to the mansion of General Sternwood, who wants to resolve a series of personal debts his daughter Carmen owes to bookseller Arthur Geiger. As Marlowe leaves, Sternwood's older daughter, Vivian, stops him. She suspects her father's true motive for hiring a detective is to find his protégé, Sean Regan, who had disappeared a month earlier.

Marlowe goes to Geiger's shop, which is minded by Agnes Lowzier, and then follows Geiger home. Hearing a gunshot and a woman's scream, he breaks in to find Geiger's body and a drugged Carmen, as well