The Count of 9 E-Book

Earl Stanley Gardner

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

From the world-famous creator of "Perry Mason," Erle Stanley Gardner comes another baffling case for the Cool & Lam detective agencyErle Stanley Gardner was not just the creator of PERRY MASON – at the time of his death, he was the best-selling American author of all time, with hundreds of millions of books in print, including the 29 cases of the brash, irresistible detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. Gardner was also one of the most ingenious plot-spinners in the field, coming up with stunning twists and reveals… and THE COUNT OF 9 is Gardner at his twistiest.Hired to protect the treasures of a globe-trotting adventurer, Bertha and Donald confront an impossible crime: how could anything be smuggled out of a dinner party – least of all a 6-foot-long blowgun – when the guests were X-rayed coming and going? But that's nothing compared to the crime they face next:AN IMPOSSIBLE MURDER

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Raves for the Work of Erle Stanley GARDNER!

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Raves for the Work of Erle Stanley GARDNER!

“The best selling author of the century…a master storyteller.”

—New York Times

“Gardner is humorous, astute, curious, inventive— who can top him? No one has yet.”

—Los Angeles Times

“Erle Stanley Gardner is probably the most widely read of all…authors…His success…undoubtedly lies in the real-life quality of his characters and their problems…”

—The Atlantic

“A remarkable discovery…fans will rejoice at another dose of Gardner’s unexcelled mastery of pace and an unexpected new taste of his duo’s cyanide chemistry.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“One of the best-selling writers of all time, and certainly one of the best-selling mystery authors ever.”

—Thrilling Detective

“A treat that no mystery fan will want to miss.”

—Shelf Awareness

“Zing, zest and zow are the Gardner hallmark. He will keep you reading at a gallop until The End.”

—Dorothy B. Hughes,    Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster

“You know something, Donald?” she asked in a low voice.

“What?”

“You’re nice,” she said. And then suddenly she had her arm around my neck, pulling my head down to the hot circle of her lips. The fingers of her other hand came up and stroked my cheek, then slid around to the back of my neck and tickled the short hairs just above the neckline.

After a moment she broke away. She opened the bathroom door and walked casually out to the studio, saying, “No go, Sylvia. We couldn’t raise him.”

She turned to me, cool and languid, and said with a casual manner of dismissal, “Well, I guess there’s no use, Mr. Lam, I’ll let him know that you’ve recovered the blowgun.”

“And are on the trail of the idol,” Sylvia Hadley said.

“And are on the trail of the idol,” Phyllis Crockett echoed.

I hesitated a moment.

“Well,” Phyllis said brightly, “I guess the recess is over, Sylvia. Let’s get to work.”

Without a word, Sylvia arose lightly from the chair, untied the cord, tossed the robe over the back of the chair, walked up to the modeling platform and resumed her nude pose with the manner of a professional.

“Glad I met you, Miss Hadley,” I called. And then couldn’t resist adding as I put my hand on the knob of the door, “Hope I get to see more of you.”

She smiled at that one…

OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS BY ERLE STANLEY GARDNER:

THE KNIFE SLIPPED

TOP OF THE HEAP

TURN ON THE HEAT

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

JOYLAND by Stephen King

THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS by James M. Cain

THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH by Ariel S. Winter

THE SECRET LIVES OF MARRIED WOMEN by Elissa Wald

ODDS ON by Michael Crichton writing as John Lange

BRAINQUAKE by Samuel Fuller

EASY DEATH by Daniel Boyd

THIEVES FALL OUT by Gore Vidal

SO NUDE, SO DEAD by Ed McBain

THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES by Lawrence Block

PIMP by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

SOHO SINS by Richard Vine

SNATCH by Gregory Mcdonald

FOREVER AND A DEATH by Donald E. Westlake

THE LAST STAND by Mickey Spillane

UNDERSTUDY FOR DEATH by Charles Willeford

CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL by Scott Von Doviak

The COUNTof 9

byErle Stanley Gardner

WRITING UNDER THE NAME ‘A. A. F A I R ’

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-136)

First Hard Case Crime edition: October 2018

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark StreetLondon SE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

Copyright © 1958 by Erle Stanley Gardner

Cover painting copyright © 2018 by Robert McGinnis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-1-78565-634-7

E-book ISBN 978-1-78565-635-4

Design direction by Max Phillips

www.maxphillips.net

Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

THE COUNT OF 9

Foreword

When I try to determine whether my interest in crime comes from writing crime stories, or whether I write crime stories because I am interested in crime, I find I am in the position of trying to find out which came first, the chicken or the egg.

