Stephanie Argy 147 E. Maltman Street Portland, OR 97220 January 25, 2018 Dashiell Hammett 891 Post Street, Apt. 401 San Francisco, CA 94109 RE: The Maltese Falcon – Editorial Round #1 Dear Dashiell, Thank you very much for inviting me to read and offer notes on The Maltese Falcon, your dark, entertaining tale of greed and duplicity. On one level, The Maltese Falcon is a compelling murder mystery, but you have given it far deeper meaning and impact than merely that. In your detective, Sam Spade, you have created an unforgettable hero. He is far from perfect, yet his failings are precisely what enable him to recognize and overcome the evil in others who are much worse than he is. This draft is already polished and nearly ready for publication, but there are a few small areas that could be adjusted to make the book even stronger for its future readers.
Structure Story Organization The manuscript is already very well structured. The story begins at the moment that Brigid O’Shaughnessy arrives in the office of Spade and Archer, with no preamble. She is the animating spirit of this story, and it’s equally appropriate that it ends as it does, with Spade turning her over to the police for his partner’s murder. Chapter Length and Titles The book’s pace is relentless, and one of the reasons for that is your effective use of chapters. They are all relatively short, mostly in the range of 10-12 pages, each one contained and focused, and they propel the story along. Because of your successful history as a writer of short fiction, it’s perhaps not surprising that you’ve given each of the chapters its own intriguing title, such as “Death in the Fog,” “The Undersized Shadow,” “The Russian’s Hand,” “If They Hang You.” Any one of these as a short story would prompt a lover of mysteries to pick it up. As part of a novel, they feel like an extra gift to the reader. Possible Cuts The structure of The Maltese Falcon is spare and economical, with barely a hint of fat. There are, however, two narrative strands that doesn’t serve the story as well as they could. 1
The first is more major, because it does damage to the reader’s perceptions of Spade. Very late in the book, Spade receives a desperate call from O’Shaughnessy, and he visits Gutman’s hotel room looking for her. Gutman’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Rhea, answers the door, home alone. She appears to have been drugged, but she has kept herself awake by stabbing herself with a pin, so that she can direct Spade to where her father has taken O’Shaughnessy. This is a wonderful scenario, showing great determination on the part of the girl—but it’s a fake-out. After Spade gets the information about O’Shaughnessy from Rhea, he calls the Emergency Hospital to come and help Rhea, but when they arrive, she’s gone, having sent Spade off on a wild goose chase to an empty house out of town. One of the problems with the scene is that Rhea comes out of nowhere. She has been mentioned in passing earlier in the book, but only barely, and she and Spade have never met. Yet when she opens the door to Spade on page 168, she recognizes him and cries out his name before nearly fainting into his arms. How would she know him? Moreover, her behavior is so peculiar it feels as though it should be setting off alarms for Spade. Why would Rhea care so much about O’Shaughnessy’s safety? At this point in the book, we already know O’Shaughnessy is a devious character, not worthy of this level of loyalty, and she is violently opposed to Gutman. If Rhea is on the outs with her father, that’s a whole subplot that would need to be developed before her behavior here would feel warranted. So why isn’t Spade suspicious of all these things? It makes him seem like less of a skillful detective than the rest of the book proves him to be, and it could be remedied by the removal of this scene, and by finding some other way to trick Spade out of town. Perhaps he receives a message directly from O’Shaughnessy about where she’s being taken, or perhaps someone at the hotel saw her being abducted and overheard where Gutman claimed to be taking her. Or maybe the misdirection itself isn’t necessary. The other narrative strand is less problematic, but it also adds story clutter. In discussions of Floyd Thursby’s past, it’s revealed that he once was the bodyguard for a high-stakes gambler named Dixie Monahan, who had to flee the United States to escape his debts. Dixie Monahan comes up several times, most notably in a visit Spade pays to the district attorney, who is convinced that Thursby’s connection with Monahan led to his murder. While this is valuable in that it shows how off-track the district attorney can be, and how much he wants to find simple solutions to crimes (something that Spade references later in his fake deal with Gutman and Cairo), giving the Monahan story so much attention and detail introduces unnecessary convolution into the overall plot. This, too, could possibly be removed.
