The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

by Penzler, Otto

  Then, taking a tight grip on her little automatic, she crept in.

  The house was a black tomb—silent. She stood still until her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Gradually she saw the details of a staircase leading to the second floor. She moved toward it. She went up the steps, one after another. And suddenly she stopped.

  A board creaked under her foot.

  Ned Dargan stood stock still in the darkness of the room which was the rendezvous of the Moon Man. He had heard that creak. A second later he heard another. His hand slipped into his coat pocket and came out grasping a gun. He turned slowly.

  Stealing toward the closed door which communicated with the hallway, he listened. He heard no sound now. He wondered if the creaks had been caused by the loose boards warping back into place after being strained by his own weight. He decided he had better make sure. He opened the door stealthily, and stepped into the hallway.

  Every nerve alert, he walked to the head of the stairs. He went down them slowly. The boards creaked again as he crossed them. He went on.

  Again those sounds served as a signal. Sue McEwen heard them. She was hidden behind the door of a room directly across from that which Ned Dargan had just left. Realizing that the creaking of the board under her feet might have been heard, she had hastened along the hallway and slipped into the front room just as Dargan had opened the rear one. Now, seeing the way clear, she crept back into the hall.

  She crossed it. She opened the door of the room which Dargan had left—the hidden headquarters of the Moon Man. She slipped inside and looked around. It was bare. It was musty. It looked unpromising; but Sue McEwen was tantalized by the mystery of what was happening.

  She gasped. From the hallway again came creaks. The man she had seen enter the house was returning to the upper hallway. Even as she turned, Sue McEwen heard his step toward the door she had just entered.

  She turned quickly away from that door. She hurried across to another, which apparently communicated with a room beyond; but it balked her. It was locked. She whirled again. In a corner she saw a closet. She jerked open its door. It was empty. She sidled inside and closed the door upon herself.

  At that instant she heard a step in the room. The man had come back. He was standing within a few yards of her now—unaware of her presence. She stood straight, her tiny automatic leveled. She was determined to wait—and listen—and learn.

  Now she was going to see what connection all this had with the Moon Man. Now, perhaps, she might even learn who the Moon Man was.

  CHAPTER V

  IN DEAD OF NIGHT

  Faintly the sound of a tolling gong came into the library of Kent Atwell. Twelve slow strikes— midnight.

  Gil McEwen, hidden in the closet, heard the trembling beats. Steve Thatcher, in a room directly above, listened to them and smiled.

  He silently opened the door of the bedroom which had been assigned to him. He stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Along each wall of the hall was a row of such doors, all closed. Behind one of them was Kent Atwell himself. Behind the others were detectives.

  Steve Thatcher crept to the nearest door. Beneath its knob the handle of a key protruded—outward. Very slowly he turned it— without a sound. And he smiled. While making the rounds of the house he had carefully removed the keys from the inside of the bedroom doors and placed them on the outside. He passed up and down the hallway silently as a ghost. At each door he turned a key.

  Now one millionaire and four detectives were securely locked in their rooms—and did not know it!

  Steve Thatcher crept down the front stairs into the vestibule. Again he locked a door and imprisoned another detective. He crept to the rear hallway and made a captive of another sleuth. So far he had contrived to imprison every man save Gil McEwen.

  Steve Thatcher drew the bolt of the rear entrance, slipped outside, and hurried toward the street. At the car left by Gargan, he stopped. He unlocked the rumble compartment and from it removed a black bundle. Then, quickly, he returned to the rear door of the house.

  Pausing, he drew on his long, black cloak and pulled on his black silk gloves. He placed on his head the glass mask modeled as a moon. It was padded inside so that it sat firmly on his head. A deflecting plate, which came into position over his nose and mouth, sent his breath downward and out, so that it would not fog the glass and blind him. He was ready.

  He stealthily opened the rear door and let himself in. Through the glass he could see as clearly as though there was nothing on his head. He trod up the rear stairs, along the hallway, then down the front flight into the vestibule. Outside the unlocked door of the library he paused.

