Terrill
Jones
Christina
Black
ENGL
Mystery in the Story
16
December 2013
Spade and the Adventures of the Bruce-Partington Plans
Samuel
Spade was finishing up his cigarette. It
had been over two weeks since his last major case walked in. Despite the lack of
activity, Spade showed no signs of concern, always maintaining the same
temperament. “Yes, angel?” Sam Spade said to Effie.
Effie
was wearing a dull-colored dress that complemented her short brown hair and
brown eyes. She had a boyish face, one that Spade could trust. After entering
Spade’s office, she said, “There’s a guy named William Hensly who just came in.
He has a problem with his shop; he needs help with.”
“A
customer?”
“Not
really, sounds like something small. Says he has a problem with an employee.”
“Petty
crime” Spade responded in a scoffing tone, as he made a slight groan and the
“v”-like creases in his forehead became more apparent. Spade had a very sharp
jawline with eyebrows that accentuated this contortion. He was a tough man with
blond hair and wolfish yellow eyes. “Alright, bring him in.”
As
the man entered, he appeared nervous. He was an older man, slightly hunched
over with soft white hair. He wore a heavy jacket and thick scarf even though
the weather wasn’t too cold. He asked very politely, “Is it alright if I sit in
this chair?”
Spade
made a slight gesture at the chair, while smiling and commenting, “What ‘s your
problem?”
The man
coughed loudly. “Well Mr. Spade, I own a small deli and have been running the
business for the last 27 years. My financial trends have remained fairly
consistent over that time span as well. However, within the past few months I
have started to notice a sharper decline than seems normal.”
Spade
interrupted, “Where do I fit into this?”
Hensly
continued, “I recently hired three new workers to help me out, since I cannot
work as hard as I used to. Almost at the same time I hired them, I began to
notice that profits were not in line with my sales. I believe there is the
potential that they may be embezzling from my shop, and I would like a third
party to take a look and help with the investigation.”
Inside,
Spade felt uninterested in the whole situation. He knew this was just penny
ante theft that would occupy his time. “I can look into it. Give me two hundred
dollars and I’ll help you out,” Spade exhaled. Hensly handed Spade the money
and left. Spade pulled-out the drawer of his desk and dropped the money inside.
He lifted out some tobacco and papers and began to roll himself a cigarette.
Even though he had thick and clumsy fingers, Spade was able to easily roll it
together. After licking it closed, Spade lit it up and began smoking by
himself, hoping he eventually would stumble onto a bigger case.
After
about two hours, Effie returned into Spade’s office. She opened, “Just received
a call from your brother. He says he is on his way immediately to talk about
Cadogan West”
Spade
thought to himself for a moment before responding. He couldn’t remember who
Cadogan West was. He asked, “Angel, do you have any information on who Cadogan
West is?”
Effie
was unsure as well and suggested, “Maybe you could look him up in the
newspaper.”
Spade
nodded in agreement and reached over to the corner of his desk grabbing the
newspaper from the previous day. He quickly began eying over the headlines
until he was drawn to a story entitled, “Body Found on the Underground.” Upon
closer inspection of the article, Spade discovered the name of the victim to be
Cadogan West. At that instant, Mycroft entered the room. Mycroft had a very
similar build to his brother. Despite being related, Mycroft lacked the
intensity in Spade’s eyes, an appearance that Spade had maintained ever since
becoming a detective. Mycroft also had a softer, rounder looking face, as
opposed to the angular “v” countenance that comprised Spade’s.
“I’m
sure you read the newspaper,” Mycroft began. “On Monday, Cadogan went missing
into heavy fog after spending the night with his fiancée, Miss Violet Westbury.
Last thing anyone saw of him was when he was found on the Underground tracks
outside of Aldgate Station.”
“Any
violence between West and his fiancée? Is there any clear motive there that
would give us a lead?”
“Nothing.
The two had no problems at least from what we know now.”
Frustrated,
Spade refuted “Well you have to know something more, anything to help me out.”
“We
found the body at six on yesterday morning. ‘It was lying wide of the metals
upon the left hand of the track as one goes eastward, at a point close to the
station, where the line emerges from the tunnel in which it runs. The head was
badly crushed – an injury which might well have been caused by a fall from the
train. The body could only have come on the line in that way. Had it been
carried down from any neighboring street it must have passed the station barriers,
where a collector is always standing” (Doyle 41).’ We ought to head over there
now and check out the scene.”
Spade
prodded, “What’s West’s importance? Is there anything for me to get out of
this?”
