The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

by Otto Penzler

  Another servant, who had started forward, stepped back into his corner. The man addressed as Kan-su took the bowl, knelt at the side of the girl, passed the steel band under her body and placed the bowl, bottom up, on her naked abdomen, tugging at the girdle till the rim of the bowl bit into the soft flesh. Then he snapped the lock fast, holding the bowl thus firmly in place by the locked steel belt attached to its two handles and passing round the girl’s waist. He rose, stood silent with folded arms.

  Fournet felt his flesh crawling with horror—and all this time Lily had said not one word, though the tight girdle, the pressure of the circular rim of the bowl, must have been hurting her cruelly.

  But now she spoke, bravely.

  “Do not give way, André,” she said. “I can bear it—it does—it does not hurt!”

  “God!” yelled André Fournet, still fighting vainly against those clutching yellow hands.

  “It does not hurt!” the mandarin echoed the girl’s last words. “Well, perhaps not. But we will take it off, notwithstanding. We must be merciful.”

  At his order the servant removed the bowl and girdle. An angry red circle showed on the white skin of the girl’s abdomen where the rim had rested.

  “And still I do not think you understand, Mademoiselle and Monsieur,” he went on. “For presently we must apply the bowl again—and when we do, under it we will put—this!”

  With a swift movement of his arm he snatched from the servant in the corner the wire cage and held it up to the sunlight.

  The eyes of Fournet and Lily fixed themselves upon it in horror. For within, plainly seen now, moved a great grey rat—a whiskered, beady-eyed, restless, scabrous rat, its white chisel-teeth shining through the mesh.

  “Dieu de Dieu!” breathed Fournet. His mind refused utterly to grasp the full import of the dreadful fate that was to be Lily’s; he could only stare at the unquiet rat—stare—stare…

  “You understand now, I am sure,” purred the mandarin. “The rat under the bowl—observe the bottom of the bowl, note the little flange. Here we put the hot charcoal—the copper becomes heated—the heat is overpowering—the rat cannot support it—he has but one means of escape: he gnaws his way out through the lady’s body! And now about that outpost, Lieutenant Fournet?”

  “No—no—no!” cried Lily. “They will not do it—they are trying to frighten us—they are human; men cannot do a thing like that. Be silent, André, be silent, whatever happens; don’t let them beat you! Don’t let them make a traitor of you! Ah—”

  At a wave from the mandarin, the servant with the bowl again approached the half-naked girl. But this time the man with the cage stepped forward also. Deftly he thrust in a hand, avoided the rat’s teeth, jerked the struggling vermin out by the scruff of the neck.

  The bowl was placed in position. Fournet fought desperately for freedom—if only he could get one arm clear, snatch a weapon of some sort!

  Lily gave a sudden little choking cry.

  The rat had been thrust under the bowl.

  Click! The steel girdle was made fast—and now they were piling the red-hot charcoal on the upturned bottom of the bowl, while Lily writhed in her bonds as she felt the wriggling, pattering horror of the rat on her bare skin, under that bowl of fiends.

  One of the servants handed a tiny object to the impassive mandarin.

  Yuan Li held it up in one hand.

  It was a little key.

  “This key, Lieutenant Fournet,” he said, “unlocks the steel girdle which holds the bowl in place. It is yours—as a reward for the information I require. Will you not be reasonable? Soon it will be too late!”

  Fournet looked at Lily. The girl was quiet now, had ceased to struggle; her eyes were open, or he would have thought she had fainted.

  The charcoal glowed red on the bottom of the copper bowl. And beneath its carved surface, Fournet could imagine the great grey rat stirring restlessly, turning around, seeking escape from the growing heat, at last sinking his teeth in that soft white skin, gnawing, burrowing desperately…

  God!

  His duty—his flag—his regiment—France! Young Sous-lieutenant Pierre Desjardins—gay young Pierre—and twenty men, to be surprised and massacred horribly, some saved for the torture, by an overwhelming rush of bandit-devils, through his treachery? He knew in his heart that he could not do it.