  Gil McEwen, he knew, was inside—waiting.

  The Moon Man laid his black hand on the knob of the library door. He twisted it. He eased the door open and peered through the narrow crack. Within six feet of him, though unseen, sat Gil McEwen.

  McEwen’s closet door was partly open, but he could see only the wall opposite, the wall in which the safe was set. He could not see the door opening slowly under pressure of the Moon Man’s hand. He heard not the slightest sound. The Moon Man drifted into the room.

  The black-cloaked figure flattened itself against the wall. It moved toward the closet door with one arm outstretched. The other arm also moved—toward a light chair. The Moon Man picked it up. His body tensed.

  Suddenly he sprang. He struck the closet door and slammed it shut. Instantly he braced the chair under the knob. A startled cry came from behind the door. The knob rattled. From inside McEwen pushed—hard. The door would not open. The tilted chair wedged it firmly in place.

  “By damn!” rang through the panels.

  The Moon Man turned away quickly as the door shook. McEwen was throwing himself against it. From the black space within came another muffled cry:

  “Get him! Carter! Landon! Winninger! Carpen! Go after him!”

  The sound of McE wen’s furious voice carried through the walls. Quick movements sounded upstairs. Knobs rattled. Across the lower hallway two more knobs rattled. Upstairs and down six imprisoned detectives and one imprisoned millionaire cursed.

  And the Moon Man chuckled.

  Suddenly the report of a gun blasted with a hollow sound. Splinters flew from a panel of McE wen’s closet. A bullet hissed across the room and shattered a window pane on the opposite side. The shattered glass fell very close to the position of the wall-safe.

  “No use, McEwen!” the man in the silver mask exclaimed. “I’ve already got it!”

  McEwen snarled; and he did not fire again. He flung himself against the door. It literally bulged under the impact of his body. The Moon Man heard the wood of the chair crack. He hurried to the wall-safe.

  He grasped the four books and flung them away. He snapped open the door of the safe. He snatched out the sheaf of banknotes. They disappeared through a slit in the side of his cape.

  The closet door thumped again. This time it gave a little more. Upstairs men were pounding and cursing. Bedlam filled the house. And once more McEwen crashed against the inside of the closet door.

  The Moon Man hurried into the vestibule. He jerked open the front door and sped along the walk to the street. He ducked behind the car and with quick movements divested himself of his costume. Cloak, gloves and glass mask went into the rumble compartment. The next instant Steve Thatcher’s hands went to the wheel.

  A shot rang sharply near the house. A bullet whizzed through the air. Steve Thatcher jerked a glance backward to see one of the lower windows opening, and a plain-clothes man leaping through—after him. Steve’s motor roared. He slammed into gear and spurted away.

  Another shot. Another. Then Steve Thatcher sent the coupe swerving around the corner—and he was out of range.

  In the library a splintering crash sounded. A panel of the closet door cracked out under the terrible impact of Gil McEwen’s hard shoulder. He reached through the opening, snatched the chair away, slammed out.

  He heard the
shots outside the house. He went out the front door at almost a single leap. The plainclothes man with the smoking gun saw him and shouted:

  “He’s getting away in that car!”

  McEwen whirled like a top. He sped toward the edge of the Atwell grounds and crashed through the hedge with a flying leap. As fast as his legs could swing he ran toward the driveway in which the police cars had been left. There he stopped short and cursed.

  The sedan was farthest back in the driveway. Steve Thatcher’s roadster was behind it, blocking the way out! McEwen hurried to it—and saw that the ignition was locked! He spun back furiously, slipped behind the wheel of the sedan, and started the motor. With an utter disregard for law and garden, he spurted off around the opposite side of the house, jounced off the curb, twisted the wheel madly, and pressed the gas pedal against the floorboards.

  The tires whined as he wrenched the car around the corner. Far away he saw a gleam of red—the tail-light of another car traveling at high speed. McEwen’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. At the next corner he turned again; at the next, again. Running then along a street parallel with the fleeing coupe, he let the motor out.

