Marcelo's Reading and Thinking Log

From chapter 20 of the novel The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler: 

 “Well, there could be people who would know he was sweet on Eddie Mars’ frau. Besides Eddie himself. For a wonder he knew it. But he don’t seem to give a damn. We check him pretty thoroughly around that time. Of course Eddie wouldn’t have knocked him off out of jealousy. The set-up would point to him too obvious.”

“It depends how smart he is,” I said. “He might try the double bluff.”

Captain Gregory shook his head. “If he’s smart enough to get by in his racket, he’s too smart for that. I get your idea. He pulls the dumb play because he thinks we wouldn’t expect him to pull the dumb play. From a police angle that’s wrong. Because he’d have us in his hair so much it would interfere with his business. You might think a dumb play would be smart. I might think so. The rank and file wouldn’t. They’d make his life miserable. I’ve ruled it out. If I’m wrong, you can prove it on me and I’ll eat my chair cushion. Till then I’m leaving Eddie in the clear. (...)"

 The paragraph above has the Missing Persons Bureau captain talking to Philip Marlowe. But the author is committing a error in logic. Which error is that?

The captain says Eddie wouldn't kill his wife (who has disappeared), because if he did he would have the police bothering him. But then shouldn't the police be bothering him now? The captain speaks as though they aren't. How come?

Let me re-explain. According to the captain, the police would bother Eddie because he would be the prime suspect. That's why he wouldn't kill his wife. But it doesn't matter that he didn't kill his wife. By the captain's reasoning, should the wife die (or disappear, as is the case), regardless of who did it, the husband would be the prime suspect. And his wife did disappear. So the police should be bothering him. But the captain speaks as though they aren't.

There is at least one other error in this novel: the photograph plate disappears immediately after Geiger is killed. This was different in the short story Killer in the Rain (one of its sources), where it disappears after the body disappears, which made sense. 

The above dialogue is from the second section, which was mostly adapted from another short story (The Curtain). But there is no such dialogue in the short story. It was created for the novel. (There is a third source for The Big Sleep: the short story Finger Man, from which chapters 22 and 23 borrow some incidents.)

# posted by Marcelo Gilli @ 1:40 PM