The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

by Penzler, Otto

  There was noise outside in the hall, but nobody showed at the open door. Too much casual lead had been flipped around.

  I went quickly over to Marty and leaned over him and got my hand into his breast-pocket. I got out a thick, square envelope that had something stiff and hard in it. I straightened up with it and turned.

  Far off the wail of a siren sounded faintly on the evening air, seemed to be getting louder. A white-faced man peeped cautiously in through the doorway. I knelt down beside Dravec.

  He tried to say something, but I couldn’t hear the words. Then the strained look went out of his eyes and they were aloof and indifferent, like the eyes of a man looking at something a long way off, across a wide plain.

  Carmen said stonily: “He was drunk. He made me tell him where I was going. I didn’t know he followed me.”

  “You wouldn’t,” I said emptily.

  I stood up again and broke the envelope open. There were a few prints in it and a glass negative. I dropped the plate on the floor and ground it to pieces with my heel. I began to tear up the prints and let the pieces flutter down out of my hands.

  “They’ll print plenty of photos of you now, girlie,” I said. “But they won’t print this one.”

  “I didn’t know he was following me,” she said again, and began to chew on her thumb.

  The siren was loud outside the building now. It died to a penetrating drone and then stopped altogether, just about the time I finished tearing up the prints.

  I stood still in the middle of the room and wondered why I had taken the trouble. It didn’t matter any more now.

  XII

  Leaning his elbow on the end of the big walnut table in Inspector Isham’s office, and holding a burning cigarette idly between his fingers, Guy Slade said, without looking at me:

  “Thanks for putting me on the pan, shamus. I like to see the boys at Headquarters once in a while.” He crinkled the corners of his eyes in an unpleasant smile.

  I was sitting at the long side of the table across from Isham. Isham was lanky and grey and wore nose-glasses. He didn’t look, act, or talk copper. Violets M’Gee and a merry-eyed Irish dick named Grinnell were in a couple of round-backed chairs against a glass-topped partition wall that cut part of the office off into a reception room.

  I said to Slade: “I figured you found that blood a little too soon. I guess I was wrong. My apologies, Mister Slade.”

  “Yeah. That makes it just like it never happened.” He stood up, picked a malacca cane and one glove off the table. “That all for me, Inspector?”

  “That’s all tonight, Slade.” Isham’s voice was dry, cool, sardonic.

  Slade caught the crook of his cane over his wrist to open the door. He smiled around before he strolled out. The last thing his eyes rested on was probably the back of my neck, but I wasn’t looking at him.

  Isham said: “I don’t have to tell you how a police department looks at that kind of a cover-up on a murder.”

  I sighed. “Gunfire,” I said. “A dead man on the floor. A naked, doped girl in a chair not knowing what had happened. A killer I couldn’t have caught and you couldn’t have caught— then. Behind all this a poor old roughneck that was breaking his heart trying to do the right thing in a miserable spot. Go ahead—stick it into me. I’m not sorry.”

  Isham waved all that aside. “Who did kill Steiner?”

  “The blonde girl will tell you.”

  “I want you to tell me.”

  I shrugged. “If you want me to guess— Dravec’s driver, Carl Owen.”

  Isham didn’t look too surprised. Violets M’Gee grunted loudly.

  “What makes you think so?” Isham asked.

  “I thought for a while it could be Marty, partly because the girl said so. But that doesn’t mean anything. She didn’t know, and jumped at the chance to stick a knife into Marty. And she’s a type that doesn’t let loose of an idea very easily. But Marty didn’t act like a killer. And a man as cool as Marty wouldn’t have run out that way. I hadn’t even banged on the door when the killer started to scram.

  “Of course I thought of Slade, too. But Slade’s not quite the type either. He packs two gunmen around with him, and they’d have made some kind of a fight of it. And Slade seemed genuinely surprised when he found the blood on the floor this afternoon. Slade was in with Steiner and keeping tabs on him, but he didn’t kill him, didn’t have any reason to kill him, and wouldn’t have killed him that way, in front of a witness, if he had a reason.