Narrative Summary The Maltese Falcon opens when Miss Wonderly, a delicate, fretful twenty-two-year-old woman, arrives at Spade & Archer, a detective agency in San Francisco. She needs assistance in finding her younger sister, who has run off to San Francisco with a married man named Floyd Thursby. Detective Sam Spade interviews Miss Wonderly, but his wolfish partner Miles Archer volunteers to shadow her that night, when she is scheduled to meet with Thursby about her sister.
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In the middle of the night, Spade is awakened by a phone call from the police: Archer has been shot and killed. Hours afterward, so is Thursby. As a result of these two murders, Spade is drawn into an expanding mystery. It turns out that “Miss Wonderly” is in fact named Brigid O’Shaughnessy. There is no younger sister. O’Shaughnessy came to San Francisco with Thursby himself, who she imagined was her protector, until she began doubting his loyalty. Questionable individuals associated with O’Shaughnessy arrive in San Francisco. An effeminate Greek named Joel Cairo holds up Spade in his own office, searching for a mysterious “ornament.” A blustery fat man named Gutman, traveling with his daughter Rhea and a young gunman named Wilmer Cook, makes his appearance soon afterward. All of them are searching for a foot-tall figure of a falcon, made of gold and encrusted with jewels, now lacquered over in black. O’Shaughnessy, Cairo and Gutman have been chasing all over the world in search of this bird—for seventeen years, in Gutman’s case. Spade comes into possession of the Falcon, which he uses to trick Cairo and Gutman into a deal that requires Gutman to give up his gunman as a fall guy for the murders. When the Falcon turns out to be a fake, Gutman and Cairo resolve to go back to searching for the real one, but Spade turns them into the police—though before they can be arrested, Gutman is shot to death by his own gunman. Although Spade had no great affection for Archer, his personal code of honor requires him to bring Archer’s killer to justice. Spade realizes that while Archer was too smart to venture down an alley and let himself get shot to death by Thursby, he was dumb enough to do that with O’Shaughnessy. Despite her pleas, Spade turns O’Shaughnessy over to the police, telling her, “I won’t play the sap for you.” Characters The Maltese Falcon is populated by a rogue’s gallery of indelible principal characters: •
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Sam Spade – Our protagonist, tough, savvy, mysterious. Half of the Spade & Archer detective agency, Spade clearly has a past with the police and the district attorney, but we have no idea why. He speaks the language of the underworld, but as he himself says, “Don’t be too sure I’m as crooked as I’m supposed to be.” Brigid O’Shaughnessy – The helpless client turned femme fatale. O’Shaughnessy lies, kills, and expects any male in her vicinity (Spade in this case) to take the fall for her. Joel Cairo – O’Shaughnessy’s former partner and later rival, Cairo is a Greek, and gay, which makes him particularly dangerous to O’Shaughnessy. As Spade says, “He’s out of your reach.” Caspar Gutman – Sometimes known to his enemies as “G” or “The Fat Man,” Gutman is a gleeful, obese crook who has been chasing the Maltese Falcon for seventeen years. Rhea Gutman – Gutman’s seventeen-year-old daughter, described by the hotel staff where they’re staying as beautiful. We meet her only once. Wilmer Cook – Gutman’s hired gun, less than twenty years old. He’s small and vicious, though not as tough as he imagines himself to be. Effie Perrine – Spade’s girl friday, boyish, loyal, worried about Spade and fooled by O’Shaughnessy. 3
• • • • •
Detective-sergeant Tom Polhaus – The detective investigating the murder of Miles Archer and an old acquaintance of Spade’s. Tall, barrel-chested, with shrewd small eyes. Lieutenant Dundy – Polhaus’s superior, Dundy loathes Spade and suspects him of Thursby’s murder, or maybe Archer’s, though his suspicions may be a product of wishful thinking and a fervent desire to take Spade down. Miles Archer – Spade’s business partner. We see him only as a leering skirt chaser before he’s taken down by O’Shaughnessy’s bullet. Spade doesn’t miss him. Ida Archer – Archer’s widow. Spade has been having an affair with her, but he’s fed up with her and tries to get Effie to keep Ida away from him. Sid Wise – Spade’s long-suffering attorney.
