“And be laughed at for my pains,” Clane said.
Malloy grinned. “Well, now, Mr Clane,” he said, “just between you and me, I don’t think the police are going to laugh at you any more. I really don’t for a fact. And now I have an idea perhaps you and this young lady would like to get the hell out of here, because we’re going to bring Mr Nevis down here and ask him a few questions.”
“And how about Edward Harold?” Clane said.
“Well, now, if the conversation with Nevis turns out the way I think It’s going to, I’m going to get in touch with the district attorney and the governor, and There’s just a chance a pardon might come through for Mr Harold.”
“In which event,” Clane said, “I think you will agree that it’s only fair that Cynthia Renton should be the one who takes the news to him.”
“We’ll do it together,” Cynthia said.
Clane smiled. “I think you’ll find two would be company and three would be a crowd. But I think you’ll agree, Malloy, that Miss Renton is entitled to go to police headquarters and wait there until you have some definite information.”
“She is for a fact,” Malloy agreed.
“And you?” Cynthia asked. “Where are you going?”
Clane said “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got to go hunt up Yat T’oy, and I think it’s only fair I should tell Chu Kee what has happened.”
“That’s the old Chinese party you were with?” Malloy asked.
Clane nodded.
“A pretty good friend, I’d say,” Malloy said. “Damn it, Clane, we sewed up Chinatown. I mean we really had men parked all around it, and damned if you didn’t slip through our fingers. And also what I want to know is how it happened you went in a door at the east end of Chinatown and made your next appearance in the hotel where Mrs Taonon had hid herself—more than two blocks away, with every street corner guarded. Will you kindly tell me how the hell you did that?”
“That,” Clane said, “is a matter of concentration, my dear Inspector …”
“Yeah, I know,” Malloy said. “You go into the fourth dimension and wrap yourself in a robe of invisibility or something. All right, Clane, we’ll let it go this time, but you might tell this Chu Kee person that if things like that keep up, the police are apt to make a raid on Chinatown and look around a little. We may not be able to find the secret doorways, but a sledgehammer will accomplish a lot.”
“Thanks,” Clane said dryly, “I’ll tell him.”
“And in this particular instance,” Malloy went on, “you might give him my thanks, and that good-looking Chinese-American girl, too.”
“I’ll tell her.”
Cynthia Renton followed him out. “Owl,” she said, “You’re leaving me just when I … damn it, just when I want you more than I ever wanted you in my life.”
Clane said “You have a duty to perform, Cynthia. Edward Harold has lost his faith in everything. You’ve got to tell him the news in such a way that he feels that justice can triumph in the world.”
“When you’re around to help it triumph,” Cynthia said. “Where would he have been if you hadn’t shown up?”
“Don’t put it to him that way,” Clane said, “or you’ll undo all the good you want to accomplish.”
“What will I tell him?”
“Tell him he’s been exonerated and they’re rushing through a pardon for him as soon as the red tape can be unwound. That’s about all you need to do.”
“And you? Where will you be?”
“Oh, I’ll be around.”
“Owl, are you trying to … Owl … are you in love with that Chinese girl?”
Clane said “She’s just a dear friend, Cynthia.”
“You play around with that stuff and you’ll find out something about friendship you never knew before,” she told him. “Owl—come here.”
He moved closer to her. Suddenly her arms were around his neck and her lips, salty with tears, were against his. “Oh, Owl, I need you so much,” she sobbed, “and you’re going away.”
“Not very far away.”
She watched him wistfully. “One can never tell about you, Terry Clane. I …”
Inspector Malloy opened the door. “Men are bringing Nevis down here,” he said. “You’ll have to get out of sight, Miss Renton. And you, Clane, are …”
“Just leaving,” Clane said.
Cynthia Renton stood in the doorway with Malloy, watching Clane walk away into the darkness.
Inspector Malloy said musingly “A remarkably talented young man.”
“A rank amateur,” Cynthia said, so savagely that Malloy turned to her in surprise. “The things that a really smart man should know, he doesn’t know a damn thing about!”
Malloy raised his eyebrows, then stepped back inside the ware-house and softly closed the door.
The End.
Erle Stanley Gardner
Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 – March 11, 1970) was an American lawyer and author of detective stories, who also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J. Kenny, Les Tillray and Robert Parr.
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Malden, Massachusetts, Gardner graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1909, and received his only formal legal education at Valparaiso University School of Law in the state of Indiana. He attended law school for approximately 1 month, was suspended from school when his interest in boxing became a distraction, then settled in California where he became a self-taught attorney and passed the state bar exam in 1911. He opened his own law office in Merced, California, then worked for five years for a sales agency. In 1921, he returned to the practice of law, creating the firm of Sheridan, Orr, Drapeau and Gardner in Ventura, California.
