The Black Ace by Barry Perowne

Book Details

The Black Ace (1930) — that mysterious shadowy figure whose sinister passing left a trail of death, swift and devastating. From a late night raid on a London nightclub, to deception in an opium den, to gang warfare on a deserted London wharf, the hunt for The Black Ace is grim and determined.

Chapter 1. Trapped!
Chapter 2. High Stakes!
Chapter 3. Watching Eyes!
Chapter 4. Alias Ho San Foo.
Chapter 5. The Trail Of The Ace.
Chapter 6. The Danger Call.
Chapter 7. Hounded Down.
Chapter 8. By Appointment.
Chapter 9. The Chamber Of Death!
Chapter 10. The Last Card.

Barry Perowne (1908-1985), born in the New Forest area of Wiltshire, England, was a pseudonym of the British writer Philip Atkey, best known for his crime fiction. He was educated at St John’s College, Portsmouth. Another pseudonym he used was Pat Merriman and he also published books under his own name. By agreement with the E W Hornung Estate, he continued the A. J. Raffles series after its creator E. W. Hornung’s death, as well as other stories with his own characters.

The Black Ace contains 12 illustrations.

Files:

1. Perowne-TheBlackAce.epub

Excerpt: The Black Ace

Chapter 1.

Trapped!

“I  MAY be quite wrong,” Rick said gently, “but I’ve an idea—just a sort of a premonition—that there’s going to be trouble before long!”

Sitting opposite him at the little table, Nan looked up sharply from the cigarette she was tapping on a shapely thumb-nail.

“What do you mean, Rick?”

The broad-shouldered, lean-faced, tanned young man opposite her nodded almost imperceptibly in the direction of a discreet doorway on the far side of the gleaming, brilliantly-lighted dancing-floor.”

“Don’t look round in too much of a hurry,” he said tranquilly; “but, when you do, take a look at the three gentlemen sitting at the table on the left of the door, and at the four gentlemen sitting at the table on the right of the door. Ask yourself if they look like natural-born butterflies of pleasure—or even like tired business men. To me they look like gentlemen with a stern, set purpose in life!”

He chuckled softly, leaning back in his chair, watching her with grey, whimsical eyes. By not the smallest outward sign did Nan betray any excitement. There was no heightening of her delicate colour, nor movement of her sweet lips, nor widening of her blue, level eyes. If anything, she seemed a little bored—but, nevertheless, her heart was beating more quickly than usual, for when Rick looked his laziest she knew that there was something afoot.

She turned casually in her chair, covering a tiny yawn with three slim fingers. The orchestra was tuning its instruments; the discordant, disconnected notes cut through the hum of conversation from the tables about the dancing-floor. Nan’s blue eyes flickered from table to table, from face to face of those jaded, futile people, who, seeking in vain for a moment’s thrill, haunted Loitz’s Night Club. Fleetingly, her eyes rested upon those seven men near the door. They sat silent, watching the patrons. Well-mannered, correctly dressed in evening clothes, there was yet something about those seven men which set them apart from the other habitués of the night club.

Nan turned back again carelessly to the table, putting her cigarette between her lips. Rick struck a match, leaning forward as he held the small flame to the tip of her cigarette. For a moment his face was close to hers. He raised his brows.

“Well?”

“Police,” Nan said softly, puffing at her cigarette.”

“The Boiled Shirt Brigade,” Rick nodded. “I don’t recognise any of ’em—provincial cops, I expect, brought up specially. Folk get to know the Metropolitan men.”

He shook out the match, dropped it into an ash-tray. But, with his elbows on the table, he remained leaning forward, looking into her eyes.

“I suspect,” he said, his lips scarcely moving, “I suspect that this is not going to be an ordinary booze raid. Something tells me that they’re here for the same reason that we’re here.”

“The Black Ace?” Nan breathed.