“The
government has been designing a brand new submarine type. This new model has
descriptions written on ten separate highly classified pages. We keep the safe
locked and secured. Unfortunately, we faced a massive blowback when we
discovered all of the information had been compromised. We found there were seven
of the ten pages missing on West’s body. At this point in time, we still have
no information about where the three remaining papers are.”
Spade
leaned back in his chair and put his hands together, growing a slight smile.
“How much would these papers be worth?”
In the
same serious tone he had maintained throughout the meeting, Mycroft responded,
“Sam, these are some of the most revolutionary designs our government has
created in recent times. In the wrong hands, knowledge of the construction of
the submarine could be devastating. These papers are no less than an invaluable
treasure. I cannot put a value on the remaining three pages, but I can tell you
this would be the most important case you have worked on in your career.”
Spade
could barely hold his grin back. He starting tapping his hands on the table and
stood up while extending his hand to his brother. “Leave it to me” Spade
concluded.
The two
drove over to the train tracks to fully begin their investigations. As soon as
they arrived, Spade swiftly walked over to the body. Quickly, he noted that
there was no blood at the scene, just the lifeless body. While he portrayed a
calm and collected exterior, thoughts were rapidly streaming in Spade’s mind.
How could a body be violently thrown from a train with no signs of blood
anywhere near the landing place? Spade surmised that West surely died
elsewhere. But, how could West have perished somewhere else and ended up on the
tracks? Did he die on the train? Was he ever on the train to begin with?
Looking at Mycroft, Spade asked, “Was West ever confirmed as being on the
train?”
Mycroft
was walking further away from the body when he heard Spade’s question. He
looked up with a confused expression, one that reflected his slower working
mind that had trouble piecing together the miniscule details of the case.
Mycroft slowly responded, “no, no train ticket was ever found on West’s
person.”
Spade’s
eyes quickly darted back at West’s corpse. Although West’s body rested near the
tracks, there was no blood where he laid, and he presumably was never on the
train itself. Spade looked up at the outside gate leading to the tracks from
the public road. With heavy security guarding the gates, Spade resolved that no
one could have lugged the body onto the tracks. Spade looked to the right of
the body, assuming a view of train’s path on which West allegedly had ridden on
before falling off. Walking in this direction, Spade’s thought process raced
on, trying to rationalize and recap every detail of the investigation.
Mycroft
glanced over at Spade who was walking toward the train tunnel. Still confused
himself, Mycroft assumed his brother was having similar difficulties in
discovering anything new. Spade’s demeanor gave no evidence of how his brain
was processing the information. Spade walked with a slight frown which was
emphasized by his eyes and eyebrows which both slanted down to their normal v
shapes.
Spade
next examined the tunnel that the train would come out of and found nothing of
value. Theorizing how West came to rest on the tracks without riding the train,
Spade continued to mentally cross-check other possibilities. Without a ticket,
West never would have been admitted onto the train and with surrounding
security personnel; his body never could have been placed on the tracks.
Letting
out an audible sigh, Spade gazed up at the sky and pulled a cigarette out of
his pocket. He began to smoke it while continuing to sulk in his inner debate.
As he puffed, the v- shapes that his eyes made relaxed. When finished, Spade
tossed the cigarette away and looked back at the tunnel and his yellow eyes
began to glow and a sly grin began to grow.
When
the train exits the tunnel, it makes a dramatic sharp turn. Spade looked back
at the body, and then returning his attention to the tunnel, he recognized that
the centripetal force of the train could have forced a body to fall from the
roof. This meant that the body was already dead on the roof of the train when
it rounded the curve, and this explained why there was no blood at the crime
scene. With this realization, Spade turned around and began walking back
towards the very dead Mr. West.
Mycroft
saw Spade coming over and posed, “Have you figured anything out yet?”
Spade
glanced back at his brother with a blank expression and said “nothing.” The two
brothers then drove back to Spade’s office with no other apparent leads. Upon
their return, Mycroft received a phone call while Spade and Effie talked in a
separate room.
“He
didn’t fall off a train. His body was put on the roof and it fell when the train
rounded a turn” Spade began, retelling his findings of the day.
“Unbelievable,
Have you told anyone else about this?” Effie replied.
“No.
I’ll need to see more information for myself before I’ll tell anyone anything.”
Mycroft
entered the room after Spade spoke his last word. “I just got off the phone
with one of my associates in the government,” Mycroft stated. “I was informed
that one of the people very closely linked with West just skipped town. He goes
by the name of Hugo Oberstein.”
