Content Warning: The source material and this section of the guide discuss several homicides, including one that is staged to look like suicide, assault by police and other instances of violence, and alcohol addiction and sexism.

Private Detective Philip Marlowe visits the Los Angeles-based Gillerlain Company to meet with Derace Kingsley. Marlowe walks up to the desk of a blond woman working a telephone switchboard; the nameplate on the desk identifies her as Kingsley’s secretary, Adrienne Fromsett. Marlowe says he was sent by Lieutenant M’Gee, and he smokes cigarettes while he waits for Kingsley to come out of a meeting. When Kingsley comes out, he makes a show of being uninterested in Marlowe but eventually agrees to give him three minutes.

In the privacy of his office, Kingsley admits that he asked Sheriff Petersen, who is connected to M’Gee, to find him a detective. Marlowe discusses his rates and conditions—he doesn’t get involved in divorces. Kingsley wants Marlowe to find his wife, Crystal, who has been missing for a month, and suggests Marlowe investigate Kingsley’s cabin in Little Fawn Lake, up in the nearby mountains and near a man named Bill Chess. Kingsley shares a telegram from Crystal that says she is leaving him and marrying Chris Lavery.