A number of bloggers have commented on the detective's cynicism, antiauthoritarianism, or self-interest. I agree with these. He is a precursor, as one of the critics has observed, of the popularity of the anti-hero in film noire. He's the protagonist, thus we follow him, but his traits are not typically heroic. (For the film scholar Robert Ray, the anti-hero represents a pattern in Hollywood films of the period. Today, cable networks seem to have revived and popularized the character.)
The lift operator's salacious remark casts doubt on the detective's morality, but so does much of what