The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age--The '20s, '30s & '40s

by Otto Penzler

  The Kid said softly: “I’m quitting the racket, Cardigan. It’s lousy.”

  Cardigan looked at Sarlow. The lean-faced detective said:

  “Straight, Kid?”

  Joey Deth nodded. “Jeeze—yes,” he said bitterly. “I’m through.”

  Sarlow said: “Some rotten ones got hurt. And some others that were just pulled in. Maybe Lou Rands was one of those—”

  He checked himself. Cardigan swore. Berman pulled on his cigar and frowned.

  The Kid said: “I’m through. Make a fix and I’ll clear out—somewhere West—”

  Sarlow and Berman looked at Cardigan. The lieutenant of detectives nodded a little.

  “We might not get you on the other charges, Kid,” he said. “And some tough ones are done, out of the game. You gave us a break—and you showed up—”

  The Kid was thinking of Bess Grote. Things might have been different, he was thinking. And he knew that Sarlow was thinking of Lou Rands.

  “It’s a lousy racket—and I’m through,” he said again, slowly. “That’s straight.”

  Cardigan said: “How about Detective Williams? A bullet from that lunch-wagon where Old Andy was found dead has got him in the hospital. He’ll live, but—”

  Joey Deth cut in. His voice was emotionless.

  “Old Andy was trying to get me. I didn’t work a rod, Cardigan. I guess you know that. Two mobs hated me a lot—and they got tipped to my talk with Barney Nasser. Maybe Barney wasn’t sure about Lou Rands—maybe he thought he was framing him. He tried to get him—and lost out. Rands wanted me, so he tried to frame me. Charlie Gay closed in and mobbed Rands out. I got loose. Bess was playing safe—trying to give me a chance to get in the clear. That’s the way I figure it. Charlie used her for his alibi, but she was trying to make things smooth with Gil. She told me she’d seen him. She didn’t send me out back—and Gil gave her the dose. That was what I wanted to know—and I figured to shove her killer out. But I guess—”

  He stopped. There was a little silence. Berman said:

  “The Kid’s through, Cardigan. I know when they’re through—you can feel it.”

  Joey Deth said for the third time: “It’s a lousy racket.”

  Cardigan half closed his eyes. He sighed, nodded his head. He picked up the French phone and said in a tired voice:

  “Get me the D.A.’s office, will you? Yeah— it’s important. It’s about—Kid Deth.”

  The Sinister Sphere

  Frederick C. Davis

  MANY WRITERS for the pulps were extremely prolific, as they needed to be with pay rates that commonly were no more than one penny a word, but none more than Frederick C. Davis (1902-1977). He wrote about numerous characters, both under his own name, as Stephen Ransome, and, most famously, as Curtis Steele for the Operator 5 thrillers.

  In addition to nearly fifty full-length novels, Davis wrote more than a thousand short stories, producing more than a million words a year, but none were more popular than his series about the Moon Man—Stephen Thatcher, the policeman by day and a notorious robber by night.

  The son of the police chief, Sergeant Thatcher was utterly dedicated to helping those unable to handle the trials of America’s Great Depression, even if it meant breaking the law. In the tradition of Robin Hood, he stole from the wealthy to give to the poor.

  To keep his true identity a secret, Thatcher donned the most peculiar disguise in all of pulp fiction—not a mask, but a dome made of highly fragile oneway glass, fitted with a breathing apparatus that filtered air. The glass, known as Argus glass, was manufactured in France and was, at the time, unknown in the United States. As the perpetrator of innumerable crimes, he was the most-hunted criminal in the city, saving lives in equally impressive numbers along the way.

  There were thirty-nine adventures about the Moon Man, all published in Ten Detective Aces between June 1933 to November 1939. “The Sinister Sphere” is the first adventure of the character seen by Depression-era readers as a common man who became a hero.

  The Sinister Sphere

  Frederick C. Davis

  With a strange, uncanny knowledge

  the Moon Man selected his victims.

  Those victims had climbed rough-

  shod to power; some within

  the law, and others outside

  the pale. And the Moon Man

  called on them with a very

  definite and grim plan—

  for he walked in the eternal

  danger of a double menace.