However, the fact remains that I am deeply interested in all branches of crime, crime detection and punishment.

It is in this last field that, in my opinion, society is making its greatest mistake—the mistake of maintaining an attitude of utter indifference.

Whether we like it or not, too many of our prisons are highly efficient factories where weak men become bitter, bitter men become vicious and vicious men become killers.

Some men have their spirit broken so that when they are released they are no good to society or themselves. Some become hardened in the ways of crime. Some are rehabilitated.

Quite obviously, from the viewpoint of society, it would be wise to increase the percentage who are rehabilitated and decrease the percentage who are embittered enemies of society. Statistics show that around ninety-eight percent of prisoners are eventually released. Only about two percent die in prison.

What these men do to society after they get out depends very largely on what society has done to them while they have been in.

All of these things are of enormous importance to the public, yet the general public seems completely unconcerned. If we would pay just a little more attention to the science of penology, if we would listen to our career penologists, if we would try to find out what forces make for rehabilitation and what forces destroy character, we could do a great deal toward cutting down crime.

My friend, Douglas C. Rigg, warden of the Minnesota State Prison at Stillwater, is one of the more forward-looking, modern-thinking present-day penologists. He is deeply concerned over this entire problem of what happens to a man’s character after that man is put in prison.

When I last saw Rigg, he embodied his feelings in a few pithy sentences. “If getting tough with these men would cure them,” he said, “I’d get tough. If retributive punishment would stop crime, I’d be for it. If I could reform men by punishing them, I’d punish them.

“The trouble is, the problem isn’t that simple. There are too many complicating factors and there aren’t any easy answers. I know that there are some things which can be done to a man while he is in prison that will tend to rehabilitate him. I know there are some things which can be done that embitter him and build up a hatred of society.

“These men are human beings. Some of them have certain common characteristics, but they are all separate, individual entities. Each one is a problem which must be carefully studied. I would like to see the public take a much greater interest in the problems of penology because I think that interest would pay big dividends.”

The August 31, 1957, issue of The Saturday Evening Post contains a thought-provoking article by Warden Rigg entitled, “The Penalty Worse Than Death.”

Rigg didn’t write that article because he wanted the money. He wrote it as one step in a campaign to call to the attention of the public some of the pressing problems of penology.

We need more men like Warden Rigg in the business. There is nothing soft about him. He can be firm as a rock, hard as steel. He never permits idealism to obscure his practical sense of values. Nevertheless he is a great humanitarian, a great student of the problems of penology, and I wish we had a lot more like him.

And so I dedicate this book to my friend,

DOUGLAS C. RIGG.

Erle Stanley Gardner

Chapter One

As I opened the door and stepped into the reception room, a flash bulb blazed into brilliance and blinded me.

Big Bertha Cool, who had been facing the camera with a fatuous smile on her face, whirled angrily, glared at me and turned to the photographer.

“Did that hurt anything?” she asked.

“I’m afraid it did,” the photographer said apologetically. “The opening of the door put it at just the right angle so my flash bulb was reflected back into the camera.”

Bertha said, by way of explanation, “It’s only my partner.” Then, as I hesitated, she said, “Don’t worry, Donald. It’s just publicity. I have it all fixed up.”

She was turning back toward the cameraman when she caught the pose of the filing clerk who was sitting on the corner of the desk with her skirt up over her knees, her toes pointed down so that her crossed legs showed to advantage.

“Now what the hell are you doing sitting there sticking that nylon out at the camera?” Bertha asked.

The girl looked helplessly at the photographer.

“She was following instructions,” the photographer said. “Whose?”

“Mine.”

