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.
The Judge smiled.
“Well?” he said, picking up some papers.
“Well,” I shouted; “I think there isn’t a one of you who wouldn’t do it a million times quicker than he would!”
And then I went out as quick as I could, without letting them think I was in a hurry.
I walked fast out of the town and then I just tore across the fields until I got to the woods. And then I sat down and cried like a girl.
Well, I got that off my chest and then I built a fire and lay down and started wondering. I wondered for a long while without getting anywhere, and then I reckon I must have fallen asleep, for it was almost dark when I turned over, shivering, and saw my fire was out. There were little flakes of snow coming down, although it was March.
I got up to go home, and then it occurred to me I might meet Irene, and I was scared stiff. So I decided to go to my cabin for the night. I’ve already spoken about that. It’s a little cabin in the woods, about five miles from town. It really isn’t mine, having been built by a young couple who live in Berlin, next town to New Paris. But they don’t use it, except in the summer. I go out there a good deal in the winter, but I never bother them when they’re around.
So I started down the little path, and it got darker and darker, because the trees were getting thicker and the night was coming on. And the snow fell very quiet, and my footsteps hardly made any noise because there was a carpet of thick, soggy leaves. And then, suddenly, after I had gone about three miles, I stopped short. For there ahead of me, I saw a girl, sitting on a stump, leaning over and trying to write something with a pencil on her knee. With a paper in between, of course.
Well, I advanced cautiously, for I’ve been in the Boy Scouts, and I’ve learned it’s silly to expose yourself needlessly when you’re in the woods. There’s always apt to be a trap around when you see something awfully innocent-looking — like a young girl writing on a paper.
Then, all at once, I gave a shout, for I saw it was only Jane Brewster, the pretty girl who minds the babies at the Masons’ and does odd chores at different houses in the afternoons.
Jane gave a little cry, and crumpled the paper up quick. I didn’t blame her. It’s a scary thing to have somebody yell at you like that when you’re alone in the woods and it’s almost dark. Besides, for all I knew, she might have belonged to the Girl Scouts one time.
But when I came up and she saw who I was, she still looked pale and scared and hid the paper behind her.
“Hello, Jane!” I said, cheerfully.
She stared at me as I stood before her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked me, very hoarsely.
“Me? I’m on a vacation. Going to my winter mansion. But what are you doing here?”
Jane dropped her eyes.
“I’m going home,” she said in a low voice.
“Going home!” I cried. “But your people live fifteen miles away from here! You can’t get there tonight!”
But Jane didn’t lift her eyes from the ground.
“I’m going home,” she repeated doggedly.
Well, I was puzzled. I couldn’t understand why Jane should be going back to her family suddenly this late in the day, when she could get a train the next morning. But that wasn’t any of my business. All I cared about was the fact that I knew she would be lost in the woods when night came on for fair. So I said:
“I’ll tell you, Jane. You can’t ever get home this late. You come to my cabin! There are three beds there — and a screen to make a regular room for you. And you stay there for the night and start home first thing in the morning!”
Jane looked at me rather suspiciously; but I argued with her. Poor Jane! I wish she had told me to go to the devil and tried to get home as best she could in the dark woods! Still, if it hadn’t been Jane, it would have been — But I’ve got to tell the story in order. The Walrus always said I get things tail end to, and I reckon she’s right.
Well, Jane got up and followed me. We walked along the path in Indian file and without saying anything. Finally it got so dark I had to wave my arms about to keep from bumping into trees, and I told Jane to grab hold of my coat. And all the time I could feel the little flakes of snow touching my face.
At last we got to the cabin. I was used to it, but Jane seemed sort of scared when I opened the door for her after I climbed in the window. I reckon it is a pretty gloomy place.
But I lighted a lamp and built a fire in the pot-bellied stove. And then I got on my knees and felt under the bed, and brought out some potatoes and apples and a can of tomato soup I’d found in Jenkins’ Grocery Store and which I’d kept for some big occasion like this. Then we cooked them and we had a big feast.
After supper I lighted my pipe and sat with my feet on the stove, while Jane washed the dishes. It was awful homelike. I wonder if Irene washes dishes good?
Then the first funny thing happened. When she finished washing the dishes and thought I wasn’t looking, Jane tiptoed over to the coal scuttle that was used for ashes and dropped the paper she had been writing on into it and covered it with ashes. Then she came and sat opposite me. I was facing the stove. She was facing the window.
“This is a nice place,” she said, folding her hands and looking around and smiling a weak little smile.
It was a nice place — a long cabin, with two cots at either end, under the windows, and a cot and a screen for when the owners had company, near the stove. Then there were a couple of tables: one with the lamp on it, that gave a mighty cheerful glow to the room.
“I like it,” I replied. “It’s a relief to get out here in the quiet, away from the excitement and noise in New Paris.”
When I said “New Paris,” the smile left her face, and that reminded me of what I was trying to forget. So I decided to talk about it. I like to have somebody to talk over my troubles with; I’m funny that way.
“Wasn’t that a terrible murder!” I said, as an opener.
With that, Jane turned as pale as if somebody had sucked the blood right out of her. I decided that she was a sympathetic listener, so I kept on.
“Not that it wasn’t a good thing to get Old Man Carr out of the way, but to think of their accusing Al Burnet—”
But Jane jumped up.
“What did you say?” she cried, looking down at me as if she was going to eat me.
“Haven’t you heard?” I asked. “They’ve arrested poor Al!”
Jane dropped in her seat, and started staring at the button that wasn’t on my coat.
“Anybody who’d think Al could murder his father, even if he was only his stepfather, is crazy!” I muttered.
Jane didn’t say anything. She just stared, and her breath came hard.
“I’d rather think I did it myself,” I went on.
I waited for Jane to answer, but she didn’t. So I shut up and listened to the wood crackling in the stove. Suddenly Jane spoke and I jumped.
“Do you think they can... they can—”
But she couldn’t finish it.
I knew what she meant, though.
“It looks pretty hard for him,” I told her. “They made me testify I saw him outside late at night. And they found his German trench knife covered with blood there.”
Jane had kept her eyes lowered all the time. Now she looked up and glanced around the room. She was trembling all over.
“Jack,” she whispered; “can you keep a secret?”
“I reckon so,” I answered.
“Can you keep it until it’s a question of life or death — and then let me know two days beforehand?”
I looked at her in surprise.
“What are you driving at, Jane?” I demanded.
But Jane was impatient.