There’s also Floyd Thursby, who is significant in the story although he never makes an appearance in the book. Sam Spade is the heart of the story, and he drags us along on his investigation. An unlikely twentieth-century knight, Spade is confronted by a collection of scoundrels and proves himself a man of honor, even if it’s his own peculiar definition of honor. On page 85, after Lieutenant Dundy slugs him and Tom Polhaus stops Spade from slugging back, Spade curses for five straight minutes, then says to O’Shaughnessy, “By God, I do hate being hit without hitting back.” This says everything about Spade, and what’s going to come: he will not be taken advantage of by these crooks—including O’Shaughnessy—and he will hit back, even if not in a literal sense. Though Spade has clearly had issues with the police in the past, there’s an interesting rapport between him and Polhaus, a genuine sense of caring, at least on Polhaus’s part. On page 84, as Polhaus and Dundy are leaving Spade’s apartment after the altercation between Dundy and Spade, Polhaus stops in front of Spade and says, “I hope to God you know what you’re doing.” When he gets no response, he sighs and leaves—and in that small sigh is an economical expression of his affection and concern. Less clear is the professional relationship between Polhaus and Dundy. Page 79 was the first time I realized that Polhaus was Dundy’s subordinate. I had assumed that Dundy worked for Polhaus, in part because Polhaus spent so much time trying to contain Dundy and his antipathy to Spade. We know that Dundy is a lieutenant, and Polhaus a detective-sergeant, but for readers like me who aren’t familiar with the San Francisco police department and its hierarchy, it would help to clarify Polhaus and Dundy’s relative ranks sooner. An unusual relationship in the book is the one between O’Shaughnessy and Cairo. As mentioned above, Spade notes how Cairo poses a unique danger to O’Shaughnessy because her usual weapons are ineffective against him. More than that, though, he’s actually a rival. The most violent encounter O’Shaughnessy and Cairo have in the book is sparked over a boy in Constantinople: she describes him as the one that Cairo “had,” and he responds, “The one you couldn’t make?”, at which point mutual slapping begins. But even knowing what we do about Cairo, there’s an unearned moment in Chapter 18 (“The Fall Guy”), when Spade is negotiating with Gutman and Cairo to give him someone who can be
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charged with the murders of Archer and Thursby. Spade suggests Wilmer. Gutman is reluctant to give up his gunman (“I feel towards Wilmer just exactly as if he were my own son”) though he does so eventually, but Cairo is much more stricken by the possibility. This is not something that has been set up or even hinted at, so his affection for Wilmer comes as a surprise. Is there a way to foreshadow this? A look on Cairo’s part, or a word between them (even if rejected by Wilmer)? How and when does Cairo develop this attachment, and is there a way to see that? Underdeveloped Sections and Gaps Though most of the book fits together like a perfectly made puzzle, there are a few instances that feel as though they could use more development or explanation, or perhaps need to be in slightly different order. On page 135, for example, Gutman appears to make a deal with Spade to buy the Maltese Falcon, but then he immediately drugs Spade’s drink, leaving Spade unconscious for twelve hours. If Gutman has just declared he’s going to make the deal, why does he then drug Spade? Three pages later, on page 138, Spade comes up with his own theory (“maybe the answer’s that he figured he could get it without my help in that time if I was fixed so I couldn’t butt in”), but it seems a little late for that revelation, and the explanation is uncharacteristically clunky and exposition-filled. Also, the transition back to the office on page 136 feels abrupt. The visit to Gutman’s hotel room includes wonderful details, including the extraordinary description of Spade’s plunge into unconsciousness which ends the chapter, but the next chapter starts with him striding into his office. He has a bruise on his temple (the product of a kick in the head by Wilmer) and a headache as we later learn, but we never see him waking up, and we don’t get the visceral sensation of his return to consciousness. After so much other detail, this sudden leap back to the office makes it feel as though something has been omitted from the text. On page 160, there’s another short but frustrating delay in delivering information. Spade goes to see what’s happening with a burning ship that Brigid O’Shaughnessy went to visit; when he returns to the office, Effie demands to know whether Spade found O’Shaughnessy. Spade has to leave immediately to go to the Belvedere Hotel and try to catch Cairo, and he says only, “Tell you about it when I’m back.” Even though we find out a page later what Spade learned at the burning ship, after he comes back from the hotel, there’s a narrative