Spade
never responded directly to Mycroft about this new information. Instead he
turned to Effie and barked, “Get me the address of this Oberstein!” Effie
proceeded to pull out a large directory and found his address and gave it to
Spade.
After
making a note of the address, Spade began walking out of his office, but not
before turning around and saying, “Thanks Angel.” Spade sped directly to
Oberstein’s apartment, while keeping a hardened facial expression with a slight
frown. When he arrived, Spade immediately got out of his car and approached the
door. Since Oberstein skipped town, Spade had no fears of an unexpected
encounter. He lifted his right leg, and, with a powerful kick, knocked the door
in, breaking the hinges’ and gaining access.
While
walking through the apartment, Spade’s eyes darted rapidly from object to
object. He quickly and deeply analyzed each item looking for clues to explain
Cardigan West’s death. Finally, Spade’s investigation led him to Oberstein’s
bedroom. After opening up one of the dresser drawers, Spade suddenly heard a
loud banging noise. The noise slowly got louder and louder, until it reached
its loudest point right next to Spade. Alarmed, Spade jerked to his left and
looked to his side to discover that nothing was there. Pausing for a moment,
then knowingly snickered as a train clattered by the window.
Spade
dropped his eyes back to the floor, close to where he had just heard the sound
of the train passing. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except part of the
rug, which curled under the leg of an end table. When Spade lifted the table to
flatten the rug, the bottom of his knuckles brushed past a large crack in the
floor. Intrigued, Spade lifted the corner of the rug, exposing a trap door in
the floor with a large handle. Bloodstains soaked the underside of the rug and
pools of blood had dried into the wood grain. Spade lifted the latch and cold
air rushed into the apartment. Below the door was a long fall to the train
tracks, the same tracks that the train had just passed over. While holding the
door open and still smiling about coming closer to the resolution, Spade began
to feel cold: not from the open air, but from the cold metal point that had
just been thrust into his side of his head. “ ‘You will please’” Spade heard
the voice say, “clasp your hands together at the back of your neck’” (Hammett
44).
Spade
calmly spun around and lifted his hands behind his neck. When he looked up, he
saw a large man with a scowl on his face. Above his mouth were fiery eyes, the
look of a person only after having committed a killing. While still holding the
gun to Spade, Oberstein moved his finger to the trigger with completely steady
hands. This was clearly not Oberstein’s first time in this kind of situation,
as Spade recognized. Appealing to Oberstein’s sense of reason would be the only
way out at this point, Spade quickly concluded.
“Let me
tell you this,” Spade calmly began. “I’ve got a suggestion for you”
Oberstein
cocked the hammer of the revolver and harshly replied, “I suggest that the guy
with the gun pointed at his head stops making suggestions.”
Without
fear, Spade stood up from kneeling by the trap door and sat on Oberstein’s bed.
“The way I see this, we’ve got two ways out. I have enough experience to know…”
Oberstein
interrupted, “Hey, who is making the rules here?”
Spade
continued, “…Enough experience to know that either you could turn yourself in,
or give me the three papers you stole. I’m sure the first option won’t work, so
I move to the second. Give me the documents”
“I
don’t have to give you anything. Remember, I’m the guy with the gun.”
“I’ve
been working on your case for a while now, and everything I’ve found out, I’ve
told to the police. If you want any chance of coming out of this clean, you’ve
got to cough-up a name”
Oberstein
let out a small grunt, but began to lower his gun. He looked down for a brief
moment and with his eyes still directed at the floor started to reach into his
pocket. He handed Spade three folded papers. Spade took them and looked
Oberstein in the eyes. “You helped me enough” Spade began, “No one will know
you were ever involved”
Spade
then stood up off Oberstein’s bed and left the apartment. He opened his car
door, tossed the remaining Bruce-Partington papers onto the passenger seat, and
drove off.
ANALYSIS:
Terrill Jones
Christina Black
ENGL Mystery in the Story
16 December 2013
Spade
and the Adventures of the Bruce-Partington Plans Analysis
Throughout the course, the most interesting points for me
were discussing the progression of the protagonist in mystery stories. We moved
from the Dupin and Holmes detectives, who had genius minds and were never
threatened with harm in their investigations, to Spade who was a hardboiled
detective whose investigations were anything but linear, to spies who had no
clear goal or conclusion to their work. I always wondered how the stories would
change if one of the detectives had been placed into a completely different
story genre. This hypothetical question led me to wonder how two detectives
would approach their cases differently. Therefore, when writing my composition,
my goal was to effectively portray the insertion of the rough-edged Spade and
his more disorganized universe into Holmes more ordered environment and
character assortment seen in, “The Adventures of the Bruce-Partington Plans.”
