The Maltese Falcon Principles

When Polhaus asks Spade for his client's identity, Spade claims that he can't give that information up without violating client privileges. Is this a sign of Spade's professional ethics or is he simply trying to hide behind that to avoid answering Tom's questions?

Spade is willing here to do his best to help out his client (in this case, Brigid O'Shaughnessy). But he still insists on having at least an inking of an idea what he's being hired to do. The fact that Brigid gives Spade so little to go on is asking quite a lot of him.

Luke, the house detective at Cairo's hotel, insists that he's telling Spade the whole truth. As one of the few honest characters in the novel, Luke seems to genuinely want to help Spade out, and the information he gives Spade turns out to be accurate.

Spade upholds his professional code of ethics here by refusing to divulge information about his clients without their permission. Is it morally acceptable for Spade to protect his clients' secrecy even if it means he's harboring a criminal?

Spade responds to the District Attorney's threats by telling him to get his license revoked. But until then, Spade plans on doing whatever is in his client's best interests, even if means making the police unhappy.

Spade's code of honor keeps him from revealing his client's personal information, but he has to take a lot of flack for it. The police are mad at him, the District Attorney is pressuring him, even Spade himself is getting tired of being called names. But he sticks to his guns, and we give him kudos for that.

Spade isn't always happy having to stick to his principles and his clients don't always make it easy for him to help them, either. But the whole point of having principles in the first place is to follow them even when people try to force you to change. And lucky for Spade, he has a stubborn streak that keeps him from caring what people think of him.

Effie calls Spade out for feeling sore at Brigid for not telling him everything. Effie reminds Spade that he hasn't been 100% on the level with her either. The fact that Spade is honest 24/7 suggests that within his code of principles, he still leaves himself room to bend the rules.

Spade insists that Gutman has to give him a "fall guy" to give to the police, but is this an ethical suggestion? If Spade is supposed to be a man of principles, is he violating his moral code by trying to find someone to pin both murderers on? Granted, Wilmer did kill Thursby, so he's guilty of one of the murders. But we find out later that Brigid is the one who killed Archer. So is Spade's demand to have a scapegoat, someone to take blame, reveal that he's really only concerned about making sure he doesn't get into trouble?

Gutman has finally agreed to use Wilmer as the scapegoat, but Spade has to make sure he's got the details straight to tell the police. Here, we see that Spade is actively trying to "cover up" the parts of the story that aren't true. Is Spade bluffing here to trap Gutman? Or does Spade really intend on turning Wilmer in for both murders, even though Spade knows that Wilmer is only responsible for one them?

Spade makes quite a pretty speech at the end of the novel to explain to Brigid why he's turning her over to the police. It seems that Spade does ultimately uphold his code of principles by capturing Archer's murderer. But there are moments in his speech when we can sense that Spade is operating at least somewhat on self-interest. Spade says that it's "bad business" letting the killer get away, so does this mean that Spade can't afford to let his reputation get sullied by coming to the police empty-handed? Is Spade more concerned about his detective business than his love for Brigid?