Goldfish (short story; Chandler, Raymond)

Rating: 5
Year: 1936
Genre: Crime
Read again? Yes

One of the better shorts! Number 11 of 12 in "Trouble is my Business."

Marlowe's brought in on a chance to make a cut of $20,000 in reward money being offered by an insurance company. All he has to do is find some pearls that went missing in a train robbery years before.

Chief suspect Wally Sype admitted to killing a mail clerk on the train and stealing the other stuff that went missing in the operation. This admission (and the recovery of everything but the pearls) got him a pardon.

But one Peeler Mardo claims that his cellmate (Sype) admitted to grabbing the pearls and hiding them in Idaho.

Marlowe goes to interview Mardo. Mardo's dead, tortured--but did he spill before he died?

It's a race to find the pearls, and Marlowe's up against a tough broad and her ambulance-chaser partner in crime.


Much more entertaining than most of the previous stories--the angel-faced tough broad is a lot of fun and is probably the best fleshed-out character, even with the relatively small amount of screen time she gets.