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.
Adventure was her meat and danger her dessert.
Gone were the hours of planning and fuming. Action loomed ahead on the danger trail! Ellen’s adventurous spirit leaped at the thought, confident, exultant!
Swiftly, yet noiseless as a night shadow, she gained the side of the window. A purr of voices came to her keen ears from within the building. A ragged shade was but partly drawn, and a view of the room was easily obtained.
Carefully avoiding the light which filtered through the panes, she looked within. She glimpsed three hooded figures seated at a table a few feet away. They were big fellows, but she could not see their features.
A rough table and several rickety chairs went to make up the furnishings of the bare room. There was a brown bottle and glasses on the table, and the men drank occasionally as they waited, conversing in low tones, inaudible to the watching girl. The Black Legion!
One man drinking more freely than the others was quite audible to Ellen’s straining ears.
“Say, Chenville,” he bellowed, maudlinly, “why not get things going and get ’em over with? No use waitin’ on the others. Old Gorsh always was a slow poke. He’ll hold the others up, and we won’t get this job done before daylight! I’m for—”
The one addressed as Chenville interrupted with a wave of a gloved hand, but Ellen couldn’t make out his words. She imagined he was reasoning with the other man. The latter laughed raucously, and poured another drink which he tossed off at a gulp.
“Yeah?” he sneered, loudly, wiping his loose mouth with the back of a gloved hand. “That’s what you say, Chenville! But I say different. I think we could do with less politics in this outfit. I never did like politics or politicians! They can’t be trusted! And when it comes time to do a little job, or a little bump, it ought to be hurried along. Waitin’ is only invitin’ trouble to come along! Now take this snoopin’ Cathern mug. He’s been here for hours, waitin’ for Gorsh to arrive, and superintend the job. He oughta been taken care of hours ago.”
Ellen tensed in the darkness.
Her hunch had been right!
Paul Cathern was in the hands of these men, awaiting a fate she knew not what, and with no hope of rescue save through her own efforts!
And the man’s words confirmed her belief that the politicians of the state machine were behind the depredations of the notorious Black Legion!
She saw no point in waiting and listening to further disclosures. Time was speeding; any moment might be too late! She must locate Paul Cathern, save him, and at the same time keep her true identity from him. There was no time to lose if her plans were to be carried out with half a chance for ultimate success!
She tested the catch of her automatic, gripped it firmly, and moved silently through the darkness toward the other side of the house.
Obviously the thing to do was to get to Cathern as quickly as possible. She found the window on the right side of the house without difficulty, paused and listened intently. She could hear the ticking of her tiny baguette in the stillness of the night.
The little adventuress removed a compact folding jimmy from her wrist bag, opened it into a slender sliver of steel. With this handy implement, she began jimmying the window. Using utmost caution, it required several pries to snap the cast-iron fittings. With the fifth effort, they snapped brittlely, and Ellen slid the window upwards.
“Say!” she called in a sibilant whisper. “Is anyone there?”
A slight, muffled groan was the only answer, but it sent a quick thrill through Ellen’s soft body. At the moment, she realized just how alarmed she had really been about the young special investigator!
It was but the work of an instant for her to swing herself upon the sill, and agilely lower herself into the interior of the darkened room. Then, a pencil flash gave her a glimpse of the bare confines of Cathern’s prison, and of the sleuth, himself.
Paul Cathern was tightly bound, a handkerchief mask over the upper part of his face, his mouth tightly sealed by a wide strip of adhesives. He had been tossed into a corner of the room to await torture and possible doom!
With a reassuring whisper, Ellen sank to her knees and labored at the cramping gyves. It required three minutes of concentrated effort to free his hands and feet, and a moment to remove the tape from his mouth. A word of thankfulness seeped from his lips as they were freed from the adhesive.
“You took a devil of a chance,” he whispered, grasping her arm, “in coming here like this. Those men were going to torture me — lash me — burn me with white-hot irons! I owe my life to you! I’m Paul Cathern, investigator with Sheriff Bonsill. Who’re you, anyhow?”
Ellen hesitated, briefly. “No time for introductions now,” she snapped. “But I can assure you I’m a friend! We must move fast! Everything’s clear at the moment. Let’s go!”
Abruptly, the little adventuress tensed in the darkness. Her hand went to Cathern’s lips as she caught and held her breath. A chair had scraped within the adjoining room, and heavy footsteps were approaching the connecting door!
Her nerves jerked taut as a hand twisted the knob and swung the portal halfway open, yellow lamplight streaming across the rough flooring of the room! The automatic bristled viciously, as she aimed it at the doorway and waited!
“Get away from that door, Lucas!” snapped someone whom Ellen imagined to be the leader, Chenville. The intruder swung about to face the giver of the command, while Ellen’s heart churned, madly. Would the drunken brute ignore the other man, and enter to discover her in the act of freeing her prisoner? What mercy might she expect at his hands if he did?
The queries were answered a moment later when the fellow turned again toward the prison room.
“Aw, nuts, Chenville!” he flung back over his massive shoulder. “I’m goin’ to see if the snooper’s okay, that’s all!”
Ellen’s finger tightened upon the trigger, her heart sinking as the big man lunged forward through the doorway!
Chapter Four
A Framer Framed
A coolness settled upon Ellen Patrick as she faced one of the most crucial situations of a lifetime of adventure.
Her lovely bosom rose and fell with her accelerated breathing beneath the black cape which she had tightly drawn about the white frock.
Great eyes were fixed in an unwinking stare upon the doorway. Her slender fingers trembled a little as they contacted the safety catch of the automatic to be sure it was down. She was prepared to shoot it out with the black-hooded devils, no matter what the ultimate outcome!
But the drink-drugged intruder was spared a quick end.
Chenville was evidently the man in charge, and a subordinate’s disregard of orders infuriated him. As Lucas came through the doorway, a heavy hand was clamped on his shoulder, and he was roughly jerked back into the other room.
A push sent the big man spinning across the floor.
“Damn you, Lucas!” snarled the leader, harshly.
“You’ll obey orders or take the consequences! I’m in charge here, and don’t forget it! One more funny move out of you, and you’ll get what Gorsh gives the others!” His outburst was cut short as he slammed the door behind him, leaving Ellen and the investigator in darkness again.
Ellen heaved an immense sigh of relief. “Whew! That was a bit too close for comfort!” she breathed, as she helped Paul Cathern to his feet.
“You said it!” agreed the sleuth, softly. “I thought for a moment we were goners. You’re one nervy little person.”
Paul Cathern staggered and would have fallen but for her steadying arm, so cramped were his limbs from long hours beneath the bindings.