Gilded Falcons

For Dashiell Hammett fans— and who isn’t?— we have new clews to the possible origin of both the Maltese Falcon and the Continental Op.

“Resting on the North entrance at Baltimore Street are two gold-gilded birds that could be mistaken for resting eagles, buty they’re not, instead, they’re falcons. Why, you may ask, is this significant? Because the Continental Trust building was also the location of the Baltimore office of the Pinkerton agency, which counted among its employees in the early ’20s a gentleman from Southern Md., name of Dashiell Hammett–who would go on to write “The Maltese Falcon”. He must have spent a lot of time looking at those big gilded falcons every morning.”

So Hammett spend his days as a detective working out of the Continental building, and staring every day at gilded falcons? In Baltimore?

Naw— gotta be a coincidence.