Honest Money Read online

  Honest Money

  And Other Short Novels

  by Erle Stanley Gardner

  The Ken Corning Mysteries

  Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc • New York

  1932-33

  ERLE STANLEY GARDNER

  Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) was the creator of the immensely popular Perry Mason whose cases were chronicled in over 80 novels, inspiring several movies and a radio and television series. Gardner's lifetime output was in excess of 150 books and hundreds of stories, most of which appeared in Black Mask—the source of some of the greatest mystery fiction written this century A man of wide interest, Gardner was well read in such diverse fields as psychology criminology forensic medicine, and penology Erie Stanley Gardner was also a noted attorney who liked to take on underdog cases that no one else would handle. These assignments later lead to the creation of The Court of Last Resort.

  Although Perry Mason never appeared in its pages, Black Mask in the early 1930s published a series of six short novels by Erie Stanley Gardner starring a crusading lawyer named Ken Corning who fought against injustice in a corrupt city Representing clients framed by crooked police arid bribed city officials, Ken Corning protected the rights of the underdog while relentlessly pursuing the guilty through a maze of violent subterfuge and sinister intrigue. Now, for the first time, all six Ken Corning short novels are collected in book form in Honest Money.

  These are good tight mysteries with lots of action—the stuff that made Erie Stanley Gardner justly famous. As a collection, they rank right up there with both Dead Men's Letters and The Blonde in Lower Six.

  Jacket art & design © 1991 by Richard Rossiter

  Copyright © 1991 by Jean Betheil Gardner and Grace Naso.

  All Rights Reserved.

  “Honest Money,” Black Mask, November 1932

  “The Top Comes Off,” Black Mask, December 1932

  “Close Call,” Black Mask, January 1933

  “Making the Breaks,” Black Mask, June 1933

  “Devil’s Fire,” Black Mask, July 1933

  “Blackmail with Lead,” Black Mask, August 1933

  This Carroll & Graf edition is published by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc,, in cooperation with Thayer Hobson and Company, representing The Erie Stanley Gardner Trust, Jean Betheil Gardner and Grace Naso, Trustees.

  First Carroll & Graf edition 1991

  Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 260 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10001

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gardner, Erie Stanley, 1889-1970.

  Honest money : and other short novels / by Erie Stanley Gardner. — 1st Carroll & Graf ed. p. cm.

  Contents: Honest money — The top comes off — Close call — Making the breaks — Devil’s fire —Blackmail with lead. ISBN 0-88184-683-X : $18.95 1. Detective and mystery stories, American. I. Title.

  PS3513.A6322H64 1991

  91-12116

  CIP

  813',52—dc20

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Argosy Communications wishes to extend its grateful appreciation

  to the following people who helped to make this volume possible:

  Jean Gardner and Grace Naso

  Lawrence Hughes

  Betty Burke and Katharine Odgers

  Kent Carroll and Herman Graf

  Laura Langlie and Sheila Cavanagh

  Robert Weinberg

  and

  Eva Zablodowsky

  Honest Money

  THE CLOCK ON THE CITY HALL was booming the hour of nine in the morning when Ken Corning pushed his way through the office door. On the frosted glass of that door appeared the words: “Kenneth D. Corning, Attorney at Law—Enter.”

  Ken Corning let his eye drift over the sign. It was gold leaf and untarnished. It was precisely thirty days since the sign painter had collected for the job, and the sign painter had collected as soon as his brush had finished the last letter of the last word of that sign.

  The credit of young attorneys in York City wasn’t of the best. This was particularly true of young lawyers who didn’t seem to have an “in” with the administration,

  Helen Vail was dusting her desk. She grinned at Ken.

  He reached a hand to his inside pocket.

  “Pay day,” he said.

  Her eyes glinted with a softness that held a touch of the maternal.

  “Listen, Ken, let it go until you get started. I can hang on a while longer …”

  He took out a wallet, started spreading out ten-dollar bills. When he had counted out five of them, he pushed the pile over to her. There were two bills left in the wallet.

  “Honest, Ken…”

  He pushed his way to the inside office. “Forget it,” he said. “I told you we’d make it go. We haven’t started to fight yet.”

  She followed him in, the money m her hand. Standing in the doorway, very erect, chin up, she waited for him to turn to meet her gaze.

  The outer door of the entrance office made a noise.

  She turned. Looking over her shoulder, Ken could see the big man who stood on the threshold. He looked as though his clothes had been filled with apple jelly. He quivered and jiggled like a jellyfish on a board. Fat encased him in layers, an unsubstantial, soft fat that seemed to be hanging to his bones with a grip that was but temporary.

  His voice was thin and falsetto.

  “I want to see the lawyer,” lie shrilled.

  Helen turned on her heel, called over her shoulder: “All right, Mr. Corning. I’ll enter up this retainer.” To the man she said: “You’ll have to wait. Mr. Corning’s preparing an important brief. He’ll see you in a minute or two.”

  The pneumatic door check swung the door to.