  CHAPTER I

  THE MOON MAN

  IT WAS ROBBERY.

  The French door inched open. A figure crept through, into the dark room. It paused.

  It turned from side to side, as if looking around, a head that had no eyes, no nose, no mouth! From side to side it turned its head, a head that was a perfect sphere of silver! Mottled black markings covered the shining surface of the ball, reproducing the shaded areas of the full moon whose light streamed in through the windows.

  If the silent figure had any face at all, it was the face of the man in the moon!

  The silver, spherical head sat low on a pair of broad shoulders from which a long, black cape hung. A pair of black-gloved hands stole through slits in the sides of the cape.

  The dark room was not silent. From below came the soft strains of dance music, mingled with laughter and the rhythmic moving of feet on polished floor. It was midnight; the party was at its height. The man whose head was a globe of silver nodded as though pleased.

  He glided through the darkness across the room. At an inner door he drifted to a stop. He opened it carefully. The music became louder in the ears of him who had no ears. The hallway outside was empty. The cloaked figure closed the door and turned to the wall.

  He removed from its nail a mirror which hung between two doors, and disclosed the circular front of a safe. His black hand twirled the combination dial. He turned his moon head, listening alertly. He heard faint clicks. When he drew up, he turned the handle of the safe door and opened it.

  Locks meant little to him.

  Into the safe he thrust a black-gloved hand, and brought out a sheaf of banknotes. He drew them inside his cape. He closed the safe and twirled the combination.

  Suddenly a loud snap! … A flood of light drenched the room.

  The figure whirled.

  In the doorway stood a woman, her eyes widened with fright. She was forty and fat. She was wearing a spangled gown. Her one bejewelled hand dropped limply from the light-switch. She stood transfixed, staring at the figure with the silver head, and gasped:

  “Martin!”

  She had no need to call. Her husband was at her back. He stared over her shoulder, as startled as she.

  “The Moon Man!” he exclaimed.

  The man in the silver mask whirled toward the open French door.

  Martin Richmond, clubman, broker, man of position, was wiry and athletic. He leaped past his wife with one bound. He sprang toward the French windows with the intention of blocking the way of the grotesque thief. The Moon Man reached it at the same instant.

  Richmond flung up his arms to grapple with the intruder. He groped through empty air. An ebony hand, clenched into a fist, cracked against the point of Richmond’s chin.

  Richmond staggered, making a desperate attempt to clasp the man with the spherical head. His hand clutched a black one. Another thrust tumbled him backward. Something soft remained in his fingers as he sprawled. The Moon Man darted through the door slamming it shut behind him.

  The door opened on a balcony. Beneath it was twenty feet of empty space. The Moon Man leaped over the railing of the balcony, throwing himself into the void.

  Martin Richmond scrambled up. From below came a quick, smooth purr. He rushed onto the balcony and looked down. He saw nothing. The Moon Man was gone.

  “Call the police!” Richmond gasped as he sprang back into the room.

  He jerked to a stop and looked at the thing he had in his hand. It was a black sil
k glove.

  “We’ve been robbed!”

  The words came ringing over the wire into the ear of Detective Lieutenant Gil McEwen. He was perched at his desk, in his tiny office in headquarters. He clamped the receiver tightly to his ear.

  “Who’s talking?”

  “Martin Richmond, Morning Drive. The Moon Man robbed me. He got away!”

  “Coming right out!” snapped McEwen.

  He slammed the receiver on its hook and whirled in his chair to face a young man who was standing by the window. McEwen’s face was hard and wrinkled as old leather; the young man’s was smooth-skinned and clean-cut. McEwen’s eyes were gray and glittering; the young man’s were blue and warm. McEwen was fifty, hardened, by twenty years on the force; the young man was half his age, and had just been made a detective sergeant.

  He was Stephen Thatcher, son of Peter Thatcher, the chief of police.

  “Steve, it’s the Moon Man again!” the veteran detective snapped. “Come on!”

  “I’ll be damned!” said Steve Thatcher. “Can’t we do anything to stop his robberies?”

