The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
- Автор: Anderson Lars, Barr Randolph
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Vintage Books
- ISBN: 978-0-307-28048-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps». Краткое содержание книги:
Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train — a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best.
“It’s nice of you to have us here,” he murmured, “after the way we’ve behaved.”
“My father told me to bring you up,” she said. “He seems to be quite an admirer of yours, and he was sure you couldn’t have had anything to do with — with the murder.”
“I noticed — down in the boathouse — you knew my name,” said the Saint thoughtfully.
“Yes — the sergeant used it.”
Simon looked at the ceiling.
“Bright lads, these policemen, aren’t they? I wonder how he knew?”
“From — your gun licence, I suppose.”
Simon nodded.
“Oh yes. But before that. I mean, I suppose he must have told your father who I was. Nobody else could have done it, could they?”
The girl reddened and lost her voice; but Forrest found his. He jerked himself angrily out of his chair.
“What’s the use of all this beating about the bush, Rosemary?” he demanded impatiently. “Why don’t you tell him we know all about that letter that Nora wrote him?”
The door opened, and the butler came back with a tray of bottles and glasses and toured the room with them. There was a strained silence until he had gone again. Hoppy Uniatz stared at the newly opened bottle of whiskey which had been put down in front of him, with a rapt and menacing expression which indicated that his grey matter was in the throes of another paroxysm of Thought.
Simon raised his glass and gazed appreciatively at the sparkling brown clearness within it.
“All right,” he said. “If you want it that way. So you knew Nora Prescott had written to me. You came to the Bell to see what happened. Probably you watched through the windows first; then when she went out, you came in to watch me. You followed one of us to the boathouse—”
“And we ought to have told the police—”
“Of course.” The Saint’s voice was mild and friendly. “You ought to have told them about the letter. I’m sure you could have quoted what was in it. Something about how she was being forced to help in putting over a gigantic fraud, and how she wanted me to help her. Sergeant Jesser would have been wild with excitement about that. Naturally he’d’ve seen at once that that provided an obvious motive for me to murder her, and none at all for the guy whose fraud was going to be given away. It really was pretty noble of you both to take so much trouble to keep me out of suspicion, and I appreciate it a lot. And now that we’re all pals together, and there aren’t any policemen in the audience, why don’t you save me a lot of headaches and tell me what the swindle is?”
The girl stared at him.
“Do you know what you’re saying?”
“I usually have a rough idea,” said the Saint coolly and deliberately. “I’ll make it even plainer, if that’s too subtle for you. Your father’s a millionaire, they tell me. And when there are any gigantic frauds in the wind, I never expect to find the Big Shot sitting in a garret toasting kippers over a candle.”
Forrest started toward him.
“Look here, Templar, we’ve stood about enough from you—”
“And I’ve stood plenty from you,” said the Saint without moving. “Let’s call it quits. We were both misunderstanding each other at the beginning, but we don’t have to go on doing it. I can’t do anything for you if you don’t put your cards on the table. Let’s straighten it out now. Which of you two cooled off Nora Prescott?”
He didn’t seem to change his voice, but the question came with a sharp stinging clarity like the flick of a whip. Rosemary Chase and the young man gaped at him frozenly, and he waited for an answer without a shift of his lazily negligent eyes. But he didn’t get it.
The rattle of the door handle made everyone turn, almost in relief at the interruption. A tall cadaverous man, severely dressed in a dark suit and high old-fashioned collar, his chin bordered with a rim of black beard, pince-nez on a loop of black ribbon in his hand, came into the room and paused hesitantly.
Rosemary Chase came slowly out of her trance.
“Oh, Doctor Quintus,” she said in a quiet forced voice. “This is Mr. Templar and... er...”
“Hoppy Uniatz,” Simon supplied.
Dr. Quintus bowed; and his black sunken eyes clung for a moment to the Saint’s face.
“Delighted,” he said in a deep burring bass; and turned back to the girl. “Miss Chase, I’m afraid the shock has upset your father a little. Nothing at all serious, I assure you, but I think it would be unwise for him to have any more excitement just yet. However, he asked me to invite Mr. Templar to stay for dinner. Perhaps later...”
Simon took another sip at his beer, and his glance swung idly over to the girl with the first glint of a frosty sparkle in its depths.
“We’d be delighted,” he said deprecatingly. “If Miss Chase doesn’t object...”
“Why, of course not.” Her voice was only the minutest shred of a decibel out of key. “We’d love to have you stay.”
The Saint smiled his courteous acceptance, ignoring the wrathful half movement that made Forrest’s attitude rudely obvious. He would have stayed anyway, whoever had objected. It was just dawning on him that out of the whole fishy setup, Marvin Chase was the one man he had still to meet.
6
“Boss,” said Mr. Uniatz, rising to his feet with an air of firm decision, “should I go to de terlet?”
It was not possible for Simon to pretend that he didn’t know him; nor could he take refuge in temporary deafness. Mr. Uniatz’ penetrating accents were too peremptory for that to have been convincing. Simon swallowed, and took hold of himself with the strength of despair.
“I don’t know, Hoppy,” he said bravely. “How do you feel?”
“I feel fine, boss. I just t’ought it might be a good place.”
“It might be,” Simon conceded feverishly.
“Dat was a swell idea of yours, boss,” said Mr. Uniatz, hitching up his bottle.
Simon took hold of the back of a chair for support.
“Oh, not at all,” he said faintly. “It’s nothing to do with me.”
Hoppy looked puzzled.
“Sure, you t’ought of it foist, boss,” he insisted generously. “Ya said to me, de nex time I should take de bottle away someplace an’ lock myself up wit’ it. So I t’ought I might take dis one in de terlet. I just t’ought it might be a good place,” said Mr. Uniatz, rounding off the resume of his train of thought.
“Sit down!” said the Saint with paralysing ferocity.
Mr. Uniatz lowered himself back onto his hams with an expression of pained mystification, and Simon turned to the others.
“Excuse us, won’t you?” he said brightly. “Hoppy’s made a sort of bet with himself about something, and he has a rather one-track mind.”
Forrest glared at him coldly. Rosemary half put on a gracious smile, and took it off again. Dr. Quintus almost bowed, with his mouth open. There was a lot of silence, in which Simon could feel the air prickling with pardonable speculations on his sanity. Every other reaction that he had been deliberately building up to provoke had had time to disperse itself under cover of the two consecutive interruptions. The spell was shattered, and he was back again where he began. He knew it, and resignedly slid into small talk that might yet lead to another opening.
“I heard that your father had a nasty motor accident, Miss Chase,” he said.