The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories
- Автор: Adams Cleve F., Babcock Dwight V.
- Год: 2010
- Язык: английский
- Год: A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
- ISBN: 978-0-307-45543-7
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir. It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared. It was the slum in which such American literary titans like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler got their start, and it was the home of stories with titles like “Murder Is Bad Luck,” “Ten Carets of Lead,” and “Drop Dead Twice.” Collected here is best of the best, the hardest of the hardboiled, and the darkest of the dark of America’s finest crime fiction. This masterpiece collection represents a high watermark of America’s underbelly. Crime writing gets no better than this.
In her hands, almost reverently, she cupped a tawny yellow diamond that seemed to Keenan as large as a hazelnut. “It’s real,” she said, turning to him with shining eyes. “They’re all genuine, Joe. I can’t really believe it.”
“Genuine?” Major Russell laughed shortly; the blue eyes twinkled. “You may be sure I made quite certain of that, my dear. They’re genuine, right enough.”
He smiled again, reminiscently, spun the tawny diamond in the air, caught it with one hand and tossed it to the heap of others by the girl. “And if you care to buy them the lot will cost you just thirty-five thousand dollars. May I add that I think it is a very reasonable and fair price, Miss Bridges?”
“Fair?” Ellen Bridges’ dark glance came up and studied him thoughtfully. “More than fair — much more, Major. It is that” — she smiled faintly in turn — “which makes one think. In open market your stones would bring close to eighty thousand dollars.”
Joe Keenan’s gray eyes narrowed on the Englishman. He said, “That’s the queer part. You claim they’re straight and yet you won’t peddle them yourself. So by selling them to Miss Bridges here you’re taking a loss of forty-five thousand dollars. There are two answers to that — you’re crazy or you’re crooked. Me, I don’t think you’re crazy. Those stones are hot.”
“Hot?” The bearded man frowned as if puzzled.
“Stolen,” Ellen Bridges explained, with a faint smile. “You mustn’t mind Joe Keenan; he has a bad habit of saying just what he thinks.”
Major Russell smiled slightly. “Perfectly all right. Naturally I did not expect you to buy until I satisfied you as to the legal ownership. It is unfortunate that, strictly speaking, there is none — none that could be proved before a court of law.”
His voice was clipped, British, decisive; but his eyes kept friendly enough. “The information I am about to give you is, of course, confidential. Having Mr. Keenan present is something I had not anticipated — I had preferred you came alone.”
“Mr. Keenan’s an old family friend,” Ellen Bridges said. “And he’s also an excellent private detective. My father employed him often when he was alive. I asked him to come with me tonight, Major, so if there is a fault it’s mine.”
“All right,” the Englishman said heartily. “Perfectly all right, my dear. I must apologize for my nerves tonight. They’re a bit jumpy. But to begin—” He knocked ash from his cigarette, drew on it thoughtfully, was silent a moment. “You see, I’ve knocked about the world a good bit in my time — never was one for standing still. A new place always called me on somehow. India, Brazil, the Sahara — I’ve seen them all. No regrets. A year ago this June it was Africa.
“I was knocking around the interior with no very definite object in view, just a small commission or two to keep me busy — trapping animals for zoos, that sort of thing. A living in it with luck but not much else. I was working my way over by easy stages to the coast, fed up with the existence, and anxious to see some white faces for a change.
“There were four black boys with me — four filthy, thieving devils I could cheerfully have murdered. No other human soul within miles. It was depressing country, rocky, practically waterless, damnably hot and pretty well deserted. Then one afternoon, as we pushed through a narrow cut in the side of a hill, one of my black boys stumbled on the body of a man — a white man.”
He paused to blow a long stream of smoke towards the ceiling. “He’d been there for years, I suppose, so there wasn’t much left of the poor chap then. A few bones, one or two rags of clothing, and a leather pouch that the sun had caked as dry as a rock.” Somberly he nodded towards the diamonds. “And they were in that pouch. I found nothing else around to give me the slightest clue to his identity.
“Anyone not entirely new to Africa could read part of the story easily. We were about a hundred miles distant from the diamond fields, in a district rather sparsely traversed, due mostly to its lack of water; and in view of the fact that it was so little traveled it seemed evident to me that our man had been trying to reach one of the northern ports secretly. The laws on I.D.B.s — illicit diamond buyers — are very strict in British Africa. This poor devil had somehow gained possession of the stones — how we do not know — and gambled his life on getting away with them.” The Englishman nodded soberly. “He lost, and I’m afraid it wasn’t a pleasant death.”
Ellen Bridges shivered. “Dreadful.”
Major Russell looked at her gravely. “All this, you understand, is pure conjecture on my part. After we reached the coast I made inquiries — judicious ones — but learned nothing at all about who the man might have been, or where he could have found the diamonds. Perhaps my moral code is twisted, but I couldn’t see handing the stones over to the government as a gift. No one knew about them, I thought; certainly no one could prove ownership; and so, in the end, I held on to them myself.
“The night before I left Jo’burg my room was ransacked — trunks turned inside out, clothes tumbled around, pictures taken from the walls. One of my black boys must have had a glimpse of what the pouch contained and sold his information to some rascal in Jo’burg, perhaps with a thought of sharing the proceeds. Fortunately, however, I happened to be carrying the stones with me that night, and on the boat I had no trouble.
“Eventually I came to America to dispose of them. The morning after I landed a man came to my hotel. He’d got wind of what I was about, perhaps from the fellow who went through my room in Johannesburg. He told me coolly what I was carrying, and offered ten thousand for the lot. I refused; and on that he threatened to tell the British authorities the whole story. I threw him out and left the hotel immediately, taking this cottage as a quiet place where no one would find me. Well” — he crushed out his cigarette and looked up with a faint smile — “that’s the story. If it isn’t very convincing the fault is mine as narrator. The details, I assure you, are true.”
Keenan’s gray eyes studied him a moment. “And you never found out who this man was that came to your hotel in New York?”
“Later I did.” The major pursed his lips. “Not an estimable character. A disposer of stolen goods — I believe the term is fence over here. His name was Peale. Perhaps you know him.”
“Jerome Peale?” Keenan nodded. “A little. Not anyone to fool with. Bad.”
“I gathered that,” the major said, looking at his watch and then up at Ellen Bridges. “That is why I left the hotel. Even in Africa we have heard of your one-way rides.” White teeth flashed inside the beard. “But he doesn’t concern us now. Shall we consider the bargain settled?”
The girl nodded. “You’ll want cash, of course. I can have it here by noon tomorrow. Will that do?”
“Excellently,” the bearded man said, rising. “You see, I have neither the time nor the connections to dispose of the stones singly. It seemed best to get in touch with someone running a legitimate jewelry business — that is why I got in touch with you, Miss Bridges. Naturally you are very welcome to any profit you may make over the purchase price.” He smiled, bowed. “Until tomorrow at twelve then?”
Joe Keenan rose after him, his hard gray eyes puzzled. The major’s story seemed plausible enough — it might be a shade too plausible. Was that the catch, the warning, that jerked uneasily at his mind?
As he followed the girl towards the door he was frowning, unsatisfied — something in all this didn’t ring true. A man would not throw forty thousand dollars to a stranger because he had no time. A man—