  “But Carl Owen would. He was in love with the girl once, probably never got over it. He had chances to spy on her, find out where she went and what she did. He lay for Steiner, got in the back way, saw the nude photo stunt and blew his top. He let Steiner have it. Then the panic got him and he just ran.”

  “Ran all the way to Lido pier, and then off the end of that,” Isham said dryly. “Aren’t you forgetting that the Owen body had a sap wound on the side of his head?”

  I said: “No. And I’m not forgetting that somehow or other Marty knew what was on that camera plate—or nearly enough to make him go in and get it and then hide a body in Steiner’s garage to give him room.”

  Isham said: “Get Agnes Laurel in here, Grinnell.”

  Grinnell heaved up out of his chair and strolled the length of the office, disappeared through a door.

  Violets M’Gee said: “Baby, are you a pal!”

  I didn’t look at him. Isham pulled the loose skin in front of his Adam’s apple and looked down at the fingernails of his other hand.

  Grinnell came back with the blonde. Her hair was untidy above the collar of her coat. She had taken the jet buttons out of her ears. She looked tired but she didn’t look scared any more. She let herself down slowly into the chair at the end of the table where Slade had sat, folded her hands with the silvered nails in front of her.

  Isham said quietly: “All right, Miss Laurel. We’d like to hear from you now.”

  The girl looked down at her folded hands and talked without hesitation, in a quiet, even voice.

  “I’ve known Joe Marty about three months. He made friends with me because I was working for Steiner, I guess. I thought it was because he liked me. I told him all I knew about Steiner. He already knew a little. He had been spending money he had got from Carmen Dravec’s father, but it was gone and he was down to nickels and dimes, ready for something else. He decided Steiner needed a partner and he was watching him to see if he had any tough friends in the background.

  “Last night he was in his car down on the street back of Steiner’s house. He heard the shots, saw the kid tear down the steps, jump into a big sedan and take it on the lam. Joe chased him. Half-way to the beach, he caught him and ran him off the road. The kid came up with a gun, but his nerve was bad and Joe sapped him down. While he was out Joe went through him and found out who he was. When he came around Joe played copper and the kid broke and gave him the story. While Joe was wondering what to do about it the kid came to life and knocked him off the car and scrammed again. He drove like a crazy guy and Joe let him go. He went back to Steiner’s house. I guess you know the rest. When Joe had the plate developed and saw what he had he went for a quick touch so we could get out of town before the law found Steiner. We were going to take some of Steiner’s books and set up shop in another city.”

  Agnes Laurel stopped talking. Isham tapped with his fingers, said: “Marty told you everything, didn’t he?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Sure he didn’t murder this Carl Owen?”

  “I wasn’t there. Joe didn’t act like he’d killed anybody.”

  Isham nodded. “That’s all for now, Miss Laurel. We’ll want all that in writing. We’ll have to hold you, of course.”

  The girl stood up. Grinnell took her out. She went out without looking at anyone.

  Isham said: “Marty couldn’t have known Carl Own was dead. But he was sure he’d try to hide out. By the time we got to him Marty would have collected from Dravec and moved on.
I think the girl’s story sounds reasonable.”

  Nobody said anything. After a moment Isham said to me:

  “You made one bad mistake. You shouldn’t have mentioned Marty to the girl until you were sure he was your man. That got two people killed quite unnecessarily.”

  I said: “Uh-huh. Maybe I better go back and do it over again.”

  “Don’t get tough.”

  “I’m not tough. I was working for Dravec and trying to save him from a little heartbreak. I didn’t know the girl was as screwy as all that, or that Dravec would have a brainstorm. I wanted the pictures. I didn’t care a lot about trash like Steiner or Joe Marty and his girl friend, and still don’t.”

  “Okay. Okay,” Isham said impatiently. “I don’t need you any more tonight. You’ll probably be panned plenty at the inquest.”

