The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

by Otto Penzler

  The car in front had stopped before a lonely cottage whose thatched roof was clearly visible. In a flash the Saint was out of his own seat and walking silently up the lane towards it. When the next turn would have brought him within sight of the car, he slipped through a gap in the hedge and sprinted for the back of the house. In broad daylight, there was no chance of further concealment; and it was neck or nothing at that point. But his luck held; and so far as he could tell he gained the lee of his objective unobserved. And once there, an invitingly open kitchen window was merely another link in the chain of chance which had stayed with him so benevolently throughout that adventure.

  Rolfieri and the Naccaro team were already inside. He could hear the muffled mutter of their voices as he tiptoed down the dark passage towards the front of the house; and presently he stood outside the door of the room where they were. Through the keyhole he was able to take in the scene. Rolfieri, still safely trussed, was sitting in a chair, and the Naccaro brothers were standing over him. The girl Maria was curled up on the settee, smoking a cigarette and displaying a remarkable length of stocking for a betrayed virgin whose honour was at stake. The conversation was in Italian, which was only one language out of the Saint’s comprehensive repertoire; and it was illuminating.

  “You cannot make me pay,” Rolfieri was saying; but his stubbornness could have been more convincing.

  “That is true,” Naccaro agreed. “I can only point out the disadvantages of not paying. You are in England, where the police would be very glad to see you. Your confederates have already been tried and sentenced, and it would be a mere formality for you to join them. The lightest sentence that any of them received was five years, and they could hardly give you less. If we left you here, and informed the police where to find you, it would not be long before you were in prison yourself. Surely twenty-five thousand pounds is a very small price to pay to avoid that.”

  Rolfieri stared sullenly at the floor for a while and then he said: “I will give you ten thousand.”

  “It will be twenty-five thousand or nothing,” said Naccaro. “Come, now—I see you are prepared to be reasonable. Let us have what we ask, and you will be able to leave England again before dark. We will tell that fool Templar that you agreed to our terms without the persuasion of the soap, and that we hurried you to the church before you changed your mind. He will fly you back to San Remo at once, and you will have nothing more to fear.”

  “I have nothing to fear now,” said Rolfieri, as if he was trying to hearten himself. “It would do you no good to hand me over to the police.”

  “It would punish you for wasting so much of our time and some of our money,” put in the girl, in a tone which left no room for doubt that that revenge would be taken in the last resort.

  Rolfieri licked his lips and squirmed in the tight ropes which bound him—he was a fat man, and they had a lot to bind. Perhaps the glimpse of his well-fed corporation which that movement gave him made him realise some of the inescapable discomforts of penal servitude to the amateur of good living, for his voice was even more half-hearted when he spoke again.

  “I have not so much money in England,” he said.

  “You have a lot more than that in England,” answered the other Naccaro harshly. “It is deposited in the City and Continental Bank under the name of Pierre Fontanne; and we have a cheque on that bank made out ready for you. All we require is your signature and a letter in your own hand instructing the bank to pay cash. Be quick and make up your mind, now—we are losing patience.”

  It was inevitable that there should be further argument on the subject, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

  The cheque was signed and the letter was written; and Domenick Naccaro handed them over to his brother.

  “Now you will let me go,” said Rolfieri.

  “We will let you go when Alessandro returns with the money,” said Domenick Naccaro. “Until then, you stay here. Maria will look after you while I go back to the farm and detain Templar.”

  The Saint did not need to hear any more. He went back to the kitchen with soundless speed, and let himself out of the window by which he had entered. But before he left he picked up a trophy from a shelf over the sink.

  Domenick Naccaro reached the farmhouse shortly after him, and found the Saint reading a newspaper.

  “Rolfieri has-a marry Maria,” he announced triumphantly, and kissed the Saint on both cheeks. “So after all I keep-a da secret of my leedle trick wis-a da soap. But everyting we owe to you, my friend!”

  “I guess you do,” Simon admitted. “Where are the happy couple?”

