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.
“Quite serious,” he replied. “You are both under arrest — for the theft of the de Valois pearls!”
For a week, intermittently, Paris had known rain — the cold, chilly drizzle of early springtime. Because of the weather cafés and theatres were crowded, fiacres and taxis in constant demand, omnibuses jammed and the drenched boulevards deserted by their usual loungers.
From Montmartre to Montparnasse, scudding, gray clouds veiled the reluctant face of the sun by day and hid a knife-edged moon by night.
The steady, monotonous drizzle pattered against the boudoir windows in the house of the Countess d’Yls, mid-way down the Street of the First Shell. Within, all was snug, warm and comfortable. A coal fire burned in a filigree basket-grate, the radiance of a deeply shaded floor lamp near the toilette table, where a small maid hovered like a mother pigeon about the Countess, diffused a subdued, mellow glow.
The evening growl of Paris came as if from faraway, a lesser sound in the symphony of the rain.
“Madame will wear her jewels?”
The Countess turned and lifted her blue eyes.
“My rings only, Marie, if you please.”
The maid brought the jewel casket, laid it beside her mistress, and at the wardrobe selected a luxurious Kolinsky cape which she draped over an arm. The Countess slipped on her rings, one by one — flashing, blue-white diamonds in carved, platinum settings, an odd Egyptian temple ring, a single ruby that burned like a small ball of crimson fire.
When the last ring glinted on her white fingers she dropped the lid of the casket, stood and turned to a full-length cheval mirror back of her.
The glass reflected the full perfection of her charms, the sheer wonder of her sequin-spangled evening gown, the creamy luster of her bare, powdered arms, shoulders and rounded, contralto throat. Standing there, the soft light on her hair, she was radiant, incomparable, a reincarnated Diana whose draperies came from the most expert needles of the Rue de la Paix.
“I think,” the Countess said aloud, “those who go to fashionable affairs to witness and copy will have much to occupy their pencils on the morrow. My gown is clever, is it not, Marie?”
“It is beautiful!” the maid breathed.
With a little laugh the Countess took the Kolinsky cape.
“Now I must hasten below to the Marquis. Poor boy, it is an hour — or more — that I have kept him cooling his heels. Marie, suspense, they say, breeds appreciation but there is such a thing as wearing out the patience of a cavalier. The really intelligent woman knows when not to overdo it. You understand?”
“Perfectly, madame,” the maid replied.
The Countess let herself out and sought the stairs. She moved lightly down steps that were made mute by the weight of their waterfall of gorgeous carpet. Murals looked down upon her progress to the lower floor, tapestries glittered with threads of flame, the very air seemed somnolent with the heaviness of sybaritic luxury.
Humming a snatch of a boulevard chansonette, the Countess turned into a lounge room that was to the right of the entry-hall below. The aroma of cigarette smoke drifted to her. When she crossed the threshold the Marquis de Remec stood, a well-made, immaculately groomed individual in his perfectly tailored evening clothes.
“Forgive me, Armand,” the Countess pleaded. “Marie was so stupid tonight — all thumbs. I thought she would never finish with me.”
The Marquis lifted her fingers to his lips.
“How lovely you are!” he cried softly. “Ah, dear one, will you never say the word that will make me the happiest man in all France? For two years we have worked together shoulder to shoulder, side by side — for two years you have been a star to me, earth-bound, beautiful beyond all words! Two years of—”
The Countess interrupted with a sigh.
“Of thrills and danger, Armand! Of plots and stratagems, plunder and wealth! I think, mon ami,” she said seriously, “if we are successful tonight I will marry you before April ends. But wait, understand me. It will be a secret. I will still be the Countess d’Yls and you will remain the Marquis de Remec to all the world but me. Then, my friend, if either of us suffers disaster one will not drag the other down. You see?”
She seated herself beside the Marquis, considering him wistfully.
“But tonight?” he said in a stifled voice. “The de Valois affair is the hardest nut we have yet attempted to crack! Tonight we will need all of our cunning, all of our wits!”
The Countess lifted airy brows.
“Indeed?”
The Marquis leaned closer to her.
“There is not,” he explained rapidly, “only Monsieur Murgier of the Sûreté to consider — the knowledge that he has been blundering after us for months — but the Wolf as well! An hour ago only, Francois picked up some gossip across the river, in some dive. The Wolf steals from his lair tonight questing the de Valois pearls! Do you understand? We must face double enemies — the net of Murgier, the fangs of the animal who sulks among the Apache brigands of the river front. And this is the task you give to set a crown upon my every hope!”
The Countess d’Yls touched his hand with her pretty fingers.
“Does the threat of Murgier and the presence of the Wolf pack dismay you?” she questioned lightly. “You, the undaunted! You who have been the hero of so many breathless adventures! Armand, you — you annoy me.”
De Remec stood.
“But this is different!” he cried. “Here I have something at stake more precious than gold or jewels — your promise! I... I tremble—”
The Countess laughed at his melodrama.
“Silly boy! We shall not fail — we will snatch the famous pearls from under the very noses of those who would thwart and destroy us. Voila! I snap my fingers at them all. Come now, it grows late. Had we not better start?”
The other glanced at his watch.
“Yes. Francois is waiting with the limousine—”
When they were side by side in the tonneau of the purring motor, the Countess glanced at the streaming windows and shivered.
“Soon it will be late spring,” she said quietly. “Soon it will be our privilege to rest city-weary eyes on the valley of the Var. I intend to open the Chateau in six weeks, mon ami. It will seem like heaven after the miserable winter and the rain, the rain!”
The car shaped a course west, then south. Paris lifted a gaudy reflection to the canopy of the frowning clouds, flashing past in its nightly pursuit of pleasure. The Countess eyed the traffic tide idly. Her thoughts were like skeins of silk on a loom that was slowly being reversed. She thought of Yesterday — of the little heap of jewels in the boudoir of the villa at Trouville that had been the scene of that week-end party, of herself stealing through the gloom to purloin them — of the Marquis bound on the same errand — of their meeting — surprise — their pact and the bold, triumphant exploits they had both planned and carried out.
The red lips of the Countess were haunted by a smile.
It had all been so easy, so exciting, so simple. True, the dreaded Murgier of the Law had pursued them relentlessly but they had always outwitted him, had always laughed secretly at his discomfiture, rejoicing together over their spoils.
Now, tonight, it was the de Valois pearls — that famous coil the woman had had strung in Amsterdam by experts. Tomorrow Madame de Valois would be bewailing its loss and the necklace — the necklace would be speeding to some foreign port, safe in the possession of the agent who handled all their financial transactions.
“The Wolf!” the Countess thought.