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.
Everybody settled down, and I thought that that thrill was over, at least until the end of this trial, when I happened to look at Sparton’s face.
It was as white as a sheet, and he was glaring at me so fierce that I was glad there was a cop around — for the first time in my life.
When the room got silent again, Sparton leaned forward.
“So little Jane Brewster has been murdered, has she?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He took a step toward me and spoke, very quietly.
“And you know who murdered her, do you?”
“Why—” I hesitated.
He took another step toward me; and he was smiling, sort of knowing.
“And you know who murdered her, do you? You, and you alone?”
I’d forgotten all about that part of it for the moment. I’d been alone with her when she was murdered; and I didn’t know who did it. I didn’t feel quite so proud now of having broken the news.
Sparton kept coming nearer and nearer, and everybody in the room, including myself, held our breaths until we almost busted. Then Sparton spoke again, very, very low.
“And you know who murdered her,” he said again. Then, suddenly, he raised his finger and pointed it at me. “Who murdered Jane Brewster?” he shouted.
I almost fainted away. I just held tight to the rail to keep myself up. But it wasn’t because I was feeling guilty like you do when you’re not and people think you are. It was because I was staring at Sparton’s hand. For on the finger he pointed with was a long, funny-shaped bloodstone!
I stood staring at him. And he stared at me, while his dirty grin grew wider and wider. And I could feel everybody else in the room staring at both of us.
Then I leaned way forward, and in a voice that was hoarse and not much better than a whisper, I said:
“You did it!”
Well, everybody busted. And it was a good five minutes before order was re-established and the cops had got Sparton’s hands off of me.
They held him away from me, while he kept saying:
“Prove it! prove it!” in a voice that sounded as though he was talking to the Angel of Death.
“By that ring on your finger!” I shouted back.
Then the Judge stood up.
“That’s a serious accusation, young man!” he said. “And the whole affair is very irregular. If you can’t offer some other proof than that, you had better descend and let us go on with the trial.”
Well, I was stumped — for a second. And then I remembered the thing that had made me in such a sweat to testify: the paper Jane had written. My hand had landed on it the night before, just as the woodsman collared me, and I found it clutched in my fingers that morning when I woke up in the woods. While I was hurrying to town, I glanced at it, and read enough to realize that Jane had had some dope on the real murderer; but I had reached the courthouse before I’d found out who did it, and I had slipped it in my pants pocket and forgot about it.
I fished it out and handed it to the Judge.
“This is what Jane Brewster was writing night before last when I found her in the woods, Your Honor,” I said. “She slipped it into the coal-scuttle and I only got it last night.”
The Judge settled himself and commenced to read.
“ ‘This is the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God,’ ” he read, “ ‘only you got to give me a two days’ start before you show this to anybody, whoever you are. I’m going to hide this, and then if somebody else gets blamed for Mr. Carr’s murder than the right person, I’ll write somebody where this is hid and he can show it to the police.
“ ‘I saw Mr. Carr just after he was murdered. I went up to his room, and he was lying just as still, and while I was looking at him, the door opened, and who was standing there but Horace Sparton with a knife in his hand!’ ”
“She’s a liar!”
The Judge stopped reading, and everything was dead still. Everybody looked at Horace Sparton. He was as white as a sheet, and he was standing up and clutching the back of his chair. The Judge glared at him a minute. Then he went on reading:
“ ‘Mr. Sparton was dressed like a woodsman and he had a black, false beard in his hand. I reckon it had slipped off and he was just putting it up to his face again. But when he saw me, he gave a yell, and I turned and ran.’ ”
So he had that costume on tap all the time for his dirty work! Sparton must have known that I was thinking of that, for, scared as he was, he turned and glanced at me. I was awfully sore at him, until I happened to look in back of him, and saw the hard-boiled eggs crowding up to the rail. The guy with the rope was rubbing his hands.
That made me a little sorry for him. But I was sorrier for his daughter, Miriam. She was having a pretty rough time of it! First her lover was accused of the murder, and they let up on him, only to prove it was her father. Everybody in town knew he wasn’t a model father, but still, your old man is your old man!
Miriam was sitting with her head very low and her face very white, and Al was looking at her as if he wasn’t awfully glad at what was happening. Lots of us felt sorry for her, while the Judge read on, until something he read made us all sit up and take notice and not feel so blooming sorry.
“ ‘I reckon I know why Mr. Sparton killed Mr. Carr,’ ” he read. “ ‘Mr. Carr got friendly and confidential with me one time and he told me a lot about himself. He told me he had a daughter once, which I had heard; but that after he was put in jail, his wife was so ashamed that she got sick and died. And before she died she made him promise to put their daughter somewhere where she wouldn’t ever know he was her father. So he gave her to Mr. Sparton, when they were East together, just before Mrs. Sparton died, and he was giving him a lot of money to support her.
“ ‘And then he made out his will to Mr. Sparton, instead of to her. But when he found that Al Burnet and she were in love with each other, that tickled him, because he liked Al, although he was too stingy to give him anything. And he told me that the day they were engaged, he was going to change the will, leaving everything to Al. He said he had told Mr. Sparton, too.’ ”
Well, all over the courtroom there was a stir. Miriam was staring at the Judge as if she couldn’t believe her ears. And Sparton had sunk into his seat with his back to the Judge, as if he was too weak ever to stand up again.
But he jumped up with a yell, as if he had sat on a tack. For out of the corner of his eyes he had seen the rope which the guy was fixing in a knot. Sparton stared at it a minute, and then at the man, who was watching him with a smile, and then, slowly, he swayed and fell over onto the floor.
That was the signal. With a howl like a lot of wild beasts just let out of their cages, the whole bunch rushed in and made for Sparton. Somebody put the rope around his neck, while the others kept the cops off. Then they dragged him out of the courtroom.
Sparton had about five more minutes of consciousness. They could have taken him out and done the job without waking him up, but that wasn’t their style. They wanted him to know what was happening and see how he took on.
The crowd stood around in a circle under the tree while he stood there and confessed it was all true.
“I got Burnet’s trench knife out of his house when he was away in Denver,” he said in a whisper, “because — because I wanted him to get the blame.”
“Is that all you got to say?” said one of the bums, sticking his jaw into Sparton’s face, real brave-like.
“That’s all.”
“Then all right, boys! Hoist her up!”
And that was enough for me. I turned around, and took my two legs, that were sort of wobbly, firmly in hand, so to speak, and sent them home.