  “Ha! That is-a da romance. It seems that Signor Rolfieri was always fond of Maria, and when he hear that she have-a da baby, and he see her again—presto! he is in love wis her. So now they go to London to get-a da clothes, queeck, so she can go wis him for da honeymoon. So I tink we drink-a da wine till they come back.”

  They spent a convivial morning, which Simon Templar would have enjoyed more if caution had not compelled him to tip all his drinks down the back of his chair.

  It was half-past one when a car drew up outside, and a somewhat haggard Rolfieri, a jubilant Alessandro Naccaro, and a quietly smiling Maria came in. Domenick jumped up.

  “Everything is all right?” he asked.

  “Pairfect,” beamed Alessandro.

  That was as much as the Saint was waiting to hear. He uncoiled himself from his chair and smiled at them all.

  “In that case, boys and girls,” he drawled, “would you all put up your hands and keep very quiet?”

  There was an automatic in his hand; and six eyes stared at it mutely. And then Domenick Naccaro smiled a wavering and watery smile.

  “I tink you make-a da joke, no?” he said.

  “Sure,” murmured the Saint amiably. “I make-a da joke. Just try and get obstreperous, and watch me laugh.”

  He brought the glowering Alessandro towards him and searched his pockets. There was no real question of anybody getting obstreperous, but the temptation to do so must have been very near when he brought out a sheaf of new banknotes and transferred them one-handed to his own wallet.

  “This must seem rather hard-hearted of me,” Simon remarked, “but I have to do it. You’re a very talented family—if you really are a family—and you must console yourselves with the thought that you fooled me for a whole ten days. When I think how easily you might have fooled me for the rest of the way, it sends cold shivers up and down my spine. Really boys, it was a rather brilliant scheme, and I wish I’d thought of it myself.”

  “You wait till I see you da next time, you pig,” said Domenick churlishly.

  “I’ll wait,” Simon promised him.

  He backed discreetly out of the room and out of the house to his car; and they clustered in the doorway to watch him. It was not until he pressed the starter that the fullest realisation dawned upon Signor Rolfieri.

  “But what happens to me?” he screamed. “How do I go back to San Remo?”

  “I really don’t know, Comrade,” answered the Saint callously. “Perhaps Domenick will help you again if you give him some more money. Twenty-five thousand quid instead of five years’ penal servitude was rather a bargain price, anyway.”

  He let in the clutch gently, and the big car moved forward. But in a yard or two he stopped it again, and felt in one of his pockets. He brought out his souvenir of a certain fortunate kitchen, and lobbed it towards the empurpled Domenick.

  “Sorry, brother,” he called back over his shoulder. “I forget-a da soap!”

  THE PULP ERA

  Villain: ?

  After-Dinner Story

  WILLIAM IRISH

  ARGUABLY THE GREATEST WRITER of suspense fiction of all time, Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich (1903–1968) was born in New York City, grew up in Mexico and New York, and was educated at Columbia University, to which he left his literary estate.

  Writing as Cornell Woolrich, William Irish, and George Hopley, he was a sad and
lonely man, pathetically dedicating books to his typewriter and to his hotel room. An alcoholic and almost certainly a closeted homosexual, Woolrich was so antisocial and reclusive that he refused to leave his hotel room when his leg became infected, ultimately resulting in its amputation.

  Not surprisingly, the majority of his work has an overwhelming darkness, and few of his characters, whether good or evil, have much hope for happiness—or even justice. Although his novels and stories require a good deal of suspension of disbelief, relying on an inordinate amount of coincidence, no twentieth-century author equaled Woolrich’s ability to create tension.