When considering my work product, the most important aspects are the overall
plot progression, the tone of the investigation, the method in which characters
are profiled, and the conclusion.
The overarching aspect of my proposition was the way in
which I adjusted the plot of the story. All of the main components were derived
from Doyle’s work. Just like Doyle’s storyline, my narrative begins with the
detective waiting for his next case. Doyle reveals Holmes frantically pacing
around his office, anxious to challenge his mind with another complex
investigation. Similarly, I position Spade sitting at his desk, rolling up a
cigarette (something he constantly does
throughout The Maltese Falcon) also
waiting to be hired for a big case. While both private investigators wait for a
case, each reacts with a different level of anxiety which underscores a common
theme that was discussed throughout our class: varying motivations for work. In
Holmes’ case, he is a super genius who works as a criminal investigator because
he needs to challenge his mind, since solving puzzles provides his
entertainment. In Spade’s world, while he needs to make a living, his emotional
motivation to work still remains unclear after reading The Maltese Falcon. Readers are confused about whether Spade works
for justice, his own financial gain, or if he relishes playing the legal system
like a game. These varying detective motives play a central element in my
story, as I will elaborate.
As my story unfolds, I introduce a fictitious character
named William Hensly, who enters Spade’s office to seek help in confirming
ongoing embezzlement at his shop. This situation plays another key role in
bridging Doyle and Hammett’s respective plots. In “The Adventures of the
Bruce-Partington Plans,” there is a scene in which Holmes asks Watson if there
are any major cases in the newspaper that he could begin investigating. After
Watson states that the crime scene that day remains fairly dull other than
“numerous petty thefts,” Holmes “[snorts] his contempt” (Doyle 38). Holmes’
disregard for cases that are not complex enough to stimulate his expansive
mental faculties parallels Spade’s disdain for cases that offer him little to
no financial gain. In one short scene in The
Maltese Falcon, a shifty business owner enters Spade’s office, imploring
Spade to investigate employees who are suspected of defrauding him. Instead of
spending a lot of time thinking about his case, “Spade hurried him through the
story, promised to ‘take care of it,’ asked for and received fifty dollars, and
got rid of him in less than half an hour” (Hammett 151). Spade did not believe
there was much value to be gained by investing material time in this
opportunity.
The
preceding elements emphasizing that both Holmes and Spade only gravitate to
major crimes relates to another main component of our course. All of the
stories we read followed investigations of great significance, such as the
theft of major government plans in “The Adventures of the Bruce Partington
Plans,” the hunt for a priceless treasure in The Maltese Falcon, and the security of national defense in both Our Man in Havana and The Spy who came in From the Cold.
Therefore, I included the scene with William Hensly to emphasize how detective
Spade did not care to linger on considering minor infractions, but instead,
waited to focus his energy upon more material high-profile opportunities.
The
next major feature of the plot that I evaluated was in regard to Spade’s
investigation at the train tracks. In each of the novels we read, the
protagonist has his own knack for solving cases that he maintains throughout
the book. For example, Holmes and Dupin’s method to crime solving was reliance
upon sheer brainpower to piece everything together. Each detective completely
worked out cases in their heads providing readers with a very linear sequence
from crime to clues to solution. On the other hand, while Spade worked cases
out in his head, he also received input from others around him. Also, as
readers, we received a better glimpse into how Spade’s mind functioned since
Hammett supplied long descriptions of his thought processes. For example, when
trying to find Brigid when she went missing, Spade meticulously reads through a
newspaper with “his eyes [running] swiftly over the front-page-headlines and
over those on the second and third pages” hoping to find a clue (Hammett 119).
Furthermore, Wormold and Leamus, as spies, had to be very observant to try and
develop their own hunches about how to progress through their missions.
I emphasize
this difference between protagonists solving methods when I describe in detail
how Spade, in contrast to Holmes, more methodically arrives at the conclusion
that the body of Cadogan West had been initially placed on the roof of the
train. In “The Adventures of the Bruce-Partington Plans” Holmes almost
instantaneously supports the theory that the body must have been on the train
car roof and had fallen when the train turned a corner. In contrast, Spade
analyzes a situation with great detail, with descriptions of his thought
process being open to readers, before making a claim. As I describe Spade’s
method of examining the train, I attempted to align the way in which Hammett
describes Spade reading through the newspaper, with his ability to sift through
random data before reaching a rational outcome.
