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.
A flash of gratification momentarily played over his features. It was merely an emotional flicker which would have meant nothing in another man; but, in the case of Dr. Potter, it showed how deep and sincere was his pleasure and gratification, and was another indication of the fact that something was in the wind — a something which had not been so fully disclosed but which made him anxious to have me with him.
“Which brings us to the subject of my note,” he rapped out in that direct, sometimes abrupt manner which was so characteristic of the man. “Run up to your room for a wash, for I know what a dusty trip you have had, and then rejoin me here for a chat over our cigars.”
The study was in reality a private laboratory and workroom combined, and I knew that a conference held there would be upon strictly business subjects, and that the matter must be of something more than ordinary importance.
The room was perhaps thirty feet long by twenty wide, furnished with a few wicker chairs, deep and comfortable, yet severe in their lines; and by benches, shelves and bookcases. Here it was my friend spent by far the greater portion of his time, working, experimenting and studying.
The room was in the southeast corner of the house, and had only one door, that leading to a hallway on the west side. This door had a spring lock, and when experimenting or engaged in study, Dr. Potter would allow no one to enter on any pretext. It was his custom, on such occasions, to keep the latch on the door, so that it locked automatically when closed.
When I rejoined the Doctor in the study, no time was lost in getting promptly to the business in hand. Opening the door of a small closet on the south side of the room, he showed me, suspended on the inside of the door, a complete skeleton.
“Permit me,” he remarked in the most serious tone, “to present my associate, and one-time enemy, Elbert Crothers.
“Crothers,” turning to the skeleton, “This is Walter Pearce, an attorney of Los Angeles, of whom you have doubtless heard me speak.”
I am as willing as the next man to face the vital facts of existence, and I realize only too well the lot of all mortal flesh, but there is something uncanny and creepy in a human skeleton dangling from the inside of a closet door, its sightless eyes staring hollowly into space, its lipless grin mocking the warm red corpuscles of one’s blood, penetrating to and chilling the marrow of one’s bones. This effect is enhanced when the skeleton is that of a man one has known, and the impression caused by the formal introduction was grim, unreal and hideous.
My flesh began to creep as the bleached bones that had once been the mortal abode of Elbert Crothers appeared to rattle and sway in acknowledgment of the introduction.
At first I thought Dr. Potter had some method of manipulating the door to make the skeleton gyrate in an uncanny shimmy of death; but a closer inspection showed that the joints had been so perfectly adjusted in articulation, and the skeleton hung with such a nice degree of accuracy, that the slightest motion of the door would cause the bones to sway backward and forward for several seconds.
I am not particularly nervous, and yet I know my face was a shade lighter than usual as I sank into my chair. The Doctor, on the other hand, positively seemed to enjoy the proximity of the skeleton, and stood by the door of the closet, his lean face expressionless as ever, the slender fingers of his right hand stroking the long bones of what had once been the powerful forearm of Elbert Crothers.
“Pearce,” came the sudden inquiry, “have I title to this thing or not?”
The question took me somewhat off my guard.
“Just how do you mean?” I countered.
“Just this,” resumed my host, concisely, “Elbert Crothers passed out in the County Hospital of a small Indiana town in which is located a medical university. Instead of burying the indigent casualties in a local Potters’ Field, the custom is to turn the bodies, for a nominal consideration, over to the dissecting department of the university.
“This made things easier for me, although I should have had my way in any event; a little pull with the faculty of the university, a little money, and — presto! — the thing was done. Elbert Crothers, or all that was left of him, was delivered into my possession, to do with as I liked.
“Now in regard to title. Crothers, I understood at the time, left no direct relatives. Subsequent investigations show that he had a cousin who, it seems, is a spiritualist, or ‘spiritist,’ as he prefers to be called. In some way this cousin — Jorgensen is the name he goes by — has found out that I have the skeleton here.”
The problem thus presented to me was one which is not often placed before an attorney in the course of a general practice, and I had to reason back to elementals before answering:
“As a general rule, a man, strange as it may seem, has no property in his dead body. It is really the property of the state. Custom and usage, in most jurisdictions, have decreed that a person may dispose of his remains, as far as indicating the manner of burial or cremation. The body itself is not an asset. It may not be attached, nor levied upon under an execution.
“In the present case if you have acted without regular permission from the proper authorities, and I take it that you have, there is a possibility that this man, Jorgensen, may make you some trouble; not particularly because of the relationship, but as an interested citizen who may start the proper judicial machinery of the state in operation to inquire how you came by the skeleton.
“What I can’t understand is how you allowed him to find out that you had the body. Understand, I mean no criticism, but it seems strange that you allowed him to get the information.”
My friend favored me with that twinkle of the eye, a mere relaxation of the muscles, which passes for a smile in his vocabulary of facial expressions.
“Thereby hangs a tale. Naturally, I acted with all secrecy, and you may imagine my feelings when I received this letter in the mail a few days after the body had been prepared into the skeleton which you see before you.”
The paper passed over to me consisted of a single sheet on which was written, in a fine, Spencerian hand, presumably that of a clerical person, the following rather remarkable note:
Dr. Alfred Potter,
Santa Delbara, California.
“Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord.
I have been in communication with the spirit of my deceased cousin, Elbert Crothers, and am advised by him that you have secured his body from the hospital where he died; and that you have by acids, and other means, prepared a skeleton therefrom which now hangs in your office. That you have done this for the purpose of satisfying your private vanity, rather than for any reason of scientific research.
On behalf of the departed spirit of Elbert Crothers, I hereby demand that you take this skeleton not later than the fifth of this month, and give to the same a decent burial, in accordance with established civilized custom.
You will understand that, in writing this letter, I am merely acting on behalf of, and at the dictation of, Elbert Crothers. I have no personal feelings in the matter and make no threats. However, a knowledge of certain phases of life activity with which you are probably not familiar, leads me to warn you that this request from a departed spirit is not one to be lightly disregarded.
You will hear from me no further in this connection; but, if you do not accede to the request, I do not doubt you will have ample reason to regret your decision.
Very truly yours,