“Well, I’m the one who gives all the instructions here,” Bertha told him. “Any time I want to have a bunch of chippies sitting on the edge of a desk…get your fanny off of that desk. Stand over by the filing case if you want, but don’t sit up there with your legs sticking out.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cool,” the photographer said.

A man who had been standing over behind the filing case came out and said, “We’re going to need cheesecake, Mrs. Cool. If we don’t have cheesecake, the papers won’t publish it.”

“Cheesecake in a detective’s office!” Bertha Cool snapped.

“Cheesecake in a detective agency,” the man repeated stubbornly. “Cheesecake is everywhere. If you don’t have cheese-cake, you don’t get published. There’s no use wasting the film on this if it isn’t going to make the papers, and if it isn’t going to make the papers, Mr. Crockett won’t care to employ your agency.”

Bertha glowered at him, then said somewhat reluctantly, “This is my partner, Donald Lam—Donald, this is Melvin Otis Olney, who handles public relations for Dean Crockett.”

Olney came over and shook hands. “We could have a picture with Mr. Lam and the file clerk,” he said. “Lam could be looking for a paper in a hurry, and—”

“Not Donald,” Bertha said. “If that girl sticks her legs out in front of Donald, he won’t be looking for any paper. He’ll be looking at legs.…Now let’s get that picture.”

The filing clerk looked at Olney questioningly.

Olney took the bit in his teeth. “Get back up on the desk,” he said. “Get your skirts up over your knees. Don’t leave a wrinkle in the skirt as though you had just pulled it up. Try to drape it naturally…here, I’ll show you.”

He walked over and folded the girl’s skirt back, then stood back, surveyed the effect, moved over and draped the skirt down on the side away from the desk.

Bertha glowered at him, with her angry little eyes snapping cold rage.

“Is…is it all right?” the girl asked.

“I suppose it’s all right,” Bertha said. “If he says he has to have it, go ahead. But you don’t need to look up at him with that simpering look while he’s feeling your leg.”

“He wasn’t feeling my leg,” the girl said angrily.

“Well, he was getting ready to,” Bertha said. “For the love of Mike, let’s get this shindig over with so we can get to work.”

The photographer, who had replaced the flash bulb and reversed the plateholder, held up the camera. “All ready?”

Melvin Otis Olney said to the filing clerk, “Keep your toes pointed down; both of them. It makes your legs look a lot longer and a lot more graceful. Point them way down. Now take a deep breath.…Okay, Lionel, let her go.”

Bertha Cool twisted her face into a fatuous smile; a sweetly synthetic grin that was as foreign to her as a postage stamp on a dollar bill.

The flash bulb blazed again.

“All right,” Bertha said, “now get the hell—”

“One more,” the photographer said, “just as a measure of insurance.”

He whipped out another film holder, slammed it into the camera, jerked out the slide, set the shutter, took another flash bulb from his pocket, touched the base of it to the tip of his tongue, inserted it in the socket in front of the reflector, cocked the shutter, held up the camera, and said, “Now smile, please.”

Bertha took a deep breath. I could almost hear her teeth grit.

Olney said, “We should have one of the two partners together, and—”

“Shoot it,” Bertha said angrily through lips that were twisted into that leering smile. “Somebody’s got to work in this joint. Get going.”

The photographer waited until Bertha’s face returned to just the expression he wanted, his eyes on Bertha’s lips.

Bertha, conscious of what he wanted, twisted the corners of her mouth up into a tight-lipped smile.

Once more the flash bulb blazed.

Bertha whirled to the file clerk. “All right,” she said, “get off that desk and get back to your job.”

Bertha started toward her office, stopped, evidently felt she owed me an explanation, and grudgingly said, “Dean Crockett the Second is giving a big shindig and has retained us to guard the entrance to see that no gate crashers get in.

“The last time he gave a party some gate crashers got away with a jade statue worth six thousand bucks. He wants to make certain that it doesn’t happen again. He feels that if we can keep the gate crashers out of the party, the guests who are invited can be trusted.”

I said, “You’re not to guard the jewelry then, but guard the gates?”