  He must be strong—he must be firm.

  If only he might suffer for Lily—gentle, loving little Lily, brave little Lily who had never harmed a soul.

  Loud and clear through the room rang a terrible scream.

  André, turning in fascinated horror, saw that Lily’s body, straining upward in an arc from the rug, was all but tearing asunder the bonds which held it. He saw, what he had not before noticed, that a little nick had been broken from one edge of the bowl—and through this nick and across the white surface of the girl’s heaving body was running a tiny trickle of blood!

  The rat was at work.

  Then something snapped in André’s brain. He went mad.

  With the strength that is given to madmen, he tore loose his right arm from the grip that held it—tore loose, and dashed his fist into the face of the guard. The man with the club sprang forward unwarily; the next moment André had the weapon, and was laying about him with berserk fury. Three guards were down before Wang drew his sword and leaped into the fray.

  Wang was a capable and well-trained soldier. It was cut, thrust, and parry for a moment, steel against wood—then Wang, borne back before that terrible rush, had the reward of his strategy.

  The two remaining guards, to whom he had signalled, and a couple of the servants flung themselves together on Fournet’s back and bore him roaring to the floor.

  The girl screamed again, shattering the coarser sounds of battle.

  Fournet heard her—even in his madness he heard her. And as he heard, a knife hilt in a servant’s girdle met his hand. He caught at it, thrust upward savagely: a man howled; the weight on Fournet’s back grew less; blood gushed over his neck and shoulders. He thrust again, rolled clear of the press, and saw one man sobbing out his life from a ripped-open throat, while another, with both hands clasped over his groin, writhed in silent agony upon the floor.

  André Fournet, gathering a knee under him, sprang like a panther straight at the throat of Wang the captain.

  Down the two men went, rolling over and over on the floor. Wang’s weapons clashed and clattered—a knife rose, dripping blood, and plunged home.

  With a shout of triumph André Fournet sprang to his feet, his terrible knife in one hand, Wang’s sword in the other.

  Screaming, the remaining servants fled before that awful figure.

  Alone, Yuan Li the mandarin faced incarnate vengeance.

  “The key!”

  Hoarsely Fournet spat out his demand; his reeling brain had room for but one thought:

  “The key, you yellow demon!”

  Yuan Li took a step backward into the embrasured window, through which the jasmine-scented afternoon breeze still floated sweetly.

  The palace was built on the edge of a cliff; below that window ledge, the precipice fell a sheer fifty feet down to the rocks and shallows of the upper Mephong.

  Yuan Li smiled once more, his calm unruffled.

  “You have beaten me, Fournet,” he said, “yet I have beaten you, too. I wish you joy of your victory. Here is the key.” He held it up in his hand; and as André sprang forward with a shout, Yuan Li turned, took one step to the window ledge, and without another word was gone into space, taking the key with him.

  Far below he crashed in red horror on the rocks, and the waters of the turbulent Mephong closed forever over the key to the copper bowl.

  Back sprang André—back to Lily’s side. The blood ran no more from under the edge of the bowl; Lily lay very still, very cold…

  God! She was dead!

  Her heart was silent in her tortured breast.

  André tore vainly at the bowl, the steel gi
rdle—tore with bleeding fingers, with broken teeth, madly—in vain.

  He could not move them.

  And Lily was dead.

  Or was she? What was that?

  In her side a pulse beat—beat strongly and more strongly…

  Was there still hope?

  The mad Fournet began chafing her body and arms.

  Could he revive her? Surely she was not dead—could not be dead!

  The pulse still beat—strange it beat only in one place, on her soft white side, down under her last rib.

  He kissed her cold and unresponsive lips.

  When he raised his head the pulse had ceased to beat. Where it had been, blood was flowing sluggishly—dark venous blood, flowing in purple horror.

  And from the midst of it, out of the girl’s side, the grey, pointed head of the rat was thrusting, its muzzle dripping gore, its black eyes glittering beadily at the madman who gibbered and frothed above it.