  He stood up and I stood up. He held out his hand.

  “But that will do you a hell of a lot more good than harm,” he added drily.

  I shook hands with him and went out. M’Gee came out after me. We rode down in the elevator together without speaking to each other. When we got outside the building M’Gee went around to the right side of my Chrysler and got into it.

  “Got any liquor at your dump?”

  “Plenty,” I said.

  “Let’s go get some of it.”

  I started the car and drove west along First Street, through a long echoing tunnel. When we were out of that, M’Gee said:

  “Next time I send you a client I won’t expect you to snitch on him, boy.”

  We went on through the quiet evening to the Berglund. I felt tired and old and not much use to anybody.

  Sally the Sleuth

  Adolphe Barreaux

  ADOLPHE BARREAUX (1899-1985) studied at the Yale School of Fine Arts and the Grand Central Art School. He created “Sally the Sleuth” for Spicy Detective, one of the sleaziest of the pulp magazines, in November 1934, with a little two-page strip titled “A Narrow Escape.” The material published in this pulp was generally produced by the worst writers of the era, mainly when they failed to sell their work to the better-paying, higher-end books. All the stories included illustrations of scantily clad women, frequently in bondage—all so racy that the magazines were kept under the counter at most newsstands and sold only to adults. These illustrations were provided by Majestic Studios, a tiny art shop owned by Barreaux from 1936 to 1953. He was also the owner of Trojan Publishing from 1949 to 1955. Although he worked for a few other pulps from the 1930s to the 1950s, most of his work went to Spicy, for which he drew the “Sally the Sleuth” strip until 1942, when other artists took it over. Barreaux went on to work for many of the major comic book publishers, including DC ("Magic Crystal of History”), Dell ("The Enchanted Stone”), Ace ("The Black Spider” and “The Raven”), and Fox ("Flip Falcon” and “Patty O’Day”).

  These episodes of “Sally the Sleuth” appeared in Spicy Detective.

  A Shock for the Countess

  C. S. Montanye

  CARLTON STEVENS MONTANYE (1892-1948), an active writer in the early years of pulpwood magazines, appears to have had an exceptional fondness for criminals as protagonists.

  Although he wrote for many different periodicals, he achieved the peak of any pulp writer’s career by selling numerous stories to Black Mask, beginning with the May 1920 issue and continuing through the issue of October 1939. Most were about various crooks, including an old-fashioned Monahan, a yegg, Rider Lott, inventor of the perfect crime, and the Countess d’Yls, an old-fashioned international jewel thief: wealthy, beautiful, brilliant, and laconic, the female equivalent of his most famous character, Captain Valentine, who made his Black Mask debut on September 1, 1923, with “The Suite on the Seventh Floor,” and appeared nine more times in two years, concluding with “The Dice of Destiny” in the July 1925 issue. The gentleman rogue was also the protagonist of the novel Moons in Gold, published in 1936, in which the debonair Valentine, accompanied by his amazingly ingenious Chinese servant Tim, is in Paris, where he has his eye on the world’s most magnificent collection of opals.

  Montanye was also one of the writers of the Phantom Detective series under the house name Robert Wallace.

  “A Shock for the Countess” first appeared in the March 1923 issue of Black Mask.

  A Shock for the Countess

  C. S. Montanye

  According to Joe Taylor, BLACK MASK’S own ex-bandit, the little unexpected things rather than the watchfulness of the authorities prevent a crook’s success. The Countess never heard of Joe Taylor, but, after her adventures in this story, she is of the same opinion.

  FROM THE TERRACES of the Chateau d’Yls, the valley of Var was spread out below Gattiere, threaded with the broad bed of the River Var, swirling over its stony reaches from its cradle in the Hautes-Alpes. The snow-crowned mountains frowned ominously down but in the valley summertime warmth prevailed—quietude disturbed only by the song of birds and the voice of the river.