“That’s right,” Olney said, “the gates—and a little publicity helps, Mr. Lam. Not only helps Mr. Crockett, but helps me in my job. It helps the agency, and advising gate crashers in advance that they won’t be tolerated will be half the battle.”

“It’ll keep out the amateurs,” I told him, “but it just might prove a challenge to some of the more expert ones.”

“Well, Mrs. Cool can handle them,” Olney said. “That’s one reason I wanted her picture for the paper. She looks so decidedly…” He caught himself and said, “Competent.”

Bertha glowered at him. “You don’t need to pull punches with me,” she said. “I’m a tough bitch and I know it.”

“We wanted a detective agency that had a woman,” Olney explained, “a thoroughly competent woman. Mr. Crockett felt that the last gate crasher who got away with the carved jade statue was a woman. A man can’t walk up to a woman and say, ‘Pardon me, I think you just dropped a statue down the front of your dress.’ A really determined woman is in a different position.”

Olney looked at Bertha Cool and smiled.

“I’d have picked her up by her heels, stood her on her head and shaken the damn thing out,” Bertha said. “They’re not going to get away with anything crude like that when I’m around.”

I told Olney I thought it was a smart move, nodded to Bertha and went on into my private office.

Elsie Brand, my secretary, was opening mail.

“How did it happen you didn’t get in on the picture?” I asked.

“I wasn’t invited.”

I looked down at her legs. “You’d have done a lot better job than the filing clerk.”

She blushed, then laughed and said, “The filing clerk was acting as receptionist and she was very friendly with the photographer and very cooperative. I don’t think my legs would have added a thing.”

“Two things,” I said.

She tactfully pushed the mail at me. “There’s one letter that needs to be answered right away, Donald.”

Chapter Two

The next afternoon’s paper carried the story.

It had turned out to be a pretty good picture. The filing clerk’s legs showed to advantage, and Bertha Cool, a hundred and sixty-five pounds of potatoes in a sack, with a bulldog jaw and glittering eyes, was a hard-boiled contrast to the cheesecake. It made a story well calculated to appeal to any wide-awake editor.

There were headlines: DEAN CROCKETT THE SECOND DECLARES WAR ON GATE CRASHERS.

The article gave Crockett quite a build-up; his travels, his big-game hunting, his adventures, his two previous marriages, a picture of his present wife—a sultry combination of eyes and blonde hair on a curved chassis; the penthouse apartment and the story of the gate crashers who got in on the other party. It described Crockett’s loss of various trinkets taken by souvenir hunters, and, in particular, the loss of the carved jade Buddha some three weeks earlier.

This party, the article said, was to be guarded by the wellknown detective agency of Cool & Lam. Bertha Cool, the senior partner, was going to be on the job personally and woe betide any gate crashers who tried to get in, or anyone who tried to make away with any articles from the priceless collection of Dean Crockett the Second.

The article went on to state that Melvin Otis Olney, Crockett’s public relations man and social secretary, had carefully screened the list of guests. It would be necessary, as always, to show invitations before the elevator would go from the top floor to the penthouse.

There would be entertainment by musicians, followed by a showing of the films Crockett had made on his recent trip into the interior of Borneo.

The newspaper article was illustrated not only by the agency picture, but by a photograph of Crockett holding a pygmy blowgun with poisoned darts, and a photograph of his “globe-girdling yacht.” It was quite a write-up.

I read the paper and asked Elsie Brand, “How’s Bertha taking it?”

“She’s a ham,” Elsie said. “She’s eating it up. She left word to have the papers brought to her as soon as they came out. She’s proud as a peacock.”

“How about the file clerk?” I asked.

“She has a date tonight with the photographer.”

“Fast worker, eh?” I asked.

“Who?” she asked. “The file clerk or the photographer?”

“You think it was both?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “let’s put it this way: It was a case of an immovable force meeting an irresistible body.”

“I hadn’t noticed the irresistible body,” I said.

Her eyes lowered demurely. “I don’t think you look around as much as you used to, Donald.”

“I don’t have to,” I told her.

Elsie blushed.

“I notice,” I said, “that Bertha was quite willing to be the exclusive representative of the firm in the department of public relations. She didn’t care about having her partner in the picture.”