  He did not slow for intersections. He slowed for nothing. With the car traveling at its fastest, he plunged along the street. McEwen knew the fleeing coupe could not long keep up its breakneck speed. It must surely slow down to pass through the streets near the business center, or suffer the shots of a traffic policeman. Moreover, the city narrowed like a bottle’s neck toward the river. If the fugitive coupe went on, it must soon reach the bridge.

  McEwen had the advantage. No traffic officer would try to stop or shoot at his police car. Deliberately he sent the sedan catapulting through the very center of Great City, its horn blaring. Lights flashed past. Other cars scurried for the curb. Pedestrians fled to the sidewalks. In a matter of seconds McEwen had put the congested district behind him and was racing toward the bridge.

  Within a block of it, where two streets intersected in a V, he turned back. He knew that he was ahead of the coupe now. He shot to the next intersection and looked up and down the cross street. The same at the next, and the next. There was no place the coupe could escape him now if it stayed in the open. Sooner or later he was sure to see it.

  Soon he did!

  Glancing along a dark street lined by warehouses and shabby tenements, he saw a pair of headlights blink out. Instantly McEwen shut off his own, and stopped. He saw a coupe, two blocks ahead. He saw a dark figure climb out of it, turn, and hurry back along the street. He watched with eyes as keen as an eagle’s—and saw the dark figure slip into an alleyway.

  McEwen got out of his car. He gripped his automatic tightly and began running through the shadows toward the alleyway. When he reached it he paused.

  One second before Gil McEwen glanced down the dark alleyway, Steve Thatcher lowered the rear window on the second floor of the abandoned tenement. A quick climb up the rusty fire escape had brought him to it. In the darkness of the bare room he turned, lowering a dark bundle to the floor.

  A moment later Steve Thatcher had vanished; the Moon Man had appeared.

  He stepped to the closet and opened it. By the glow of a flashlight he worked quickly. He separated the sheaf of banknotes into three parcels. Each he fastened together with a band of silver paper. He snapped off the flash and turned to the connecting door.

  He unlocked it. Slowly he went into the room. Ned Dargan turned at his approach. The Moon Man moved toward the table. From his one black-gloved hand dropped the four packets of currency.

  “There you are, Angel.”

  Dargan silently took up the money. He blinked; he thrust it into his pocket.

  “Boss,” he said, “I’m worried.”

  “Why?”

  “Just after I came into this place a little while ago, somebody followed me.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I heard the stairs creak. I went down to look around, but I didn’t find anybody. Cripes, boss, I don’t like it!”

  “Nor I, Angel. I’ve an idea that in future we must be more careful. You had better stop delivering the money personally—send it by messenger. And we’d better change our headquarters. I’ll phone you, Angel—about a new place.”

  The muffled voice broke off. The silver-masked head came up. Ned Dargan’s breath went sibilantly into his lungs.

  From the hallway came a creak!

  Then another!

  “Somebody’s comin’ up!” gasped Dargan.

  The Moon Man moved. He rounded the table, crossed to the door. With a quick motion he shot a bolt in place.

  “Out the rear window, Angel—quick!”

  Ned Dargan hesitated. “Say, listen! I ain’t goin’ to skip and leave you to face the music alone! I’m in this as much as you are, boss!”

  “Angel, yours is a true heart. But get out that window right now! I’ll take care of myself.”

  The Moon Man’s voice rang commandingly. Dargan did not hesitate again. He hurried into the adjoining room. He slid up the window and ducked through.

  “Make it snappy, Angel! Take the car. And if you don’t hear from me again—bless you.”

  “Boss—”

  “Snappy, I said!”

  Dargan moved. He disappeared downward in the blackness.

  The closet door opened silently. Sue McEwen slipped into the room without a sound. She hesitated, peering through the open communicating door. In there, beyond the threshold, was a vague black figure.

  It was turning—turning to close the connecting door.

  Sue McEwen raised her tiny automatic.

  “Please,” she said sharply, “throw up your hands!”

  The Moon Man stood frozen. Through the glass that masked his face he could see the girl, standing in the glow of the moonlight that was shafting through a window. He could see the glittering gun in her hand—aimed squarely at him.