  Ken Corning turned in his swivel-chair and sent swift hands to Ms tie. From the outer office sounded the furious clack of a typewriter. Three minutes passed. The roller of the machine made sounds as the paper was ripped from it. The door of the private office banged open. Helen Vail pushed her way in, in an ecstasy of haste, crinkling a legal paper in her hands.

  “All ready for your signature,” she said.

  The pneumatic door check was swinging the door closed as Ken reached for the paper. On it had been written with the monotony of mechanical repetition, over and over: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.”

  The door completed its closing. The latch clicked.

  “Get his name?” asked Ken.

  “Sam Parks. He’s nervous. It’s a criminal case. I’d have kept him waiting longer, but he won’t stand for it. He’s looking at his watch—twice in the last sixty seconds.”

  Ken patted her hand.

  “Okey. Good girl Shoot him in.”

  Helen walked to the door, opened it, smiled sweetly. “You may come in now, Mr. Parks.”

  She held the door open. Ken could see the big man heaving his bulk free of the chair. He saw him blot out the light in the doorway as the girl stepped aside. He was signing a paper as the big man entered the office and paused. Ken kept his eyes on the paper until the door catch clicked. Then he looked up with a smile.

  “Mr. Parks, is it?” he asked.

  The big man grunted, waddled over to the chair which was placed so close to the new desk as to invite easy intimacy. He sat down, then, apparently feeling that the chair was too far away, started hitching it closer and closer to the desk. His voice was almost a shrill whisper.

  “My wife,” he said, “has been arrested.”

  Ken laid down the pen, looked professional.

  “What,” he asked, “is the charge?”

  The big man’s shrill voice rattled off a string of swift words: “Well, you see it was this way. We had a pla
ce, a little restaurant, and the officers came busting in without a warrant … tell me, can they come into a place without a warrant, that way?”

  Ken said crisply: “They did, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okey, then they can. They’re not supposed to, but they did, they do and they can. What happened?”

  “Well, that was about all. They claimed we were selling booze.”

  Ken’s voice was sharp “Find any?”

  “A little.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten or fifteen gallons.”

  “Then they arrested you both?”

  The fat man blinked glassy eyes.

  “Just her. They didn’t take me.”

  “Why?”

  He fidgeted, and the layers of fat jiggled about.

  “Well, we sort of outslicked ’em. There had been a guy eating at one of the tables. He got wise as soon as the first man walked in on the raiding party. He ducked out the back. I sat down at his table and finished up his food. The wife pretended she didn’t know me, and asked the officers if she could collect my bill before they took her. They said she could. I paid her fifty cents for the food and gave her a ten-cent tip. Then they closed up the place, took the booze away with ’em, and put me out. The wife said she ran the place alone.”

  Ken Corning twisted a pencil in his fingers.

  “I’ll want a retainer of a hundred and fifty dollars,” he said, “and then I’ll see what I can do and report.”

  The glassy eyes squinted.

  “You ain’t in with the gang here?”

  “I’m a newcomer.”

  The man opened his coat, disclosed a wrinkled vest and shirt, soggy with perspiration. He pulled a leather wallet from an inside pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill and a fifty. The wallet was crammed with money. He tossed the money carelessly on the desk.

  “The first thing to do,” he said, “is to see the wife. Tell her you’re going to represent her, see? Let her know I’m on the job, and tell her to keep a stiff upper lip, and to keep quiet, see? Tell her to keep quiet, see?”

  Ken Corning folded the money, got to his feet, stood there, signifying that the interview was over.

  “Come back when I send for you. Leave your name and address and your wife’s name with the girl in the outer office so I can get my records straight. Leave a telephone number where you can be reached.”

  The man turned on the threshold.

  “You ain’t in with the ring?” he asked, and there was a note of anxiety in his voice.

  Ken Corning reached for a law1 book, shook his head.

  The pneumatic door clicked shut.

  Ken set down the law book and fingered the money. He turned it over and over in his fingers, He cocked his head on one side, listening. After a moment he heard the click of the outer door catch. Then Helen Vail was standing on the threshold of the inner office. Her eyes were starry.

  Ken Corning waved the money.

  “Start an account for that bird, and credit it with a hundred and fifty.”

  She was smiling at him when the door opened. Broad shoulders pushed their way across the outer office. From his desk, Ken could see the man as he crossed the outer office. Helen Vail barred the inner office door.

  “Whom do you wish?” she asked.

  The man laughed, pushed past her, walked directly to Ken Corning’s desk. He flipped back a corner of his coat with a casual hand.

  “Who,” he asked, “was the guy that just left here, and what’d he want?”

  Ken Corning pushed back the swivel-chair as he got to his feet.

  “This,” he said, “is my private office.”

  The broad shouldered man laughed. His face was coarse skinned, but the gray eyes had little lights in them that might have meant humor, or might have meant a love of conflict.

  “Keep your shirt on, keep your shirt on,” he said. “I’m Perkins from the booze detail. There was a speak knocked over last night. The woman who was running it tried to slip a bribe, and she’s booked on a felony. That big guy was sitting in there, eating chow. He claimed he was a customer. I happened to see him come in here. He looked phoney, so I tagged along. I want to know what he wanted.”