“On interoffice matters,” Elsie Brand said firmly, “I maintain a discreet silence.”

“A damn good technique,” I said.

“Are you going out to the party, Donald?”

“Not me,” I said. “It’s Bertha’s show. She made the arrangements; she got the publicity; she can stand up there at the elevator and watch the gals go by in the low necklines and peer over once in a while to see if any jade Buddhas are among those present.”

Elsie laughed.

I walked down to Bertha Cool’s private office, knocked, walked in and said, “Congratulations, Bertha.”

“On what?”

“The picture; the publicity.”

“Oh…a little publicity now and then doesn’t hurt any detective agency.”

“That’s what I was trying to point out,” I said.

Bertha picked up the newspaper which had been opened to the account of the Crockett party and studied the picture carefully.

“Hussy,” she said.

“The file clerk?” I asked.

She nodded.

“The public relations man said we had to have cheesecake,” I said.

“That’s not cheesecake,” Bertha snapped. “It’s anatomy.”

“Well, you showed out all right,” I said. “You look thoroughly competent.”

“I am,” Bertha said grimly.

I let it go at that.

Chapter Three

I got in about midnight, showered, crawled into bed and was just turning out the light when the phone rang.

I picked up the phone, said, “Hello,” and Bertha Cool’s voice came blasting at me like a gust of wind hitting a pile of dry leaves. “Donald,” she screamed, “get over here!”

“Where’s here?” I asked.

“The penthouse apartment—Dean Crockett the Second.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Hell’s to pay! Don’t argue with me!” she screamed. “Get over here. Get the lead out of your pants. Start moving.”

“Okay,” I told her, “I’ll be over.”

I dropped the phone into place, got up, dressed and drove over.

I was familiar with the setup from what Bertha had told me and the information which had been in the papers. The entrance was on the twentieth floor of the apartment house. A special elevator had to be taken to reach the penthouse. This elevator ran up and down from the penthouse to a vestibule-like room which opened out from the twentieth-floor hallway.

When Crockett was giving a party, or on special occasions, this vestibule would be open and there would be an operator at the elevator. Otherwise, the elevator was on automatic. Anyone who wanted to see Crockett had to telephone from the desk. If Crockett wanted to see them, he’d have someone come down in the elevator, open the vestibule door and wait for them on the twentieth floor. If he didn’t want to see them, there was no way on earth they could get up unless they had a key which fitted the door of the vestibule. Once inside the vestibule, a panel would slide back, disclosing a button which could be pressed and which brought the elevator down to the twentieth floor. Also, if a person knew where to look, there was a concealed panel which slid back to disclose a telephone. This telephone had a direct connection with the Crockett apartment.

The door which opened from the twentieth-floor corridor into the vestibule or anteroom looked exactly like the door to an apartment. It bore the number 20-s.

When I got up to the twentieth floor, the vestibule door was open and an attendant was in the elevator. I gave him my card, but even that didn’t do any good. He said, “Wait here,” and slid the elevator door shut in my face. Then he went on up and evidently checked with Crockett himself because when he came back down he seemed apologetic as he said, “Sorry, but I was only following instructions. It’s all right. I’m to take you up, Mr. Lam.”

I got in the elevator and went up.

The door slid back and I was in a reception hallway furnished with Oriental rugs, a crystal chandelier, a line of chairs, and commodious closets, the doors of which could be opened so as to form a private hat and coat checking room.

There was a girl standing behind this checking counter now who wore a skirt reaching to the top of her knees. She looked pretty much beat up. She took my hat and coat and gave me the benefit of a forced smile.

A door opened and Melvin Otis Olney came hurrying out. He was wearing a tuxedo and an expression of abject defeat.

“Come in, please,” he said.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“Please come in.”

I followed him into a room that was furnished with an eye to comfort, but with distinct Oriental overtones.

The people in the room were gathered in a tight little group and it seemed as though everyone was trying to talk at once.

I recognized the tall man in the center of the group as Dean Crockett the Second. His pictures frequently graced the various weekly illustrated magazines, the sporting and hunting magazines, as well as the social columns.