 Chandler merged the two fathers into a new character and did the same for the two daughters, resulting in General Sternwood and his wild daughter Carmen.Chandler also borrowed small parts of two other stories, "Finger Man" and "Mandarin's Jade".As might be expected, all this cannibalising—especially in a time when cutting and pasting was done by cutting and pasting paper—sometimes produced a plot with a few loose ends.