Directions for playing an efficient game which will allow the user to navigate through the game to one of the endings. It is important to note that while this is one way to navigate through the game it is by no means the only way.

General note: Pressing the escape key while an animation is running will cause the animation to jump to its end. Playing a scene, by watching it or by escaping through it, will update the game state.

Installing Private Eye:

1) Insert the Private Eye disc into your CD-ROM drive.
2) Choose the Run command from the File menu (or the Start menu if using Win 95).
3) Type the following in the Run dialog box: D:\setup.exe. (If your CD-ROM drive is not D: then replace D: with the correct letter.)
4) Follow the instructions on the screen.

Starting Private Eye:

1) Make sure the Private Eye disc is inserted in your CD-ROM drive.
2) With Win 3.1: Double-click the Private Eye icon in the Private Eye program group. With Win 95: From the Start menu, select the Private Eye item in the Private Eye group in Programs

After the logos and opening animation are complete, choose the "original" version of the game and press start

Meeting Orfamay Quest
Following a mysterious murder sequence, Marlowe is shown meeting a prissy small town girl named Orfamay Quest. Her sister left home years ago. Her father is dead. She lives alone with her mother. Her brother moved to California. He has been missing for months. Orfamay produces a photograph of Orrin.

Click Orrin. Learn that he didn't smoke, drink or go out with girls. His one hobby is taking candid snapshots. Marlowe takes Orfamay's case.

Resources in Marlowe's office
Go to the desk and open the middle drawer. That's where Marlowe's gun is. You can arm and disarm Marlowe by clicking on the holster. Leave the gun in the drawer.
Open the left hand desk drawer. Click the bourbon bottle. Listen to Marlowe's thoughts about the case so far.
Go to the tall file cabinet. Open the bottom two drawers. There are newspapers and magazines in there that feature articles about characters in the game and clues to the mystery. Flip through, or read, now or later.
Exit through the door. You are now on the interactive desktop.

Where to next?
Open map, click Bay City. See 449 Idaho St. and Cal Western. Orrin Quest lived at 449 Idaho St. and worked at Cal Western.
Click Cal Western

Cal Western - Orrin's last employer
Listen to foreman and choose to find out more about Orrin. Click the personnel file and discover that Orrin was NOT the straight arrow his sister said he was. And Orrin said he was going to be rich because he'd collect on the wages of sin.

449 Idaho Street - Orrin's last address
Go to map and choose 449 Idaho Street. Choose to enter building now by clicking the doorknob. Fight with a hoodlum who pulls a gun and a knife on Marlowe. Hoodlum is protecting suitcase full of money and implies that he belongs to a gang.

Lester B. Clausen
Scene continues. See manager passed out on couch. Click empty bottles. Learn that the manager, Lester B. Clausen, senses that Marlowe is trouble. He tries to phone someone to help him. He calls Vince the Doc and then passes out.

George W. Hicks
Scene continues with Marlowe going upstairs to get a look at Orrin's room, number 214. Marlowe doesn't expect Orrin to be there. But the room is not empty. A bald guy is standing in there with a toupee in his hand. Learn that the man is George W. Hicks whose in Orrin's room because its a better room and he moved there from room 215.
- Click the business card in Hicks' hand and learn that Orrin may have left because he confronted the drug dealers that use the building and they threatened him.

First dead body - Clausen a la ice pick
Scene continues. Marlowe realizes that Clausen is no longer snoring. User can click around room and examine or take items. Examine ice pick. Click the bottles on the table. Reveal matchbook. Take matchbook. Examine drawers, take everything. Leave ice pick in body. Take phone number on wall next to phone by the door. Exit through the door. If you're interrupted by the police and hauled downtown before you can complete your search of the murder scene simply return to the murder scene at your convenience and continue the search.
Marlowe leaves the scene of the crime and phones in an anonymous tip to the police that Clausen has been murdered. This will get him into trouble with the police later if they find out that he was at 449 Idaho St. while Clausen was being murdered.

Who are these guys?
After Idaho Street Marlowe returns to his office automatically. Click on the door to leave the office and arrive at the desktop resources. Look through the dossiers on the desktop, new ones appear as you encounter more characters. So the dead guy and the little guy with the suitcase full of money both had criminal records. Play the radio, both commercial and police band. What do the cops know?

Orfamay's second visit
Click the map, open Hollywood, click on Marlowe's office. Back at the office, you find that Orfamay is there waiting for you. She's telling you things she told you before and complaining that you haven't done anything. Click Orfamay. Learn that Marlowe thinks its strange that Orfamay says she's worried about her brother but acts like he's not really in danger.

Using the resources in Marlowe's office
Click the bourbon bottle in desk drawer to get Marlowe's opinion of 449 Idaho street.
Go to file cabinet. Read articles about drugs and crime.
Go to the cabinet. Click to open. Click the photograph of three men. One looks like the dead Clausen. One looks like that guy Hicks, who is the third one? Is that Vince? Click Vince's phone number (scrap of paper taken from wall at 449 Idaho St.)
Click to call the phone number. Listen to conversation with Dr. Vincent Lagardie.