  If she learned—

  “Take off your mask!” she commanded.

  The Moon Man could not move.

  Then a sound—the rattle of a door knob. The door connecting with the hallway opened. The girl glanced toward it, catching her breath. Then, in a sob—a sob of relief—she exclaimed:

  “Dad!”

  Gil McEwen came through the door. He stared at his daughter. He turned and stared into the adjoining room, at the black-cloaked figure standing there—the thing with the silver head.

  “By damn!” he said.

  He sprang toward the Moon Man.

  Instantly Steve Thatcher leaped forward. With one movement he slammed the door shut and twisted the key. He leaped back as a gun roared, as a bullet crashed through the wood. He whirled toward the window. He ducked out— cloak and mask and all—and began dropping down the fire escape.

  Gil McEwen raised his gun to fire again through the door. But he did not fire. He spun on his heel, sprang into the hallway, leaped down the stairs. He burst out the front door, and whirled into the alley.

  He peered at the window above. It was open. He peered at the fire escape. It was empty. He peered down the black alley. The Moon Man was not in sight.

  McEwen sped through the shadows behind the buildings, but soon he paused. Useless to hunt here! As he came back his eyes turned to a row of wooden boxes, each fitted with wooden lids, which sat at the base of the tenement rear wall. They were coal-bins; each of them was large enough to hold a man. With gun leveled he moved toward them.

  McEwen paused, grumbling with disappointment. On each bin-cover was a rusty hasp, and on each hasp was a closed padlock, corroded and useless, untouched for perhaps years. He turned away.

  McEwen hurried toward the police-car with his daughter following close. A moment later the quiet of that dismal district was broken by the snarling of a motor and the whining of tires as the car spurted away.

  After that, for a long time, the alley behind the deserted tenement was silent.

  Then, at last, a faint movement. The cover of one of the coal-bins shift
ed. One edge of it raised—not the front edge, which was fastened by the padlock, but the rear edge, from which the hinges had been removed. Like a Jack-in-the-box, a man came out of it.

  “I’ll get him! Don’t worry—the day’s comin’ when I’m going to grab that crook!”

  So said Gil McEwen as he paced back and forth across the office of Chief of Police Thatcher while bright sunlight streamed into the room—the sunlight of the morning after.

  Chief Thatcher sighed and looked worried. His son looked at Gil McEwen solemnly.

  “He’s got us all buffaloed, that’s all. A swell detective I am! The way I climbed out of Atwell’s bedroom window, then went chasing an innocent man for blocks, thinking he might be the Moon Man!” In this way Steve Thatcher had explained his absence from the Atwell home immediately following the Moon Man’s escape. “Gil, I guess if he’s ever caught, you’ll have to do it.”

  “I will do it,” said McEwen. “That’s my promise. I’m never going to stop until I grab that guy!”

  And McEwen, Steve Thatcher knew, meant exactly that.

  The chief’s son looked at his watch. Inside its cover was a photograph. It was a portrait of Sue McEwen.

  “If you only knew what you almost did!” he addressed the picture in silent thought. “If you only knew!”

  Pigeon Blood

  Paul Cain

  THERE WERE A LOT of very bad writers who worked for the pulps. For a penny, or sometimes a half-penny, what could you expect? But there were some good ones, too, and even a few great ones. It is possible that Paul Cain (1902-1966) was one of the latter. Sadly, his output was too modest to make a positive judgment.

  He wrote about a dozen short stories, seven of which were collected in Seven Slayers (1946), and one novel, Fast One (1933), which Raymond Chandler lavishly praised. The novel was really a collection of five closely connected novellas which ran in Black Mask magazine in 1932, then revised for its hardcover edition. Doubleday must have had meager enthusiasm for it, since it must have had a small print run because it is today one of the rarest and most valuable first editions in the collectors’ market. Perhaps his publisher was right, as it was almost universally blasted by critics as too tough, too violent. Still, sophisticated readers loved it and it remains one of the high spots of the hard-boiled crime genre.