The Big Apple Mysteries (1982) Anthology by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE ADVENTURE OF THE ONE-PENNY BLACK

Ellery Queen

Ellery Queen was the pseudonym used by Frederic Dannay (1905- ) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971) on a series of mystery novels which began to appear in 1929 with The Roman Hat Mystery. In a stroke of genius, they decided to name their detective hero Ellery Queen as well. Instead of confusion, this led to increased success, and the two cousins rapidly became leading figures in crime fiction. Lee died in 1971, but Fred Dannay is still going strong, especially as part of the editorial team responsible for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, the premier magazine in its field.

“Ach!” said old Uneker. “It iss a terrible t’ing, Mr. Quveen, a terrible t’ing, like I vass saying. Vat iss New York coming to? Dey come into my store—polizei, undt bleedings, undt whackings on de headt. . .Diss iss vunuff my oldest customers, Mr. Quveen. He too hass hadt exberiences. . .Mr. Hazlitt, Mr. Quveen. . .Mr. Quveen iss dot famous detectiff feller you read aboudt in de papers, Mr. Hazlitt. Inspector Richardt Quveen’s son.”

Ellery Queen laughed, uncoiled his length from old Uneker’s counter, and shook the man’s hand. “Another victim of our crime wave, Mr. Hazlitt? Unky’s been regaling me with a feast of a whopping bloody tale.”

“So you’re Ellery Queen,” said the frail little fellow; he wore a pair of thick-lensed goggles and there was a smell of suburbs about him. “This is luck! Yes, I’ve been robbed.”

Ellery looked incredulously about old Uneker’s bookshop.

“Not here?” Uneker was tucked away on a side street in mid-Manhattan, squeezed between the British Bootery and Mme. Carolyne’s, and it was just about the last place in the world you would have expected thieves to choose as the scene of a Crime.

“Nah,” said Hazlitt. “Might have saved the price of a book if it had. No, it happened last night about ten o’clock. I’d just left my office on Forty-fifth Street—I’d worked late—and I was walking crosstown. Chap stopped me on the street and asked for a light. The street was pretty dark and deserted, and I didn’t like the fellow’s manner, but I saw no harm in lending him a packet of matches. While I was digging it out, though, I noticed he was eyeing the book under my arm. Sort of trying to read the title.”

“What book was it?” asked Ellery eagerly. Books were his private passion.

Hazlitt shrugged. “Nothing remarkable. That best-selling nonfiction thing, Europe in Chaos; I’m in the export line and I like to keep up to date on international conditions. Anyway, this chap lit his cigarette, returned the matches, mumbled his thanks, and I began to walk on. Next thing I knew something walloped me on the back of my head and everything went black. I seem to remember falling. When I came to, I was lying in the gutter, my hat and glasses were on the stones, and my head felt like a baked potato. Naturally thought I’d been robbed; I had a lot of cash about me, and I was wearing a pair of diamond cuff links.

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