Chandler, Raymond
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the home of wealthy, elderly General Sternwood, in the month of October. He wants Marlowe to deal with a blackmail attempt by a bookseller named Arthur Geiger on his wild young daughter Carmen. She had previously been blackmailed by a Joe Brody. Sternwood mentions his other, older daughter Vivian, who is in a loveless marriage with a man named Rusty Regan, who has disappeared. On Marlowe´s way out, Vivian wonders if he was hired to find Regan, but Marlowe will not say.