  So, an hour later, his comrades found André Fournet and Lily his beloved—the tortured maniac keening over the tortured dead.

  But the grey rat they never found.

  POST–WORLD WAR II

  Rogue: Ed Jenkins

  The Cat-Woman

  ERLE STANLEY GARDNER

  THE AMAZINGLY PROLIFIC Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) created countless series characters for the pulp magazines before he wrote his first Perry Mason novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933). He had studied law on his own and never got a degree, but passed the bar exam in 1911, practicing for about a decade. He made little money, so he started to write fiction, selling his first mystery to a pulp magazine in 1923. For the next decade, he published approximately 1.2 million words a year, the equivalent of a full-length novel every three weeks.

  Mason, the incorruptible lawyer, went on to become the bestselling mystery character in American literature, with three hundred million copies sold of more than eighty novels (though Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer outsold him on a per-book basis). The books inspired the Perry Mason television series that starred Raymond Burr for nine hugely successful years (1957–1966), which had followed on the heels of the equally popular radio series that ran from 1943 to 1955.

  Gardner found popular success with virtually everything he wrote, including the stories about Ed Jenkins, known as the Phantom Crook, whose adventures appeared in the prestigious Black Mask magazine. A master of disguise and con artist, Jenkins was a self-confessed “outlaw, desperado, and famous lone wolf.” He worked both as a detective and as a crook, frequently informing on his fellow criminals—always for the sole purpose of enriching himself.

  “The Cat-Woman” was originally published in the February 1927 issue of Black Mask; it was first collected in Dead Men’s Letters (New York, Carroll & Graf, 1990).

  THE CAT-WOMAN

  Erle Stanley Gardner

  BIG BILL RYAN slid his huge bulk into the vacant chair opposite my own and began toying with the heavy watch chain which stretched across the broad expanse of his vest.

  “Well,” I asked, showing only mild annoyance, for Big Ryan had the reputation of never wasting time, his own or anyone else’s.

  “Ed, I hear you’ve gone broke. I’ve got a job for you.”

  He spoke in his habitual, thin, reedy voice. In spite of his bulk his mouth was narrow and his tone shrill. However, I fancied I could detect a quiver of excitement underlying his words, and I became cold. News travels fast in the underworld. He knew of my financial setback as soon as I did, almost. My brokers had learned my identity—that I was a crook, and they had merely appropriated my funds. They were reputable business men. I was a crook. If I made complaint the courts would laugh at me. I’ve had similar experiences before. No matter how honest a man may appear he’ll always steal from a crook—not from any ethical reasons, but because he feels he can get away with it.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked Ryan, not affirming or denying the rumor concerning my financial affairs.

  His pudgy fingers seemed to be fairly alive as he twisted and untwisted the massive gold chain.

  “It’s just a message,” he said, at length, and handed me a folded slip of paper.

  I looked it over. It was a high class of stationery, delicately perfumed, bearing a few words in feminine handwriting which was as perfect and characterless as copper plate.

  “Two hours after you get this message meet me at Apartment 624, Reedar Arms Apartments. The door will be open.

  H. M. H.”

  I scowled over at Ryan and shook my head. “I’ve walked into all the traps I intend to, Ryan.”

  His little, pig eyes blinked rapidly and his fingers jammed his watch chain into a hard knot.

  “The message is on the square, Ed. I can vouch for that. What the job will be that opens up I can’t tell. You’ll have to take the responsibility of that; but there won’t be any police trap in that apartment.”

  I looked at the note again. The ink was dark. Evidently the words had been written some little time ago. The message did not purport to be to anyone in particular. Big Ryan was a notorious fence, a go-between of crooks. Apparently he had been given the note with the understanding that he was to pick out the one to whom it was to be delivered. The note would clear his skirts, yet he must be in on the game. He’d have to get in touch with the writer after he made a delivery of the note so that the time of the appointment would be known.

