Arthur Geiger

Arthur Geiger is a dealer in illicit books whose lending business becomes the first visible link in a wider web of blackmail, murder, and concealment. His death sets the investigation in motion, but the significance of his operation reaches beyond the initial crime: it exposes the vulnerability of the Sternwood family and helps mask the deeper mystery of Rusty Regan’s disappearance.

Identity and Business

Geiger operates a lending library of prohibited books. Philip Marlowe identifies the volumes by their fine paper, elaborate printing, photographs, and stamped dates recording when each book was borrowed and returned. The stamped dates make the collection a functioning rental business rather than a private trove, while its illicit character helps explain why the trade depends on protection and secrecy.

Marlowe estimates the scale of the racket from the evidence available to him: a coded list with about five hundred names, twelve boxes of books, and a possible total of five hundred volumes. If the list generated rentals at even half its potential rate, he calculates, it could represent 125,000 rentals. At a minimum rental price of one dollar, the resulting revenue would be substantial, and the books themselves would remain as capital. This is Marlowe’s estimate, not a confirmed account of Geiger’s earnings, but it shows why control of the stock and customer list matters to those who survive him.

Blackmail and Criminal Connections

Geiger also uses legal-looking promissory notes as instruments of blackmail. Eddie Mars explains that the notes could be presented with apparent legitimacy, although Geiger would not dare sue to collect them. He would test a target’s willingness to pay, pursue the opportunity if the target seemed frightened, and abandon the attempt if the approach failed. Mars says that Geiger applied this method to everyone, and that blackmailing the General was Geiger’s own initiative rather than an assignment from Mars.

Marlowe initially interprets Geiger’s threat against the General as possibly connected to Rusty Regan, whom the General feared might be involved. Later, in his explanation to Vivian Regan, Marlowe places Geiger within Mars’s broader operation: Mars was protecting him and using him as a cat’s-paw. In that account, Geiger’s blackmail could test whether the General was vulnerable, while Mars hoped to learn whether Vivian could be made to pay more. The explanation distinguishes Geiger’s immediate scheme from the larger strategic purpose Marlowe attributes to Mars.

Geiger’s business also draws in people beyond its intended customers. After his death, Marlowe finds that Joe Brody has taken possession of the books and is considering the coded customer list as a source of future income. A voice heard by Marlowe describes a woman as having served merely as a shill for Geiger, further indicating that the operation involved intermediaries. The racket is therefore not only a private vice or a blackmail device: it is transferable commercial property, with books, a customer list, and potential revenue that invite competing claimants.

Death and the Disappearing Evidence

Geiger is killed at his house after Carmen Sternwood arrives there. Marlowe hears a scream, then three shots, followed by sounds from inside and footsteps leaving. The episode makes clear that a violent crime has occurred, but the identity and motive of the killer are not established at that moment. Marlowe later concludes that Owen Taylor, who loved Carmen and objected to Geiger’s treatment of her, shot Geiger.

When Marlowe returns to the house, Geiger’s body is gone. The missing body is marked by a changed room: embroidered silk strips have been removed from the wall, a rug has been placed where the body had lain, and faint parallel grooves seem to lead toward the front door. The physical signs suggest deliberate removal, while the otherwise unchanged rooms make the disappearance more conspicuous. The body is later returned, but the initial concealment complicates the investigation and creates an opportunity for the crime to be misrepresented.

The official account eventually obscures Geiger’s actual death. Newspaper reports describe him as having been killed by Brody, present Brody’s death as revenge by Carol Lundgren, and credit Captain Cronjager with solving both cases. They omit the Sternwoods and Marlowe and do not connect Owen Taylor’s death at Lido Pier with Geiger’s murder. The public story thus turns a tangled sequence of crimes into a simpler dispute over the proceeds of a wire-service operation. Geiger’s death becomes part of an official narrative that conceals both the actual chain of events and the people whose interests the concealment serves.

Legacy and Narrative Significance

Geiger’s illicit business gives the investigation its first concrete trail: books, rental records, a coded list, and the possibility of profits that can be seized or exploited. Its commercial structure helps explain why Brody tries to take over the operation and why Marlowe calculates the list’s potential value. At the same time, the blackmail scheme points toward the Sternwoods’ exposure and Mars’s larger plan.

Geiger is dead before the investigation can establish the full meaning of his role, and his death does not resolve the central mystery. Instead, the case around him opens onto a deeper deception: Mars uses the circumstances surrounding Regan’s disappearance to sustain a false explanation and protect his own interests. Geiger’s importance lies in this double function. His racket is a crime in its own right, but it is also the first visible layer of a story whose hidden stakes extend well beyond the books and the people who sought to control them.