coyness that hasn’t been there in the rest of the storytelling. This is also a break in perspective: even though the book is being told in an objective point of view, we spend the entire story with Spade, seeing what he’s seeing. In this instance, he’s gone somewhere and seen something we haven’t, and it’s jarring to have that knowledge kept from us. Verisimilitude Your own background as a Pinkerton detective is evident on every page of this book. Spade’s investigative activities feel completely natural and expert, and his encounters with other professionals—the cops, the DA, the hotel detectives—have the ring of truth to them. The verisimilitude extends to the thorough historical research that you’ve done, and you’re clever to embed your fiction in as much truth as you do. The story of the Maltese Falcon
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ornament is plausible because so much of the underlying history is true: the documents that Gutman cites really do exist, Charles V really did grant Malta, Gozo and Tripoli to the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in 1530, and they really did have to pay a tribute of one falcon per year. With that solid, verifiable grounding, it’s easy for the reader to believe that the rest of the Maltese Falcon story is also true. Continuity Though the continuity is very solid, there are a couple of minor issues with names. First, is it Joel Cairo or Joe? O’Shaughnessy consistently refers to Cairo as “Joe,” rather than “Joel.” This may be a character trait (perhaps she can’t be bothered to use his proper name), but the first time she calls him “Joe,” it’s in reference to someone that she and Thursby arranged to have arrested in Constantinople so that they could desert him, and in that moment, it’s not clear that “Joe” and “Cairo” are the same person. Also, this may be just a typo, but when Effie Perrine goes to Berkeley to visit her cousin who’s a historian to check on whether the background of the Falcon sounds legitimate, she calls her cousin both “Ted” and (on page 144) “Tex.”
Language One of the most singular aspects of The Maltese Falcon is its completely objective perspective. It reads almost like a detective’s report, with no conjectures about anyone’s state of mind beyond what their faces and actions betray. The prose is stripped of any sentiment or fluff, which gives readers more chance to make their own conjectures about people’s thoughts and motivations. Descriptions The report-like feeling extends to many of the descriptions, even as simple as the snack that Spade and O’Shaughnessy share on page 88: “She set the table while he spread liverwurst or put cold corned beef between, the small ovals of bread he had sliced. Then he poured the coffee, added brandy to it from a squat bottle, and they sat at the table.” Even better is the description of Spade’s search of Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s apartment on page 93. The passage goes into such elaborate detail of Spade’s process that it feels almost real time, and it’s filled with great details, such as his poking a fork into powder and cream-jars on her dressing table, and his scarring of the kitchen window latch with his pocket-knife, so that she’ll think someone has broken in that way. Descriptions of the characters Once again, these have the precision and thoroughness of a police report. Even though we’re in an objective point of view, we’re always with Spade, and the high level of detail in the prose demonstrates his constant observation of everything and everyone around him. The descriptions make the characters unforgettable. Gutman, for example: “The fat man was flabbily fat with bulbous pink cheeks and lips and chins and neck, with a great soft egg of a belly that was all his torso, and pendant cones for arms and legs. As he advanced to meet Spade, all his
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bulbs rose and shook and fell separately with each step, in the manner of clustered soap bubbles not yet released from the pipe through which they have been blown.” A moment later, Gutman greets Spade by holding out his hand “like a fat pink star.” In a very few cases, characters may have too much description. On pages 148-150, for example, District Attorney Bryan and Assistant District Attorney Thomas are given lengthy introductions, even though they appear only in that one scene. On one hand, these descriptions show that Spade is paying close attention to everyone around him, no matter how short their encounter, but on the other, the length of these introductions signals the reader to pay attention: if this much time is being spent on a character description, the implication is that they’ll be important to the story. It may be your desire to keep the reader from knowing who will or won’t be significant as the book goes on, but please be aware that these long introductions do have that effect. One short description that stopped me was on page 149, when “a lathy youth with salient ears” ushers Spade into Bryan’s office. The phrase is beautiful and