Where to next?
Open the map and click on Bay City. Go to Dr. Lagardie's office. Dr. maybe "in" or "out". When "in" you get animated scenes where you learn what Lagardie knows about Orrin, ice picks, Clausen and drugs. When "out" you get to break in to the office and search it.

Get phone call from mystery man
While on the interactive desktop the phone will ring. Click the phone while its ringing to answer it. Get message from some guy at the Van Nuys Hotel. He wants you to keep something in a safe for him. Why should you listen? Because he hints that he knows you were at the scene of the Clausen murder when Clausen was killed and even the cops don't know that.

Van Nuys Hotel - second body
Click on map, Hollywood, go to Van Nuys Hotel.
Search room. Take matchbook.
Click on dead man's toupee, take camera receipt.
Go into bathroom. Watch scene with disguised woman.
Click on front door to leave. Get scene with detectives French and Beifus. Learn that George Hicks was better known as Mileaway Marston, a small time hood. He was killed same way as Clausen, ice pick to the back of the neck. Learn that whoever killed him was looking for something. Something small that could have been hidden.

Return to Marlowe's office
Go to low cabinet. Click on matchbook from the hotel. Its another book of Dancers Club matches. Click on the matchbook to call the phone number that's scrawled inside the matchbook cover.
Learn by calling that the phone number belongs to a Mr. Steelgrave. How does a rich man's phone number find its way into the hands of a two bit, now deceased, hood?
Click on the receipt you got from under the dead man's toupee. Its a receipt for pictures from a camera shop. Was this what the dead man was trying to hide?

Click on interactive border
Look through dossiers. Note all the gangsters. Find Mavis Weld. She was the women at the Van Nuys Hotel who was hiding in the bathroom and held a gun on you.
Play the radio to see what news there is about murders. What do cops know or suspect?

Return to Marlowe's office - (click view screen)
Now that you recognize the woman from the hotel as Mavis Weld go to file cabinet and read newspaper and magazine articles about her.

Go back to Van Nuys Hotel
Use map to get back to Van Nuys Hotel. At scene of Hicks murder find fan magazine. Read articles about Mavis Weld and Dolores Gonzales.
Exit room.

Where to next?
Click the map, click Hollywood, go to Mavis Weld's apt.
Meet Dolores Gonzales and Mavis Weld. Mavis Weld recognizes Marlowe from the hotel but pretends not to. She was there to pay off a blackmailer. Mavis knows that it was her brother who took an incriminating picture of her and was blackmailing her with it. She was confused when a man she didn't know called her and told her that HE had the blackmail photos and did she want to buy them. Well the man in the hotel is dead now and all Mavis wants to do is keep herself and her creepy brother out of it.
Click on notebook. Learn that Marlowe is protecting Mavis from the police by not telling them she was at the murder scene. He also assumes that the only reason she'd go some place with a gun and a disguise was to pay off a blackmailer. He's right but Mavis pretends he's not. Marlowe gets thrown out of the apartment.

Where to next?
Go back to Marlowe's office. Get scene with Alfred and Toad. Two tough guys hired by Sheridan Ballou, Mavis Weld's agent, to "talk" Marlowe into stopping his investigation. Exit through the door.

Where to next?
On interactive desktop open map and click on Bay City. Click on Bay City Camera Shop to follow the lead on the camera receipt.

Bay City Camera Shop
Get the photos that Hicks was killed for.
Although many new locations are now available, for the sake of speeding this walk-through, continue as follows.

Return to Marlowe's office
Get phone call from Orfamay. She lies. She says she has to see Marlowe right away because she heard from her brother. Marlowe doesn't buy it, wants to hang up. Orfamay says fine, she'll call the police instead, about Marlowe's involvement with recent murders.
You might have to go to another location and then come back in order to get this call.
Click on note pad. Learn that Orrin could have gone to his sister Leila for help after he got laid off. Leila is in California. If you haven't recognized her by now take a second look at the Quest family photo in inventory. Leila Quest is Mavis Weld.
Go to the cabinet, open it and take a very close look at the photo. Orrin was using this to blackmail his sister. Note date of newspaper on table in photo.
Go to file cabinet. Read articles about death of Sunny Moe Stein. Note that murder occurred same day that photo was taken. Leave the office through the door.

Where to next?
Open the map and go to Ballou's office in Hollywood.

Ballou's office
Get scene outside Ballou's office
Click the hat. Learn that the man in the picture is Mr. Steelgrave and that Steelgrave might be Weepy Moyer - a gangster from Cleveland. Ballou hires Marlowe to investigate and protect his client Mavis Weld. Can now go to Tantamount Studios, where Mavis is filming.

Tantamount Studios
Mavis is not pleased to see Marlowe.
Click the notebook. Learn that Mavis was at the hotel to buy a blackmail photo. The photo shows Steelgrave having lunch on a day he was supposed to be in jail. The photo is dangerous to Steelgrave. Maybe even the knowledge of where he was is dangerous.

