Indeed. I was surprised that Marlowe beat Spade. Must be because of the number of books with Marlowe as opposed to Spade.
I guess in The Big Sleep, Marlowe is really the ultimate anti-hero. He really is doing his partner’s wife, which by any set of standards, is not cool. Perhaps you could make the argument that Sam Spade wouldn’t have done that - so maybe there is a difference there. In the Maltese falcon he double crosses Miss Wonderly, Gutman and Cairo but they all had it coming, so that is cool.