  Hollywood producers recognized the cinematic quality of his narratives of the everyday gone wrong, and few writers have had as many films based on their work as Woolrich has, including Convicted (1938), starring Rita Hayworth, based on “Face Work”; Street of Chance (1942), with Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor, based on The Black Curtain (1941); The Leopard Man (1943), with Dennis O’Keefe and Jean Brooks, based on Black Alibi (1942); Phantom Lady (1944), with Ella Raines and Alan Curtis, based on the novel of the same title (published in 1942); Deadline at Dawn (1946), with Susan Hayward, based on the novel of the same title (published in 1944); Rear Window (1954), with Grace Kelly and James Stewart, based on “It Had to Be Murder”; and sixteen others, including two directed by François Truffaut: The Bride Wore Black (1968), with Jeanne Moreau, based on the novel of the same title (published 1940); and Mississippi Mermaid (1969), with Catherine Deneuve, based on Waltz into Darkness (1947).

  “After-Dinner Story” was originally published in the January 1938 issue of Black Mask Magazine; it was first collected in After-Dinner Story (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1944).

  AFTER-DINNER STORY

  William Irish

  MACKENZIE GOT ON the elevator at the thirteenth floor. He was a water-filter salesman and had stopped in at his home office to make out his accounts before going home for the day. Later on that night he told his wife, half-laughingly, that that must have been why it happened to him, his getting on at the thirteenth floor. A lot of buildings omit them.

  The red bulb bloomed and the car stopped for him. It was an express, omitting all floors, both coming and going, below the tenth. There were two other men in it when he got on, not counting the operator. It was late in the day, and most of the offices had already emptied themselves. One of the passengers was a scholarly-looking man with rimless glasses, tall and slightly stooped. The time came when MacKenzie learned all their names. This was Kenshaw. The other was stout and cherubic looking, one of two partners in a struggling concern that was trying to market fountain pens with tiny lightbulbs in their barrels—without much success. He was fiddling with one of his own samples on the way down, clicking it on and off with an air of proud ownership. He turned out to be named Lambert.

  The car was very efficient looking, very smooth running, sleek with bronze and chromium. It appeared very safe. It stopped at the next floor down, the twelfth, and a surly-looking individual with bushy brows stepped in, Prendergast. Then the number 11 on the operator’s call board lit up, and it stopped there too. A man about MacKenzie’s own age and an older man with a trim white mustache were standing there side by side when the door opened. However, only the young man got on; the elder man gripped him by the arm in parting and turned away remarking loudly, “Tell Elinor I was asking for her.” The younger answered, “ ’Bye, Dad,” and stepped in. Hardecker was his name. Almost at the same time 10 was flashing.

  The entry from 11 had turned to face the door, as all passengers are supposed to do in an elevator for their own safety. MacKenzie happened to glance at the sour-pussed man with the bushy brows at that moment; the latter was directly behind the newest arrival. He was glaring at the back of Hardecker’s head with baleful intensity; in fact MacKenzie had never seen such a hundred-watt glower anywhere before except on a movie “heavy.” The man’s features, it must be admitted, lent themselves to just such an expression admirably; he had a swell head start even when his face was in repose.

  MacKenzie imagined this little by-play was due to the newcomer’s having inadvertently trodden on the other’s toe in turning to face forward. As a matter of fact, he himself was hardly conscious of analyzing the whole thing thus thoroughly; these were all just disconnected thoughts.

  Ten was still another single passenger, a bill collector judging by the sheaf of pink, green, and canary slips he kept riffling through. He hadn’t, by the gloomy look he wore, been having much luck today; or maybe his feet hurt him. This one was Megaffin.

  There were now seven people in the car, counting the operator, standing in a compact little group facing the door, and no more stops due until it reached street level. Not a very great crowd; certainly far from the maximum the mechanism was able to hold. The framed notice, tacked to the panel just before MacKenzie’s eyes, showed that it had been last inspected barely ten days before.

  It never stopped at the street floor.

  MacKenzie, trying to reconstruct the sequence of events for his wife that night, said that the operator seemed to put on added speed as soon as they had left the tenth floor behind. It was an express, so he didn’t think anything of it. He remembered noticing at this point that the operator had a boil on the back of his neck, just above his uniform collar, with a Maltese cross of adhesive over it. He got that peculiar sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach many people get from a too-precipitated drop. The man near him, the young fellow from the eleventh, turned and gave him a half-humorous, half-pained look, so he knew that he must be feeling it too. Someone farther back whistled slightly to show his discomfort.