  “I’ll stop him!” McEwen vowed as he grabbed for the knob. “I’ll stop him if it’s the last thing I ever do!”

  He went out the office on a run. Steve Thatcher ran after him with long legs flexing lithely. They thumped down the wooden steps. They rushed into the adjoining garage. A moment later they swerved a police-car into the street and dashed away with the speedometer flickering around sixty.

  Martin Richmond’s residence on Morning Drive was five miles away. Gill McEwen made it in less than five minutes. With Steve Thatcher at his side he hurried to the front door and knocked very urgently. Martin Richmond himself opened it.

  The party was still going on. Couples were still dancing in the large room at the right. McEwen saw them through closed French doors, and followed Richmond into the library opposite. Richmond wasted no time.

  “My wife found the Moon Man in our room. He’d just finished robbing our safe. It was almost an hour ago.”

  “An hour ago? Why didn’t you call me sooner?” McEwen snapped. “By this time he’s crawled into a hole somewhere.”

  “I found that our phone wires were cut. I stopped to see how much had been stolen. Then I had to find a phone. It took some time to get my neighbors to get up and let me in. I called you as soon as I could.”

  “Let me see the bedroom,” McEwen ordered.

  He trod up the stairs with Steve Thatcher at his heels. Thatcher could well understand the veteran detective’s anger. The Moon Man had done this sort of thing repeatedly. He had committed robberies without number in his characteristic daring, grotesque way.

  The papers had been filled with his exploits. The police department had been absolutely unable to find a single clue pointing to his identity. He appeared like magic, robbed, and vanished.

  The papers and the police commissioners were howling for an arrest. The public was demanding protection against the mysterious thief. And the police were helpless. Steve Thatcher could well understand why Gill McEwen was in no amiable mood.

  McEwen paced about the bedroom. He examined the safe. He looked out the balcony. He ran downstairs and inspected the ground below. He came back red-faced and puffing.

  “He used a car. Driveway right below. Stopped the car under the balcony, climbed on the top of it, then swung himself up. Beat it the same way. Not a tire-mark or a footprint! Not one damn’ thing to tell who—”

  “Look at this!” said Martin Richmond quickly.

  He thrust the black silk glove toward McEwen. McEwen took it slowly, narrowed his eyes at it, and passed it to Steve Thatcher.

  “I pulled it off his hand as he was rushing out the door,” Richmond explained. “He—”

  “It’s a right glove,” McEwen interrupted. “The chances are he’s right-handed. Then he had to use his bare hand to open the door and make a getaway. The means he’s probably left a fingerprint on the knob!”

  He examined the knob. He could see nothing. Raising, he turned sharply on Steve Thatcher.

  “Beat it to a phone and get Kenton up. Tell him we’ve got to dust this knob right away— can’t wait. Get him up here quick!”

  Hours later Gil McEwen hunched over his desk in Headquarters peering at a photograph. It was a photograph of a door knob. On the knob was a clearly defined impression of a thumb. It was not the thumb-print of Martin Richmond, nor of Mrs. Richmond, nor of any one else in the burglarized house. McEwen had made sure of that.

  It was the thumb-print of the Moon Man!

  McEwen settled back in his chair exhaustedly, and peered into the face of Kenton, the fingerprint expert.

  “You’re absolutely sure that this print doesn’t match any in the files?”

  “Absolutely sure,” Kenton answered. “The thumb that made that print has never been recorded by any police department in the United States.”

  “Hell!” grunted McEwen. “Then it can’t tell us who the Moon Man is—yet. But when I find a guy whose thumb-print matches up with this one, I’ll collar him hard!”

  Kenton went out. Steve Thatcher settled into a chair.

  “We know, anyway, that the Moon Man is somebody who has no criminal record.”

  “Yeah, but he’ll soon have! The time’s coming when that guy’s going to make a slip. When I grab him, he’s going up the river on so many counts of robbery that he’ll never live to come out of prison. And I’ll grab him, all right—I’ll do it!”

  They looked toward an older man seated beside the desk. He was portly, with a kindly face and curly white hair. He was Chief Peter Thatcher. His were the keen eyes of a born law officer. His was the straight, stern mouth of a strict disciplinarian. He was a good chief, and at present he was a very worried one.