poetic, but I did have to look up both “lathy” and this particular use of “salient.” This character exists for only half a sentence, so it may be a lot to ask the reader to possibly crack out a dictionary for him. A counter-example follows in the DA office scene: the description of the stenographer who’s taking notes on the scene reads only that he was “younger and colorless,” which lets us know for certain that this is a minor character. In the non-dialogue sections of the book, most of the characters are known by their last names, with the exceptions of Effie and Wilmer and occasionally Tom (Polhaus), all three of whom serve in subservient roles. Significantly, Brigid O’Shaughnessy is always referred to exactly like that in every reference by name: “Brigid O’Shaughnessy.” (In dialogue, Effie respectfully calls her “Miss O’Shaughnessy”; Spade himself, when he mentions her by name to Effie on page 138, calls her “the O’Shaughnessy,” turning his client into a concept or an object.) Dialogue The dialogue is another great strength of this book. Each character is distinctive in his or her speech. With Gutman, for example, every sentence a bigger hyperbole than the last, but they’re delivered with such elegance and conviction that they tell us everything we need to know about the character. (“This is going to be the most astounding thing you’ve ever heard of, sir, and I say that knowing that a man of your caliber in your profession must have known some astounding things in his time.”) Cairo, too, has his own particular style of speech. After having been battered repeatedly by Spade, he rejects Spade’s request for a private conversation by saying, “Please excuse me. Our conversations in private have not been such that I am anxious to continue them. Pardon my speaking bluntly, but it is the truth.” Line after line is memorable: • “Behave, sister. That’s no way to act.” (Polhaus to O’Shaughnessy, after she kicks Cairo in the knee on page 79.) • “That would scare Ma into a green hemorrhage.” (Effie to Spade, when he asks her to let O’Shaughnessy stay with her and her mother for safety, page 104.)
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•
“You don’t cash many checks for strangers, do you, Sammy?” (Attorney Sid Wise to Spade, after Spade suggests Wise and Ida might have fixed up a story to tell him, page 119.)
And best of all, on page 124, Wilmer says to Spade, “Keep on riding me and you’re going to be picking iron out of your navel,” to which Spade responds, “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter,” which is a commentary on the line, and perhaps also on the tropes of detective fiction itself. There are a few places where dialogue attributions or accompanying adverbs carry too much weight, and could be reduced to a simple “said”: • “I asked you to keep her away,” Spade complained. (Page 24) • “There’s even talk,” Dundy went on stolidly, “That that’s why he was put on the spot.” (Page 74) • Spade said, “Oh,” ironically. (Page 133) One other line to consider: on page 220, after Spade tells O’Shaughnessy that if she had asked Miles to go down an alley with her, he would have “looked her up and down and licked his lips and gone grinning from ear to ear,” she asks, “How did you know he licked his lips?” This takes his searing metaphor and reduces it to a literal action, robbing the original line of its venom. Gestures and expressions While there are many interesting human gestures and expressions throughout the book, there’s also a lot of smiling, grinning, scowling and frowning, and many of those instances could be replaced with other more singular evocations of emotion. On page 85, for example, Spade grins sheepishly, laughs. His brows come together in a fleeting scowl. O’Shaughnessy smiles again. All of these could be richer, or at least less generic. On page 86, there’s a better of use of “frowned”: “She took the finger away from her mouth and smoothed her blue dress over her knees. She frowned at her knees.” There’s a frown that’s attached to an object, and so it feels more motivated, less like a placeholder. Actions The Maltese Falcon is packed with action, including some fist fights and other altercations, and most of these are very clear, with a few small exceptions. On page 79, O’Shaughnessy kicks Cairo, “the high heel of her blue slipper striking him just below the knee.” Reading this, I needed to pause to figure how this would happen physically. My initial impression was that if she were kicking him, the toe of her shoe would connect with his leg, so I had to stop and picture a different kick that would land her heel rather than toe on his knee. On page 83, when Dundy slugs Spade, and Polhaus breaks up the fight, the physical description of the confrontation reads almost like sports writing, so tight and evocative is the prose: “Dundy’s fists were clenched in front of his body and his feet were planted firm and a little apart on the floor.” Following that, though, is a less visual description: “…but the truculence in his face was modified by thin rims of white showing between green irises and upper eyelids.” The 8
