Bedroom Hall
And here we are nearly 10 years later ... and this thread was just mentioned to me. Timeless book, timeless thread.
After reading the thread twice, here's what I think, which correlates with some of what others before me have said. There are too many correct comments in this thread to easily quote and too many distractions to cull, so I'll just say what I think.
First, the passage is about a woman who is the face of an apparently upmarket bookstore, with its blue leather easy chairs, cigarette stands beside them, and books with hand-tooled bindings on the shelves – a bookstore that is actually "a lending library of elaborate smut" and "indescribable filth." (A concept that seems quaint today.)
She had long thighs and she walked with a certain something I hadn't often seen in bookstores. She was an ash blonde with greenish eyes, beaded lashes, hair waved smoothly back from ears in which large jet buttons glittered. Her fingernails were silvered. In spite of her get-up she looked as if she would have a hall bedroom accent.
My impression is that she appears to have the style and sophistication and knowledge you would expect to find in someone who deals in rare books, but who, on closer inspection, you would expect to have a voice that would give her away as the sort of person who lives (or was raised) in a hall bedroom – in other words, someone from a relatively poor family, someone who is mostly surface with little depth.
Marlowe goes on to say that she knew as much about rare books as he knew about handling a flea circus. When he asks her about a particular rare book: "She didn't say: 'Huh?' but she wanted to." Which, for me, reinforces what I mentioned above.
I also think that her earthy, rather than ethereal, nature can be found in Chandler's description of her "long thighs" – two of the largest "working" muscles in the body – rather than her "long legs," which would be a more expected description of an attractive, worldly woman.
One last observation: I don't think it's a "[hall] [bedroom voice]," but a "[hall bedroom] [voice]" – the voice of someone raised or living in the hall bedroom of a modest or poor home (suggesting a simple, fairly uneducated upbringing). I don't see any hint of "bedroom voice" (as in "bedroom eyes") in the passage. She is not looking to seduce Marlowe.
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Source: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/a-hall-bedroom-accent.333595/
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