Chapters 27-30 Summary

Marlowe arrives at his apartment in Chapter 27. Merle Davis is distraught and confused. She tells Marlowe she has been to see Mr. Vannier at his home. She goes there on errands from time to time, she tells him, to take him money from Mrs. Murdock. Marlowe distracts her for a moment and looks in her handbag where he finds the small gun he had seen in her desk before. He takes it out without her seeing and gently asks her some more questions. She is vague in her replies, but he understands her to say that she was taking $500 to Vannier at his house and that he was sitting in his armchair leering at her. She says she put a gun close to his head and shot him, turned off the lamp and left the house.

Marlowe goes to the kitchen...