Polhaus reports to him. Dundy believes Spade is involved in the crimes and makes no secret of his intentions to prove it, often badgering Spade for information and at one point punching him on the chin.
Casper Gutman — Referred to by other characters as “the fat man” or simply “G,” Gutman is a man of formidable size and intellect. He is motivated by an overriding passion to obtain the falcon, but hides his core ruthlessness with a veneer of jovial bonhomie. He is patient and utterly without scruple, but by the end of the novel, his missteps and miscalculations result in the loss of the falcon and his murder by Wilmer Cook.
Rhea Gutman — Seventeen-year-old daughter of Casper Gutman. She appears only once in the novel when, at the direction of her father, she tricks Spade into driving down the San Francisco Peninsula. She does this by telling him that Brigid O’Shaughnessy is in danger at a house in Burlingame, but only relays this false information after fighting off the effects of knockout drops by scratching her stomach with a pin to keep awake. The self-inflicted wounds add drama and verisimilitude to her story, but the actual purpose of the ruse is to get Spade out of town while Gutman attempts to recover the falcon from Captain Jacobi.
Captain Jacobi – The captain of the ship La Paloma, who transports the (counterfeit) falcon to San Francisco at the behest of Brigid O’Shaughnessy. Mortally wounded by Wilmer Cook after he docks in the city, his dying act is to deliver the black bird to Spade’s office.
General Kemidov – A White Russian general living in Constantinople (i.e., Istanbul) who had possession of the falcon before the book begins. He is completely offstage in the novel, but we learn through dialogue that Casper Gutman employed Brigid O’Shaughnessy to get the falcon from him. When the black statuette transported to San Francisco by Captain Jacobi is finally shown to be fake, Gutman and Joel Cairo assume that Kemidov substituted a worthless copy of the falcon to fool O’Shaughnessy.
Luke – The house detective for the Hotel Belvedere. He helps Spade at several points in the book, mainly by reporting on Joel Cairo’s movements or by enabling Spade to search Cairo’s room at the hotel. It is clear Spade and he share a mutual respect.
Brigid O’Shaughnessy – A beautiful and manipulative woman who initially hires Spade and Miles Archer under false pretenses. Her primary motivation is to acquire the falcon, and she is willing to prevaricate, seduce, and betray to achieve this goal. The quintessential femme fatale, Spade ultimately throws her over to the police when he comes to understand that she is the one who murdered Miles Archer.
Effie Perine – Spade’s loyal, efficient, and perceptive secretary. She is his “office wife” in every sense of the term.
Detective Sergeant Polhaus – Sam Spade’s friend on the police force who assists Dundy in the murder investigations. Although he is loyal to the force and his boss, he shares information the police learn about Floyd Thursby and Miles Archer’s murder with Spade.
Samuel Spade – Tough, clever and independent private eye protagonist of the book. Spade is not afraid to bend rules or act in his own interest, but still adheres to a personal code that requires, among other things, sending Brigid O’Shaughnessy to jail for the murder of his partner in spite of his personal feelings for her. Given that The Maltese Falcon is told in third person objective point of view, we are never in Spade’s head and can only glean his thoughts or feelings by his actions and dialog.
Floyd Thursby – Dangerous gunman who serves as Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s bodyguard and helpmate in Constantinople, Hong Kong and San Francisco. He never appears on stage and is killed by Wilmer Cook early on when he refuses to betray O’Shaughnessy.