contrast with the clarity of the first part of the sentence had me straining, as I tried to picture what Dundy’s eyelids were doing. Unfamiliar words and terms A particular treat in The Maltese Falcon is the way you integrate underworld and detective lingo, almost always with enough context that it’s clear what terms mean. There were three instances, however, where more information would have helped. In the first, on page 97, Spade is talking to Wilmer and guesses that the young thug is from New York. “Baumes rush?” Spade then asks. Initially I thought this might be a variation on “bum’s rush,” but when I looked it up, I found that it was a reference to a law sponsored by New York State Senator Carl Baumes in 1926, which called for life imprisonment of anyone convicted of more than three felonies. Knowing that, I now surmise that Spade is guessing the very young Wilmer has already been convicted of enough felonies that he had to leave New York—but that took a lot of extra research on my part. In the same section, on the next page, Spade chuckles at Wilmer’s surly attitude and says, “That would go over big back on Seventh Avenue. But you’re not in Romeville now. You’re in my burg.” Because of the context, I guessed that “Romeville” refers to New York, but I wondered if I was missing something more. Was Romeville a particular neighborhood in New York? Was it an insult to say that someone was from there (like saying that someone was from Five Points)? It might have helped to have more information. And on page 125, Spade asks Wilmer, “How long have you been off the gooseberry lay, son?” Again, I needed to look up what this meant before I realized how much Spade was insulting Wilmer. If the reader understands that Spade is accusing the kid of being the low sort of thief who steals clothes off of clotheslines, then Wilmer’s antagonism toward Spade is even more warranted (and our perception of Spade changes too, because he’s not afraid of digging up and throwing the lowest of insults at someone). Sense of Place As a long-time resident of San Francisco, you give The Maltese Falcon an easy, casual feel of the city, slipping in street names and landmarks that will be familiar to those who know it well. However, those readers who aren’t familiar with the city may not get as much from those references. Because you know the city so well, you might be able to add more details so that it becomes more of a place and character in itself. The ferry building, for example, is a beautiful edifice, but we don’t get a sense of that.
Suggested roadmap to revisions You are very close to finished on this manuscript, so this is a short list, with very few steps remaining to do: 1. Go through the manuscript and remove subplots and narrative strands that are extraneous or distracting (such as the Rhea Gutman incident or the references to Dixie Monahan).
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2. Examine and adjust underdeveloped areas, such as the gap between Spade’s unconsciousness and his return to the office. 3. Consider abbreviating the introductions to less important characters. 4. Clarify details about relationships, such as Dundy/Polhaus and Cairo/Wilmer. 5. Simplify dialogue attributions that are carrying too much weight. 6. Consider all other cosmetic adjustments suggested in these notes, clarifying anything that seems unclear. 7. Return the book to your publisher for final review.
Suggested Readings Even though your writing is already strong, I’d like to suggest a few books that you might find inspiring, or at least interesting because they took a different approach than you did. For mysteries that give a sense of place, Cara Black has written a series set in Paris that takes full advantage of the city. The series begins with Murder in the Marais (1999), her newest is Murder in Saint-Germain (2017) and she will have a new book coming out in June, Murder on the Left Bank. For a detective series set in a very different place than yours, with a very different tone, there’s Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, set in Botswana. For books that have an objective point of view like The Maltese Falcon, you might be interested in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. You could also read the short story “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway. The Maltese Falcon is a remarkably well-executed book, with an intricate yet comprehensible plot, and an extraordinary cast of characters. This is a rich world, and one in which I enjoyed spending my time. As a lover of mystery fiction, I can say with confidence that this is a singular, stellar example of the form, and that it will find much success. I am excited to see this book find its fans in the world, so as you proceed through your final revisions, please consider me a resource and feel free to contact me with any questions that may occur to you. I wish you the very best of success with The Maltese Falcon. Sincerely, Stephanie Argy
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