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.
“All right, but tell me one thing more. If this cyanogen has prussic acid in it, it’s a deadly poison. Folks can’t usually buy it.”
“City folks, you mean. Cyanogen is the base for several insecticides. I don’t think this was pure cyanogen. I’m inclined to believe it was a diluted form, probably a gas used to kill rats on poultry farms. Any poultry raiser could buy that.”
“Here comes the coroner’s man,” announced Detective Dickinson. “Now, we’ll get a check on you, Mr. Quade.”
Dr. Bogle, the coroner’s physician, made a rapid, but thorough, examination of the body. His announcement coincided startlingly with Quade’s diagnosis.
“Prussic acid or cyanide. He inhaled it. Died inside of five minutes. About three and a half hours ago.”
Quade’s face was twisted in a queer smile. He walked off from the group. Charlie Boston and Anne Martin, the girl, followed.
“Do you mind my saying that you just performed some remarkable work?” the girl said admiringly.
“No, I don’t mind your saying so.” Quade grinned. “I was rather colossal.”
“He pulls those things out of a hat,” groused Boston. “He’s a very smart man. Only one thing he can’t do.”
“What’s that?”
Boston started to reply, but Quade’s fierce look silenced him. Quade coughed. “Well, look — a hot dog stand. Reminds me, it’s about lunch time. Feel like a hot dog and orangeade, Anne?”
The girl smiled at his familiarity. “I don’t mind. I’m rather hungry.”
Boston sidled up to Quade. “Hey, you forgot!” he whispered. “You haven’t got any money.”
Quade said, “Three dogs and orangeades!”
A minute later they were munching hot dogs. Quade finished his orangeade and half-way through the sandwich suddenly snapped his fingers.
“That reminds me, I forgot something. Excuse me a moment...” He started off suddenly toward the group around the incubator, ignoring Charlie Boston’s startled protest.
Boston suddenly had no appetite. He chewed the food in his mouth as long as he could. The girl finished her sandwich and smiled at him.
“That went pretty good. Guess I’ll have another. How about you?”
Boston almost choked. “Uh, no, I ain’t hungry.”
The girl ordered another hot dog and orangeade and finished them while Boston still fooled with the tail end of his first sandwich.
The concessionaire mopped up the counter all around Boston and Anne Martin and finally said, “That’s eighty cents, mister!”
Boston put the last of the sandwich in his mouth and began going through his pockets. The girl watched him curiously. Boston went through his pockets a second time. “That’s funny,” he finally said. “I must have left my wallet in the hotel. Quade...”
“Let me pay for it,” said the girl, snapping open her purse.
Boston’s face was as red as a Harvard beet. Such things weren’t embarrassing to Quade, but they were to Boston.
“There’s Mr. Quade,” said Anne Martin. “Shall we join him?”
Boston was glad to get away from the hot dog stand.
The investigation was still going on. Sergeant Dickinson was on his hands and knees inside the incubator. A policeman stood at the door of it and a couple more were going over the exterior.
Quade saluted them with a piece of wire. “They’re looking for clues,” he said.
The girl shivered. “I’d like it much better if they’d take away Exhibit A.”
“Can’t. Not until they take pictures. I hear the photographers and the fingerprint boys are coming down. It’s not really necessary either. Because I know who the murderer is.”
The girl gasped: “Who?”
Quade did not reply. He looked at the piece of wire in his hands. It was evidently a spoke from a wire poultry coop, but it had been twisted into an elongated question mark. He tapped Dickinson’s shoulder with the wire.
The sergeant looked up and scowled. “Huh?”
“Want this?” Quade asked.
“What the hell is it?”
“Just a piece of wire I picked up.”
“What’re you trying to do, rib me?”
Quade shrugged. “No, but I saw you on your hands and knees and thought you were looking for something. Thought this might be it.”
Dickinson snorted. “What the hell, if you’re not going to tell me who did the killing, let me alone.”
“O.K.” Quade flipped the piece of wire over a row of chicken coops. “Come,” he said to Boston and Anne Martin. “Let’s go look at the turkeys at the other end of the building.”
Boston shuffled up beside Quade as the three walked through an aisle. “Who did it, Ollie?”
“Can’t tell now, because I couldn’t prove it. In a little while, perhaps.”
Boston let out his pent-up breath. “If you ain’t the damnedest guy ever!”
Anne Martin said, “You mean you’re not going to tell Sergeant Dickinson?”
“Oh yes, but I’m going to wait a while. Maybe he’ll tumble himself and I’d hate to deprive him of that pleasure... What time is it?”
“I don’t know,” Boston said. “I lost my watch in Kansas City. You remember that, don’t you, Ollie?”
Quade winced. Boston had “lost” his watch in Uncle Ben’s Three Gold Ball Shop. Quade’s had gone to Uncle Moe in St. Louis.
“It’s twelve-thirty,” the girl said, looking at her wristwatch.
Quade nodded. “That’s fine. The early afternoon editions of the papers will have accounts of the murder and a lot of morbid folk will flock around here later on. That means I can put on a good pitch and sell some of my books.”
“I wanted to ask you about that,” said Anne Martin. “You answered some really remarkable questions this morning. I don’t for the life of me see how you do it.”
“Forsaking modesty for the moment, I do it because I really know all the answers.”
“All?”
“Uh-huh. You see, I’ve read an entire encyclopedia from cover to cover four times.”
Anne looked at him in astonishment. “An entire encyclopedia?”
“Twenty-four volumes... Well, let’s go back now. Charlie, keep your eyes open.”
“Ah!” Charlie Boston said.
Dr. Bogle’s men were just taking away the body of the murdered man. Sergeant Dickinson, a disgusted look on his face, had rounded up his men and was on the verge of leaving.
“Not going, Captain Dickinson?” Quade asked.
“What good will it do me to hang around?” snorted the sergeant. “Everyone and his brother has some phony alibi.”
“But your clues, man?”
“What clues?”
Quade shook his head in exasperation. “I told you how the murder was committed, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, sure, the guy locked the bloke in the incubator and tossed in the bottle of poison gas, then opened the ventilator and turned on the fans. But there were more than a dozen guys around and almost any one of them could have done it, without any of the others even noticing what he was doing.”
“No, you’re wrong. Only one person could have done it.”
A hush suddenly fell upon the crowd. Charlie Boston, tensed and crouching, was breathing heavily. The police sergeant’s face became bleak. Quade had demonstrated his remarkable deductive ability a while ago and Dickinson was willing to believe anything of him, now.
Quade stepped lazily to a poultry coop, took hold of a wire bar and with a sudden twist tore it off. Then he stepped to the side of the incubator.
“Look at this ventilator,” he said. “Notice that I can reach it easily enough. So could you, Lieutenant. We’re about the same height — five feet ten. But a man only five-two couldn’t reach it even by standing on his toes. Do you follow me?”