  “We’ve got to get the Moon Man, Gil,” he declared. “We’ve got to stop at nothing to get him.”

  “Listen!” McEwen said sharply. “I’ve been on the force twenty years. I’ve got a reputation. No crook has ever succeeded in getting away from me once I set out on his trail. I went to Brazil to get Doak, didn’t I—and I got him. I went to India to get Stephano, and I got him. I’m not going to let any smart aleck Moon Man make a fool out of me. I’ve sworn to get him, and I will!”

  Chief Thatcher nodded slowly. “The Police Board is clamoring for that bird’s hide. So are all the papers. We’ve got to grab the Moon Man somehow, Gil—and quick.”

  “Chief, you’ve got my promise. I’m not going to stop trying till I’ve grabbed him. Nothing’s going to keep me from it. And when I make a promise, I live up to my word.”

  “I know you do,” the chief said soberly. “I’m depending on you, Gil. It’s your case. It’s entirely in your hands.”

  Steve Thatcher looked solemn.

  “I haven’t been a detective long enough to be of much help,” he said quietly. “I wish to gosh I could do more. But you know you can count on me, Gil, for—”

  The door opened. A girl came in. She was twenty-two, pretty, animated. Her face resembled Gil McEwen’s strongly; she was his daughter. She greeted her father cheerfully, nodded to Chief Thatcher, and went quickly to Steve. She kissed him.

  On Sue McE wen’s third left finger glittered a solitaire. Steve had put it there. The wedding was not far off.

  “Baffled!” she exclaimed, surveying the disgruntled expressions of the three. “Aren’t the papers awful? You’d think the Moon Man was the greatest criminal of the age, the way—”

  “He is, as far as I’m concerned!” her father snapped. “Sue, we’re trying to get at the bottom of this thing. We’ll see you later.”

  “Why chase me out?” Sue asked with a smile. “Maybe I can help. Perhaps the thing you need is a little womanly intuition.”

  “Huh!” said her father. “You’re too eager to mix yourself up in police matters, Sue. I don’t think you can be of any help.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Sue insisted. “I would say, for instance, that the Moon Man must
be someone far above the level of an ordinary crook. He has more intelligence. He plans his moves cleverly. So far, he has always succeeded in getting what he wants, and making a clean getaway. Going through the Rogue’s Gallery would be only a waste of time. The man you want is well-bred, with a fine mind, good manners, and a broad social background.”

  “Trying to make a hero of him—a thief?” her father asked skeptically.

  “Not at all. After all, he is a thief, and stealing, besides being illegal, is revolting to anyone of sound character. The man deserves all the punishment you want to give him, Dad. I’m only suggesting the kind of a man he is—one whose character has been despoiled by the dishonorable business of robbery. There—have I helped?”

  “Not much. Now—”

  “How much did he steal this time?”

  “Six hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “Only six hundred and fifty?” Sue McEwen repeated in surprise. “Why, that pushes him even lower in the scale of thieves. He’s nothing but a petty pilferer!”

  The parsonage of the Congregational Church of Great City was located not far from the business district. The Reverend Edward Parker lived there alone. At nine o’clock on the night following the Moon Man’s latest exploit he heard a knock at his door. He opened it.

  A short, squatty man stood on the step. He had a twisted nose that evidently had once been broken in a fist-fight. He had a cauliflower ear. He had scarcely any neck. He nodded, and handed through the door a sealed envelope.

  “From a friend, for the needy of the parish,” he said.

  Immediately the Rev. Mr. Parker accepted the envelope, the pugilistic gentleman turned and walked away. The darkness swallowed him up. Dr. Parker opened the envelope. Inside it he found a bundle of banknotes. They were bound by a single band of silver paper, and they amounted to $250.

  Maude Betts was a widow with no work and three children. She lived in a tenement in the warehouse district of Great City. The stove in the kitchen was cold. There was no food in or on it. Her cupboard was bare. She was about to be evicted by a landlord who declared that the four months’ rent, past due, must be paid him at once. She was facing the county poor farm.