  I reached a decision on impulse, and determined to put Ryan to the test. “All right, I’ll be there.”

  I could see a look of intense relief come over his fat face. He couldn’t keep back the words. “Bully for you, Ed Jenkins!” he shrilled. “After I heard you were broke I thought I might get you. You’re the one man who could do it. Remember, two hours from now,” and, with the words, he pulled out his turnip watch and carefully checked the time. Then he heaved up from the chair and waddled toward the back of the restaurant.

  I smiled to myself. He was going to telephone “H. M. H.” and I filed that fact away for future reference.

  Two hours later I stepped from the elevator on the sixth floor of the Reedar Arms Apartments, took my bearings and walked directly to the door of 624. I didn’t pause to knock but threw the door open. However, I didn’t walk right in, but stepped back into the hallway.

  “Come in, Mr. Jenkins,” said a woman’s voice.

  The odor of incense swirled out into the hall, and I could see the apartment was in half-light, a pink light which came through a rose-colored shade. Ordinarily I trust the word of no man, but I was in desperate need of cash, and Big Bill Ryan had a reputation of being one who could be trusted. I took a deep breath and walked into the apartment, closing the door after me.

  She was sitting back in an armchair beneath a rose-shaded reading lamp, her bare arm stretched out with the elbow resting on a dark table, the delicate, tapering fingers holding a long, ivory cigarette holder in which burned a half-consumed cigarette. Her slippered feet were placed on a stool and the light glinted from a well-proportioned stretch of silk stocking. It was an artistic job, and the effect was pleasing. I have an eye for such things, and I stood there for a moment taking in the scene, appreciating it. And then I caught the gaze of her eyes.

  Cat eyes she had; eyes that seemed to dilate and contract, green eyes that were almost luminous there in the half-light.

  I glanced around the apartment, those luminous, green eyes studying me as I studied the surroundings. There was nothing at all in the apartment to suggest the personality of such a woman. Everything about the place was suggestive merely of an average furnished apartment. At the end of the room, near the door of a closet, I saw a suitcase. It merely confirmed my previous suspicion. The woman had only been in that apartment for a few minutes. She rented the place merely as a meeting ground for the crook she had selected to do her bidding. When Big Bill Ryan had picked a man for her, he had telephoned her and she had packed her negligee in the suitcase and rushed to the apartment.

  She gave a li
ttle start and followed my gaze, then her skin crinkled as her lips smiled. That smile told me much. The skin seemed hard as parchment. She was no spring chicken, as I had suspected from the first.

  The cat-woman shrugged her shoulders, reached in a little handbag and took out a blue-steel automatic which she placed on the table. Then she hesitated, took another great drag at the cigarette and narrowed her eyes at me.

  “It is no matter, Mr. Jenkins. I assure you that my desire to conceal my identity, to make it appear that this was my real address, was to protect myself only in case I did not come to terms with the man Ryan sent. We had hardly expected to be able to interest a man of your ability in the affair, and, now that you are here, I shan’t let you go, so there won’t be any further need of the deception. I will even tell you who I am and where I really live—in a moment.”

  I said nothing, but watched the automatic. Was it possible she knew so little about me that she fancied I could be forced to do something at the point of a pistol?

  As though she again read my mind, she reached into the handbag and began taking out crisp bank notes. They were of five-hundred-dollar denomination, and there were twenty of them. These she placed on the table beside the gun.

  “The gun is merely to safeguard the money,” she explained with another crinkling smile. “I wouldn’t want you to take the cash without accepting my proposition.”

  I nodded. As far as possible I would let her do the talking.

  “Mr. Jenkins, or Ed, as I shall call you now that we’re acquainted, you have the reputation of being the smoothest worker in the criminal game. You are known to the police as The Phantom Crook, and they hate, respect, and fear you. Ordinarily you are a lone wolf, but because you are pressed for ready cash, I think I can interest you in something I have in mind.”

  She paused and sized me up with her cat-green eyes. If she could read anything on my face she could have read the thoughts of a wooden Indian.