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.
On the day of the murder, she had seen Carson enter the building at least fifteen minutes before Mr. Ebbett came in. Yes, Mr. Ebbett had knocked on her door and picked up a bag of groceries. He had gone directly upstairs. And had Mrs. Pettigrew heard the shots? Yes, indeed. Mr. Ebbett had hardly stepped into his apartment when the first shot rang out, to be followed quickly by four others. Mrs. Pettigrew had screamed, but, being a victim of arthritis, had been unable to go upstairs.
Henry Ebbett, called to clarify and amplify his statement, testified in a quiet, self-possessed tone in which his grief was evident.
His wife, Bertha Ebbett, on the other hand, testified that everything presented to the jury was a lie, was twisted, was utterly impossible. She admitted that she had attended movies with Carson, that she had been located by police in a Hot Springs hotel, where she had engaged a room, but she denied vehemently the implications which the admissions inferred. She also admitted that she had admired and liked Carson.
Throughout her testimony, Bertha Ebbett spoke in a low, reluctant tone, which the jury was quick to note. They took the indistinctness of her voice to be from shame. In fact, the general tone of her charges and testimony only made them the more certain of her embarrassment and guilt.
It took the jury hardly any time at all to reach a verdict: “Justifiable homicide, with a recommendation that Mrs. Bertha Ebbett be referred to the grand jury for possible indictment as accessory-before-the-fact to an attempted homicide.”
Ten minutes after the jury’s verdict was rendered, Lieutenant Barr and Sergeant Jablonsky entered a lunchroom across the street from police headquarters. They sat at the counter and ordered coffee.
“You taking Ebbett up to Felony Court this afternoon?” Jablonsky asked after a while.
“I suppose so,” Barr admitted.
“You don’t seem too happy about it.”
Barr took a sip from his steaming cup, then set it down on the counter. He grimaced, as though the coffee had left a bad taste in his mouth. “Frankly, between you and me, I’m not.”
“You think Ebbett could have framed it?”
“I don’t know,” Barr said heavily. “Ebbett is intelligent. Seems to me, if his wife had been playing around with Carson, he’d have known about it and been prepared. I’m not saying she didn’t, because it’s hard to tell a thing like that about a woman — but I’m not saying she did, either. She says she didn’t, and she certainly was shocked when I suggested the setup to her, but the evidence is all the other way. But I will say this: Ebbett is nobody’s fool. He wasn’t as surprised as he said he was.”
“But if Ebbett framed the murder, then he framed the embezzlement, too, and where’s the dough?”
“Let the insurance investigators worry about that. I’m a homicide man, and I hate being outsmarted. If Ebbett is working a frame, I want to get him.”
“Yeah.”
“The thing is,” Barr said slowly, “the whole darned thing seems to have gone off like clockwork. I’ve studied it from every angle, and it must have happened exactly like he said it did. That old woman having seen him coming home after Carson is the sticker. She saw him go up, then heard the shots fired. At that, I don’t see how Carson missed plugging him. I’d have emptied my gun into Ebbett before he got to that bedroom.”
“One shot would have been enough,” the sergeant pointed out, “if it hadn’t been for the sack of flour. Carson still had to make a getaway. Maybe he didn’t want to fire any more than necessary.”
“Maybe,” Barr agreed.
“You don’t think so?”
“I think Ebbett had to move darned fast, faster than a man surprised could ordinarily move. He had to see Carson, size up the situation, and get started for the bedroom almost before the first shot was fired. The evidence all says that that’s what happened, but somehow it doesn’t sound reasonable.”
They sat there, sipping their coffee and looking out the lunchroom windows into the street. A car drove past, its radiator billowing steam.
“Really cold today again,” Jablonsky commented. “Zero, at least.”
“Uh-huh.”
A man came in from the street and slammed the door. He wore a pair of rimless glasses on his sharp beak of a nose, and a red woolen muffler about his neck almost concealed his chin. He stopped just inside the door, stomped his cold feet, and began to grope in a pocket of his coat for a handkerchief.
Barr’s cup hit the counter with a loud thud. “Good Lord!”
“Huh?” Jablonsky looked up.
“Get Ebbett and take him to that apartment of his,” Barr ordered. “Don’t tell him anything except that we want to check a few details before ordering his release. Take a couple of the boys with you.”
Barr hesitated, then added grimly: “I’ll take the other squad car and pick up his wife. I have an idea she’ll enjoy being in on this!”
Bertha Ebbett stared stonily at her husband, but Henry refused to look at her. He sat in a chair near the telephone, his small eyes studying a wall through his thick horn-rimmed glasses. Lieutenant Barr appeared very much at ease. With his long legs stretched before him, he sat slumped in the chair Carson had occupied beside the table.
“This probably seems peculiar to you, Mr. Ebbett,” Barr said conversationally, “but now that the coroner’s jury has exonerated you, it’s my responsibility to take you before the Felony Court for a hearing. That may only take a few minutes, but sometimes the judge asks for details and I like to have everything in apple-pie order before proceeding. Understand?”
“Of course, Lieutenant. If it’s anything that isn’t in my statement, I’ll—”
“Just a detail, Mr. Ebbett. You said that, on the day of the shooting, you spent most of the afternoon calling at the railroad stations, airport, and bus depots, trying to trace your wife.”
“Yes, sir, I did. I went—”
Barr waved one hand airily. “Yes, we checked on that, and you really did. But we forgot one thing. When you started back home, you came by streetcar and got off on the corner of Farwell and Elson. You walked from that corner to this building, a distance of three blocks.”
“That’s correct.”
“How long did it take you to walk that distance?”
“Why—” For an instant, Henry’s eyes flickered. “I don’t know, exactly. Not more than a minute or two. Is that important?”
“It may be — and it may not,” Barr said succinctly. “But I want to check on it, just to make sure. Jablonsky, suppose you take Mr. Ebbett to the corner of Farwell and Elson in the squad car and put him on the corner. Note the time he starts walking back, then drive slowly along beside him. You, Mr. Ebbett, I want to walk at about the same speed you did the other day. When you reach this building, knock on Mrs. Pettigrew’s door, say a few words, and then come right upstairs. Maybe you’d better pretend you’ve got a bag of groceries in your arm, too.”
“But, I don’t understand,” Henry said. “What possible bearing can that have on—”
“It’s just a detail, like I told you,” Barr informed him gruffly. “Remember, walk at about the same speed you did the other day.”
For the first time, a worried frown creased Henry’s forehead. But he went out with Sergeant Jablonsky, and a moment later those sitting in the small apartment heard the engine of the squad car roar into action.
Minutes ticked by, the silence broken only by the quiet hissing of the steam radiator in the corner. Barr sat with his head leaning comfortably against the back of his chair. Once Bertha Ebbett moved restlessly and glanced at the window. She got up and started toward it.