  On the shaded promenade of the Chateau, the pretty Countess d’Yls stared thoughtfully at the unwinding river of the dust-powdered highway, twisting off into the dim distance. Beside her, a tall, well-built young man in tweeds absently flicked the ash from his cigarette and tinkled the ice in the thin glass he held.

  Once or twice he surreptitiously considered the woman who reclined so indolently in the padded depths of a black wicker chair. The Countess seemed rarely lovely on this warm, lazy afternoon.

  Her ash-blond hair caught what sunshine came in under the sand-colored awning above.

  Her blue eyes were dreamy and introspective, her red lips meditatively pursed. Yet for all of her abstraction there was something regal and almost imperious in her bearing; a subtle charm and distinction that was entirely her own.

  “I do believe,” the Countess remarked at length, “we are about to entertain visitors.”

  She motioned casually with a white hand toward the dust-filled road. The man beside her leaned a little forward. A mile or less distant he observed an approaching motor car that crawled up the road between clouds of dust.

  “Visitors?”

  The Countess inclined her head.

  “So it would appear. And visitors, mon ami, who have come a long way to see us. Observe that the machine is travel-stained, that it appears to be weighted down with luggage. Possibly it is our old friend Murgier,” she added almost mischievously.

  The face of the man in tweeds paled under its tan.

  “Murgier!” he exclaimed under his breath.

  The Countess smiled faintly.

  “But it is probably only a motoring party up from Georges de Loup who have wandered off the main road, Armand.”

  The man in tweeds had torn the cigarette between his fingers into rags. As if held in the spell of some strange fascination he watched the motor grow larger and larger.

  “There are men in it!” he muttered, when the dusty car was abreast the lower wall of the Chateau. “Four men!”

  The woman in the wicker chair seemed suddenly to grow animated.

  “Mon Dieu!” she said in a low voice. “If it is he, that devil!”

  The man she addressed made no reply, only the weaving of his fingers betraying his suppressed nervousness. The hum of the sturdy motor was heard from the drive, way among the terraces now.

  There was an interlude—voices around a bend in the promenade—finally the appearance of a liveried automaton that was the butler.

  “Monsieur Murgier, madame.”

  The man in tweeds stifled a groan. The Countess turned slowly in her chair.

  “You may direct Monsieur Murgier here, Henri.”

  The butler bowed and turned away. The man in tweeds closed his hands until the nails of them bit into the palms.

  “God!”

  The Countess laid a tense hand on his arm.

  “Smile!” she commanded.

  The Monsieur Murgier who presently sauntered down the shaded promenade of the Chateau was a tall, loose-jointed indiv
idual with a melancholy mustache and a deeply wrinkled face. A shabby, dusty suit hung loosely and voluminously about his spare figure. A soft straw hat was in one hand; he was gray at the temples.

  When he bowed over the slender fingers of the Countess there was a hidden glow in his somber eyes.

  “To be favored by the presence of the great!” the woman murmured softly. “Monsieur, this is an honor! May I make you acquainted with the Marquis de Remec?”

  She introduced the visitor to the man in tweeds, who bowed stiffly. Somewhere back around the corner of the promenade the drone of the voices of those who had been in the car sounded faintly.

  “A liqueur, m’sieu?” the Countess asked. “A cigar?”

  Her visitor shook his head, gazed on the peaceful panorama of the valley of the Var.

  “Thank you, no. My time is limited. My journey has been a long one and I must make a start for Paris with all due haste. You,” he explained courteously, “and the Marquis will put yourselves in readiness with as much rapidity as possible. You are both my guests for the return journey!”

  The man in tweeds whitened to the lips. His startled glance darted to the Countess. The woman had settled herself back in the black wicker chair again and had joined her fingers, tip to tip.

  “Accompany you to Paris?” she drawled. “Are you quite serious?”

  The wrinkled face of Monsieur Murgier grew inflexible, brass-like!

  “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 cafes 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.