In 1912, he married Natalie Frances Talbert; they had a daughter, Grace. Gardner practiced at the Ventura firm until 1933, when The Case of the Velvet Claws was published. Much of that novel was set at the historic Pierpont Inn, which was just down the road from his law office.
Gardner gave up the practice of law to devote full time to writing. In 1937 he moved to Temecula, California, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1968 he married his long-time secretary Agnes Jean Bethell (1902-2002), the "real Della Street".
He died on March 11, 1970 in Temecula, California.
CAREER
Innovative and restless in his nature, Gardner was bored by the routine of legal practice, the only part of which he enjoyed was trial work and the development of trial strategy. In his spare time, he began to write for pulp magazines, which also fostered the early careers of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. He first story was published in 1923. He created many different series characters for the pulps, including the ingenious Lester Leith, a "gentleman thief" in the tradition of Raffles, and Ken Corning, a crusading lawyer who was the archetype of his most successful creation, the fictional lawyer and crime-solver Perry Mason, about whom he wrote more than eighty novels. With the success of Perry Mason, he gradually reduced his contributions to the pulp magazines, eventually withdrawing from the medium entirely, except for non-fiction articles on travel, Western history, and forensic science.
Gardner also devoted thousands of hours to a project called "The Court of Last Resort", which he undertook with his many friends in the forensic, legal and investigative communities. The project sought to review and, if appropriate, to reverse, miscarriages of justice against possibly innocent criminal defendants who were convicted owing to poor original legal representation or to the inadequate, careless or malicious actions of police and prosecutors and most especially, with regard to the abuse or misinterpretation of medical and other forensic evidence. The resulting 1952 book, The Court of Last Resort, earned Gardner his only Edgar Award, in the Best Fact Crime category.
The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, at the University of Texas at Austin, currently archives Gardner's manuscripts. The library has constructed a miniaturized reproduction of his study room.
&n
bsp; PERRY MASON
The character of Perry Mason was portrayed in various Hollywood films of the 1930s and 40s, and a long-running radio program from 1943 to 1955. "When Erle Stanley Gardner was reluctant to allow CBS to transform Mason into a TV soap opera, (CBS) created The Edge of Night. For that latter enterprise, John Larkin, radio's best identified Mason, was cast as the protagonist-star, initially as a detective, eventually as an attorney, in a thinly veiled copy of Mason."
Gardner also created characters for the radio programs Christopher London (1950), starring Glenn Ford, and A Life in Your Hands (1949-1952). "As on other Gardner-inspired narratives, someone else actually penned the scripts."
Eventually Perry Mason became a long-running TV series with Raymond Burr as the title character. Gardner himself made an uncredited appearance as a judge in the final episode of the original series titled "The Case of the Final Fade-Out." In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mason was revived for a series of made-for-TV movies featuring surviving members of the original cast, including Burr.
OTHER CHARACTERS AND PSEUDONYMS
Under the pen name A. A. Fair, he also wrote a series of novels about the private detective firm of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. He also wrote another noteworthy series of novels about District Attorney Doug Selby and his opponent, the rascally Alphonse Baker Carr. This series is interesting in that it is an inversion of the motif of the Perry Mason novels, with prosecutor Selby being portrayed as the courageous and imaginative crime solver and his perennial antagonist A.B. Carr being a wily shyster whose clients are always "as guilty as hell".
GARDNER'S YEARS AT TEMECULA VALLEY
Erle Stanley Gardner lived in Temecula on his beloved Rancho del Paisano from 1937 until 1970. Gardner, famous for his Perry Mason mysteries, wrote 151 books that sold 325 million copies. His best selling works, the 82 Perry Mason mysteries, were adapted first for radio then became a popular TV series resulting in 271 episodes running from 1957 until 1966.
A multi-talented man, Gardner was a practicing attorney for 22 years. His dedication to justice led to his establishing The Court of Last Resort, resulting in numerous reforms in the U.S. judicial system. Gardner was also a passionate explorer and avid traveler. His favorite travels were into Baja, California. These expeditions led to the publication of six books, including The Land of Shorter Shadows and The Hidden Heart of Baja.
The Temecula Valley Museum owns over 6,000 of his photographs and a vast collection of memorabilia. The permanent display features a reproduction of the Temecula office and two of his off-road exploration vehicles. The museum also sponsors an annual Erle Stanley Gardner mystery weekend in November with expanded displays, mystery, and live stage productions.
With thanks to: Blueppossum Homestead Gardner Tribute and Temecula Valley Museum Gardner Page.
The Case of the Backward Mule Page 22