Return to interactive desktop
Read dossiers on Steelgrave, Moyer, Stein
play commercial radio and police band radio
click map, click Hollywood, click Steelgrave's Mansion.

Steelgrave's Mansion
Get scene with Steelgrave.

Dancers Club
click map, click Bay City, click the Dancers Club.
Get scene at club.

Return to interactive desktop
Get phone call from Orfamay explaining that she heard from her brother. He's hiding at Dr. Lagardie's house and he's afraid to leave. She says he needs help. If you do not get this call, try going back to the Dancers Club, Steelgrave's Mansion, or to some other locations and then go back to the desktop. If you go back to Marlowe's office, you might get a visit from Dolores Gonzales.

Dr. Lagardie's Office
Go to Dr. Lagardie's office
Get scene with Dr. Lagardie
Click the letter opener. Learn that Marlowe believes Lagardie and Clausen were running a drug operation. Orrin Quest's blackmail photo offered the doctor an opportunity to blackmail Steelgrave. He used Quest, Clausen and Hicks and the blackmail photo to extort money from Steelgrave.
Marlowe gets drugged. Passes out and wakes up alone, almost. Orrin Quest comes through the door and with an ice pick. Orrin is dying on his feet. Somebody shot him in the back twice. You can stay and search the room or leave.

Return to interactive desktop
Get phone call from Orfamay. She knows her brother is dead and she hopes that Marlowe gets in trouble for it. Again, you might have to leave and come back to get the call.
Open the map, look at Bay City and Hollywood. Many places are available. Go to any 2 of them. . .The phone call you get might be from Dolores, telling you to come to Steelgrave's right away.
Get phone call from the police. They want to see you downtown.
This may not happen. If not skip to Steelgrave Mansion part.

Police Station
Go to police station
Get scene with police. Orfamay told them that her brother was in Dr. Lagardie's office and she heard shots. They investigated And sure enough Orrin is dead. What does Marlowe know about all this?
Click Marlowe's head. Tell the cops a story about Dr. Lagardie and Clausen, Orrin and marijuana. Don't say anything about blackmail, Steelgrave or Mavis Weld.

Return to Marlowe's office
Dolores Gonzales is waiting for you. Get scene with Dolores. She knows all about Steelgrave's jail time and the fact that he wasn't in jail the day that Stein was shot.
Click Dolores. Learn that she wants to blackmail Mavis herself and that Steelgrave was once her lover.
Click the bourbon bottle in desk to see what Marlowe thinks about the case so far. Click again. There can be more than one hint available.

Return to interactive desktop
Open the map, look at Bay City and Hollywood. Many places are available. Go to any 2 of them. .
Get phone call from Dolores. She says you must meet her at Steelgrave's mansion right now because Mavis is in very big trouble.

Steelgrave's Mansion
Go to Steelgrave's mansion by clicking it on the map.
Get scene outside with Dolores. She's upset. She pulls a gun on Marlowe and threatens to kill him, because that would get her in good with Steelgrave. But she changes her mind, gives the gun to Marlowe and asks him to kill Steelgrave for her. Marlowe goes into the mansion and finds Mavis. Mavis is quiet. She tells Marlowe she shot Steelgrave dead because he had killed her brother. She shows him the gun.
Click Mavis. Marlowe confuses the evidence at the scene of the crime so that it looks like Steelgrave had held and fired the gun that Dolores had given him. Marlowe wipes the prints off the other white handled gun that Mavis had held and hides Steelgrave's own gun in a towel.
Scene continues with arrival of police. Marlowe claims that Steelgrave killed Orrin. Cops take him downtown and grill him about his involvement in the murders.

Return to Interactive interface
Get phone call from DA's office
You might need to go to another location and then come back.
Click on the Hollywood map, got to the DA's office.
Get scene with DA and Mavis Weld. DA threatens to charge Marlowe with withholding evidence. But Mavis' attorney says that the photo can't be introduced as evidence. Someone must swear that the photo was indeed taken on a certain day. No one can do that. Orrin took the photo and he's dead. Steelgrave was in the photo but he's not talking, he's dead. Mavis was in the photo but she has no memory of when it was taken. Mavis is free and clear. She will not be tried for murder.

Return to Marlowe's office
Get a final scene with Orfamay. Learn that Orfamay knew all along her brother was blackmailing her sister. But he wasn't going to cut Orfamay in on the blackmail money. Orfamay only came west so that she could track her brother down and get a share of the money. She found out where Orrin was. She also knew that Steelgrave wanted Orrin too. She figured she could sell out her brother for a thousand dollars.

Return to interactive interface
Get last phone call from Dolores
You might have to go to another location first.
Click on the Hollywood map, go to Dolores' apt.

Dolores Gonzales
Get a final scene with Dolores that explains what really happened.
Get scene of Dr. Lagardie on his way up to Dolores' apartment
Get final Marlowe scene where he talks about Dolores' death.
Get epilogue

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