The
final major component of the plot was the interaction between Oberstein and
Spade in Oberstein’s apartment. In this segment, my goal was to emphasize the
idea of “detective immunity” and how that evolved throughout our semester’s
readings. Initially, the detectives were able to conduct their investigations
free of any potential harm. In the whodunits, Dupin and Holmes were never
placed into any seriously dangerous situations. Just as Todorov describes how
the whodunit genre evolved into the suspense thriller category, detectives no
longer remained immune to danger. In Spade’s world, he is often confronted with
danger in the form of a gun, such as when Cairo “took a short compact flat
black pistol out of an inner pocket” and points it at him” (Hammett 44).
Furthermore, in spy fiction, Wormold and Leamus each faced constant danger. For
instance, Wormold becomes involved in a fight with Carter that ultimately leads
to Carter’s death. Similarly, Leamus, as an undercover British agent in East
Berlin during the cold war, faces the risk of having his cover blown and
becoming subject to communist punishment.
To
demonstrate this evolution of detective immunity, I arrange for Spade to face
direct forms of danger that Holmes would not have confronted. When Holmes
breaks into Oberstein’s apartment, readers do not fear an altercation with a
suspect, because in the whodunit model, nothing bad can happen to the
detective. In my rewrite, however, Spade clearly faces danger as Oberstein
returns to his apartment and confronts Spade with a drawn weapon.
For me,
one of the biggest risks I took when drafting my composition was developing a
plausible ending. I wanted to write something that credibly reflected different
novel conclusions encountered in our class. In books such as The Maltese Falcon, in which Spade’s
motives for working as a detective are not always clear, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which ends
with the possibility of a gun being drawn, major plot elements are left to the
reader to theorize. I wanted this type of thoughtful ambiguity to be present in
my paper as well. When Spade receives the three remaining Bruce-Partington Plan
papers, he simply drives off and that is the end. In a mystery story, once a
gun is drawn, it must be fired. How will this play into what happens after
Spade drives off because Oberstein never fired the gun after putting it to
Spade’s head? Also, where Spade goes remains up to the reader to decide. Is
Spade a good guy? Is he going to return the papers to the government and turn
in Oberstein for his crimes, or will he protect Oberstein’s anonymity? Will
Spade turn in the papers at all and, instead, use their immense value to better
himself financially? I wanted to create uncertainty similar to The Spy who came in From the Cold when
Leamus discovers that Mundt was also a double agent and that they actually
worked on the same side. By leaving the conclusion open-ended, the reader can
assess what they believe to be the outcome. For the other components of my
story, I tried to tie in other major themes from the class. One idea was that
love has no place in mystery novels. While this idea usually applies to
romantic love, I utilized this notion in the interaction between Spade and his
brother Mycroft. The two men act as business associates rather than lifelong
dear brothers. Similarly, Spade
manipulates his characters making any intimate scene dubious. In spy fiction,
it was expected that the spy always keep important intelligence to himself or herself
so that information never falls into the wrong hands. In, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Karl dies because he disclosed
confidential information to his female companion. In my story, Spade
specifically does not tell Mycroft about how he discovered the body was on the
roof of the train because the fewer people knowing that information the better.
Another big component of the mystery genre was in-depth descriptions. I tried
to incorporate this technique when introducing characters for the first time.
Additionally, just as spies had to skillfully influence people to extract
information, I include Spade’s dialogue with Oberstein to reflect this. Spade
never told the police about the information he knew about Oberstein, but he
told Oberstein he had, cleverly attempting to compel Oberstein to give him the
missing papers.
Overall,
I would say that this analysis not only effectively links The Maltese Falcon and “The Adventures of the Bruce-Partington
Plans,” but many themes analyzed in our class. I strove to include dialogue
extracts intended to emphasize either the general evolution of the mystery
genre, or its key supporting elements.
Works Cited
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The
Adventure of the Dancing Men and Other Sherlock
Holmes Stories. New York: Dover
Publications, 1997.
Greene, Graham. Our Man in
Havana. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.
Hamid, Mohsin. The Reluctant
Fundamentalist. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007.
Hammett, Dashiell. The
Maltese Falcon. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
Le Carre, John. The Spy Who
Came In From The Cold. New York: Penguin Books, 2012.
Todorov, Todorov. “The
Whodunit.” The Poetics of Prose, pp. 44-48. 1988
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