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.
I thought that over and conceded to myself there might be something in it. Wolley scratched his graying head in silence. Crosher opened his mouth for the first time.
“It’s impossible,” he said. “What about the medical examiner? He would have noticed dehydration. If Cousin Karl had been on the verge of death from thirst, the medical examiner couldn’t have failed to notice it.”
“Right,” said Wolley emphatically. “Absolutely right. You’re screwy, Rex.”
“You all forget,” said Sackler, “that Capek was in that lodge for fourteen days. He had been dead three when he was found. Suppose he’d been deprived of water for a week. That’s enough to drive a man mad. But after he was mad there was no point in dealing with him. This Smith decided to kill him then. But he waited some four days before he did so. During those four days he gave Capek water and food. He did that so that the medical examiner wouldn’t know just what had happened.”
“If this Smith guy was so smart,” I said, “couldn’t he figure Capek might go nuts from lack of water?”
Sackler shook his head. “No. He thought Capek would give in to his demands before then. Besides, when Capek proved adamant, Smith got himself another idea. He figured out how to get the money even after Capek was dead.”
Wolley shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “Rex,” he said, “it won’t do. First, Capek had one hell of a lot of money. It seems reasonable to me that he’d be quite willing to surrender any amount of it to save his life, particularly if he was going mad for water.”
“Besides,” said Crosher, “how could he obtain a signed ransom note if Cousin Karl was dead?”
“I’ll answer the second question first,” said Sackler. “That’s where Benny Bagel came in. Faced with Capek’s point-blank refusal, our friend Smith cooked up a second idea. He decided, since Capek was going nuts, he’d have to kill him anyway. So he brought in Benny here.”
“Why?” said Wolley.
“My God,” said Sackler wearily, “are you that stupid? I told you Benny is a forger. The best in the business. Benny was going to sign Capek’s name to the note.”
“All right, then,” snapped Wolley. “So why didn’t he?”
“Because,” said Sackler slowly, “they couldn’t find anything to copy.”
“Couldn’t find what to copy?” shouted Wolley impatiently. “Rex, what the devil are you talking about?”
“To forge a signature, you must have an original to copy from. It’s a prime rule of the profession, isn’t it, Benny?”
“Listen,” said Benny Bagel in a low hoarse voice, “I want to see a lawyer. Where’s Colby?”
“Well, why couldn’t they find a signature of Capek’s to copy from? There must be plenty of them around the house somewhere,” Wolley stated.
“That,” said Sackler, “is where you’re wrong. There’s not a single signature of Karl Capek in existence.”
Wolley and Crosher gaped at him. But at this point something lit up in my brain.
“You mean he couldn’t write?”
“I’m glad someone got it at last,” said Sackler. “Capek couldn’t write. He was a proud man, a strong character and a man whose success had made him ashamed of his lack of education. Capek couldn’t write and there was only one person in all the world who shared his secret. That was Rawson.”
Wolley was half convinced. His brow was corrugated, his eyes shaded with deep thought. “How can you arrive at that conclusion, Rex?”
“Consider the circumstances. Capek never held a driver’s license. He never made a will. All his business, even his income-tax returns, was handled through Rawson’s power-of-attorney. In Capek’s desk I found a hundred documents, all in the same handwriting. That handwriting was Rawson’s. Consider again. Capek had no friends, no acquaintances, save Rawson. We know he came here from Middle Europe as a lad of seven. We know he never went to school. We know, further, that he was generous with his money. He’d made munificent endowments and donations, yet he wouldn’t spend any of it to save his life.”
“You mean,” I said, “that he died rather than admit he couldn’t write?”
“That’s my theory,” said Sackler. “Of all the statements I’m making this afternoon, that one will always have to remain a theory. But nothing else fits. It’s quite logical. It was Capek’s secret. No one knew it. He intended no one ever should. He wouldn’t admit it to Smith until thirst had driven him mad, probably too mad to know what the hell was going on. So Smith called in his forger and killed him.”
“Then,” I said, “he killed his own scheme because he couldn’t find any signature of Capek’s to copy.”
“True,” said Sackler, “but he did salvage a little from the wreck, didn’t he, Benny?”
Benny stared at Sackler in horror but he didn’t answer.
“Seeing all was lost,” continued Sackler, “our pal Smith embarked on a new plan. After Capek’s body and phony suicide note which Smith had typed with the dead man’s fingers, Smith was told by Rawson that Capek couldn’t write. Told today, in fact. That fact, once known, was dangerous. So Smith planned to murder Rawson, too. The afternoon before he killed him, he had Benny here forge his name to a check for a hundred thousand dollars. That cleaned out Rawson’s bank account.”
I might have known that Sackler would find out why he hadn’t got his twenty-five hundred and fifty bucks. Undoubtedly, he’d checked on that before anything else.
“Wait a minute,” croaked Benny Bagel, “you can’t prove that.”
Sackler smiled at him benignly. “The hell I can’t,” he said. “I called the bank. The last check that was presented was for something in excess of a hundred grand. That check is down at Wolley’s fingerprint bureau right now.”
“So what?” said Benny. “There’ll be a dozen sets of prints on it by now.”
“True,” said Sackler. “One of those sets will be yours, and what is equally important, none of them will be Rawson’s. Even you can’t forge a check with gloves on, Benny. And it’ll be conclusive proof of forgery if Rawson — the supposed maker of the check — hasn’t left his own fingerprint on it.”
“Well,” said Wolley grudgingly, “at last we’ve got some evidence instead of theory.”
Crosher coughed nervously. “Who is this Smith?” he said suddenly. “Why have you deliberately concealed the name of the killer? Who is it?”
Wolley spun around on his heel. He had been so engaged in trying to figure how Sackler could be wrong, he’d completely overlooked the minor fact of the killer’s identity.
“Of course,” he snapped. “Who did it? Who’s the mastermind? Who was working with Benny, here?”
Sackler suddenly looked acutely uncomfortable. He stared at the clock. I followed his gaze and noted it was exactly twelve minutes past three.
“Well,” said Wolley again. “Who is it? Is this whole thing a fairy story or do you know who it was?”
Sackler appeared more upset than he had a moment ago. In inverse ratio, Benny seemed to perk up a bit.
“Well,” said Sackler with obvious reluctance, “maybe it was Crosher, here. It’s quite possible that—”
Crosher’s mouth twisted suddenly. His eyes shone like pale blue ice. He took a step forward toward Sackler and his voice trembled as he spoke.
“Damn you!” he screamed. “Are you accusing me of killing my own flesh and blood? Are you saying that—”
“Pay no attention to him,” said Benny, and there was relief in his tone. “He knows nothing. It’s all wild guesswork. He can’t check anything he says. He—”
The doorbell sounded imperiously. Sackler took a deep breath. He lifted his head to heaven and said fervently: “Thank God! Joey, open the door!”