  Ken Corning’s voice was hard.

  “This,” he said, “is a law office, not an information bureau.”

  The gray eyes became brittle hard. The jaw jutted forward. Perkins crowded to the desk.

  “Listen, guy,” he said, “you’re new here. Whether you’re going to get along or not depends on whether you play ball or not. J asked you who that guy was. I asked because I wanted to know… .”

  Corning moved free of the swivel-chair.

  “You getting out?” he asked.

  The lips of the broad shouldered man twisted in a sneer.

  “So that’s your line of chatter?”

  “That’s my line of chatter.”

  The man turned on his heel, strode towards the door. He turned with his hand on the knob.

  “Try and get some favors out of the liquor detail!” he said.

  Ken’s tone was rasping. He stood with his feet planted wide apart, eyes glinting.

  “I don’t want favors,” he said, “from anybody!”

  The broad shouldered man walked from the office, heels pounding the floor. Slowly the automatic door check swung the door shut.

  Ken was ready to leave his office, seeking an interview with his client at the jail, when the door of his private office framed the white features of Helen Vail.

  “It’s Mr. Dwight,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “The man who just came in. Carl Dwight. He’s outside. He wants to see you.”

  Ken whistled. “Show him in,” he said.

  She motioned towards the desk.

  “Shall I get you some papers?”

  “Not with him. He’s a wise bird. He knows. Shoot him in.”

  Helen stood to one side of the door and beckoned. Carl Dwight came in. He walked with a slight limp. His lips were smiling. He had pale eyes that seemed covered with a thin white film, like boiled milk. Those eyes didn’t smile. His skin was swarthy and oily. There was a cut on his forehead, a slight bruise on his left cheek bone.

  He wasn’t large, and yet he radiated a suggestion of ominous power. He said, crisply: “I’m busy. You’re busy. You know of me. I know of you. I’ve had my eye on you for the last week or two. You’re a likely looking young man. I want to give you a retainer. Here’s five hundred dollars. That’ll be for this month. There’ll be five hundred dollars more coming next month, and the month after that.”

  His gloved hand laid an envelope on the desk.

  Ken picked up the envelope. It was unsealed. There were five one hundred-dollar bills in it.

  “What,” asked Ken cautiously, “am I supposed to do?”

  The gloved hand waved in an airy gesture.

  “Just use your head,” said Dwight. “I’ve got rather extensive interests here. You’ve probably heard of me, know who I am.”

  Ken Corning chose his words carefully.

  “You,” he said, “are reputed to be the head of the political machine in this county. You are reputed to be the man who tells the mayor what to do.”

  The filmed eyes blinked. The swarthy skinned man made clucking noises in his throat.

  “That, of course, is an exaggeration, Mr. Corning. But I have interests in the county, interests which are rather extensive. Now you can sort of look out for those interests. And, by the way, there’s a criminal case, the matter of a woman who was running rather a disreputable joint, gambling, hooch and all that. Parks was the name, I believe.

  “Do you know, I think it might; be rather a good thing to have that case disposed of rather rapidly. A plea of guilty, let us say. I’m certain you’ll agree that it’s a dead open and shut case. She tried to bribe an officer. There were witnesses. She gave him fifty dollars. Having such things aired in front of a jury don’t do any good.”


  He got to his feet. The swarthy skin crinkled in a smile, a sallow, bilious smile. The filmed eyes regarded Ken Corning with the wisdom of a serpent.

  “So now,” he smirked, “we understand each other perfectly. I think you’ll like it in York City, Corning.”

  Ken slowly got to his feet.

  “Yes,” he said, “I understand you perfectly. But you don’t understand me, not by a long ways. Take back this damned money before I slap your face with it!”

  Dwight teetered back and forth on his feet, made little clucking noises with his mouth.

  “Like that, eh?” he said.

  “Like that,” agreed Corning.

  Dwight sneered.

  “You won’t last long. You can’t …”

  He didn’t finish. Ken Corning reached out with the envelope which he held by a corner, and slapped it across Dwight’s mouth. The filmed eyes blazed into light. The mouth twisted in a snarl. Dwight snatched at the envelope, crammed it in his pocket, whirled and started to the door. He paused on the threshold.

  “Wait,” he said, significantly.

  And Ken Corning, standing by his desk, feet braced wide apart, jaw thrust forward, said: “You’re damned tooting I’ll wait. I’ll be waiting long after you think you’re finished with me!”

  The attorneys’ room in the county jail was a dull, cheerless place. There was a long desk which ran down the center of the room. Above this desk was a heavy wire screen. The prisoner could sit on one side of the desk, the attorney on the other.

  Esther Parks came into the room through the doorway which led to the cell corridor. Ken Corning watched her with interest. Her face was heavy, her walk plodding. She was a big woman, broad-hipped and big-shouldered. Her eyes were like oysters on a white plate.

  She plowed her way forward.

  The attendant who had charge of the room stood at the doorway, beyond earshot, but where he could see everything that went on in the room.