  The car was a closed one, all metal, so you couldn’t see the shaft doors flashing up. They must have been ticking off at a furious rate, just the same. MacKenzie began to get a peculiar ringing in his ears, like when he took the subway under the East River, and his knee joints seemed to loosen up, trying to buckle under him.

  But what really first told him—and all of them—that something had gone wrong and this was not a normal descent, was the sudden, futile, jerky way the operator was wangling the control lever to and fro. It traveled the short arc of its orbit readily enough, but the car refused to answer to it. He kept slamming it into the socket at one end of the groove, marked Stop for all eyes to read, and nothing happened. Fractions of seconds, not minutes, were going by.

  They heard him say in a muffled voice, “Look out! We’re going to hit!” And that was all there was time for.

  The whole thing was a matter of instants. The click of a camera shutter. The velocity of the descent became sickening; MacKenzie felt as if he were going to throw up. Then there was a tremendous bang like a cannon, an explosion of blackness, and of bulb glass showering down as the light went out.

  They all toppled together in a heap, like a bunch of ninepins. MacKenzie, who had gone over backward, was the luckiest of the lot; he could feel squirming bodies bedded under him, didn’t touch the hard-rubber floor of the car at all. However, his hip and shoulder got a bad wrench, and the sole of his foot went numb, through shoe and all, from the stinging impact it got flying up and slapping the bronze wall of the car.

  There was no opportunity to extricate one’s self, to try to regain one’s feet. They were going up again—on springs or something. It was a little sickening too, but not as bad as the coming down had been. It slackened, reversed into a drop, and they banged a second time. Not with the terrific impact of the first, but a sort of cushioned bang that scrambled them up even more than they were already. Somebody’s shoe grazed MacKenzie’s skull. He couldn’t see it but quickly caught it and warded it aside before it kicked him and gave him a fracture.

  A voice near him was yelling, “Stop it! Cut it out!” half-hysterically, as though the jockeying up and down could be controlled. Even MacKenzie, badly frightened and shaken up as he was, hadn’t lost his head to that extent.

  The car finally settled, after a second slight bounce that barely cleared the spri
ngs under it at all, and a third and almost unnoticeable jolt. The rest was pitch darkness, a sense of suffocation, a commingling of threshing bodies like an ant heap, groans from the badly hurt and an ominous sigh or two from those even beyond groaning.

  Somebody directly under MacKenzie was not moving at all. He put his hand on him, felt an upright, stiff collar, and just above it a small swelling, crisscrossed by plaster. The operator was dead. There was an inertness that told MacKenzie, and the rubber matting beneath the operator’s skull was sticky.

  He felt then for the sleek metal wall of the enclosure that had buried them all alive, reached up it like a fly struggling up glass, with the heels of his hands and the points of his elbows. He squirmed the rest of his body up after these precarious grips. Upright again, he leaned against cold bronze.

  The voice—there’s always one in every catastrophe or panic—that had been pleading to “Cut it out!” was now begging with childish vehemence: “Get me outa here! For the love of Mike, I’ve got a wife and kids. Get me outa here!”

  MacKenzie had the impression it was the surly-looking follow with the bushy eyebrows. The probabilities, he felt, were all for it. Such visible truculence and toughness are usually all hollow inside, a mask of weakness.

  “Shut up,” he said, “I’ve got a wife too. What’s that got to do with it?”

  The important thing, he recognized, was not the darkness, nor their trapped position at the bottom of a sealed-up shaft, nor even any possible injuries any of them had received. But the least noticeable of all the many corollaries of their predicament was the most dangerous. It was that vague sense of stuffiness, of suffocation. Something had to be done about that at once. The operator had opened the front panel of the car at each floor, simply by latch motion. There was no reason why that could not be repeated down here, even though there was no accompanying opening in the shaft wall facing it. Enough air would filter down the crack between the jammed-in car and the wall, narrow though it was, to keep them breathing until help came. They were going to need that air before this was over.