The orchestra swung with a sudden crash of sound into “Singing in the Rain.” The dancing-floor began swiftly to fill with couples. Through the medley of noise, Rick’s voice came softly to Nan:

“Who is the chief of the Loitz gang? Gaspar Loitz is only a figurehead. Who is behind Loitz? Who is the man who supplies half the drug fiends in London with cocaine and opium? Who is the man who killed Anson Burke, the gangster, and got away with a cargo of ‘snow’ Burke had smuggled in? Who shot down Feltou Young, the financier, in his own study, and cleared ninety thousand pounds in negotiable bonds? Who is the man who keeps secret rendezvous with Gaspar Loitz? Who shot the stool-pigeon at the very gates of Scotland Yard, as he was on his way to interview Chief Inspector Hansard? Who is the man who’s been making Hansard, the cleverest ‘tec at the Yard, look like a babe for months past? Who is it leaves behind, at the scene of each crime he commits, an ace of spades. Who is the Black Ace?”

Coming so softly through the clash of the music, there was something bizarre and frightening in that level, quiet voice, and, well though she knew her chief, Nan felt a little chill of fear at her heart.

Rick leaned back again in his chair, smiling lazily; but she saw that his grey eyes were keen, taking stock of that big, garish room and of all who were in it. His eyes signaled her attention to a man who sat alone at a table near the orchestra dais, smoking a Russian cigarette, long and yellow. His face was clean-shaven, aquiline, handsome; his dark hair, parted in the middle, was brushed flat above the high forehead; his eyes were dark and piercing. He sat facing the seven men near the door. Nan recognised him vaguely. She looked questioningly at Rick.

“Hansard?”

Rick nodded.

Excitement quivered in Nan. If Chief Inspector Hansard were here, there could be no doubt that designs were afoot against the liberty of that killer from the dark whom men called the Black Ace. For between the Ace and the Scotland Yard man there existed a feud so deadly that the death of one or of the other could be its only termination.

A shadow fell suddenly across the table between Nan and her chief. She looked up quickly, startled. A small, wizened man in evening-dress smiled down at her, bowing profoundly. His black hair was plastered down in a fringe above his small, dark, glittering eyes; his complexion was olive-hued, pitted with small-pox; his mouth was thick-lipped and cruel, twisted in an ugly, habitual sneer.

“So I have-a da honour to entertain da Honourable Roderick Leroy, criminologist, and hees lady asseestant, Signorina Nan Fergus, yes? Eh, buono! You lika-a da cabaret, no?”

“We didn’t see it, Loitz,” Rick said lazily; “we came in late.”

The Italian glanced quickly about the room—leaned confidentially towards Rick.

“Presently, dere vill be trouble,” he said; “da Chief Inspector Hansard, he ees here vit his dress-suit squad!”

“So I see,” said Rick. “Aren’t you scared?”

“Scared?” The Italian chuckled cunningly. “Vat for I get-a da scare? I sell a few dreenks after hours, so? But yes! My patrons, dey vill be arrested and fined! I, also! But vat mattaire? Da police, dey vill not close me up—no, no! Dis place is too valuable to dem; dey t’ink-a da Ace comes here—dat I vork for heem ! Dey t’ink-a to catch heem here von time. Puh! Vat mattaire? I know not’ink of da Ace. As for da fine—puh! Eet ees not’ink !”

Rick puffed a little cloud of cigarette smoke into the air, watching it writhe upward and disappear.

“They’ll get you one day, Loitz. Hansard’s a smart man. He knows you’re a gangster. He knows that half the drugs in London are distributed through you. He knows the Ace is behind you. You want to watch out, Loitz!”

“Puh!” The Italian spread his hands derisively. “He has not’ink on me—no proof—only da lies of stool-pigeons. Me, I am a smart man!”

“Not you, Loitz,” Rick said insultingly. “If all your brains were put in an egg-cup, the bottom would still be visible to the naked eye! The brains of your outfit is the killer the papers call the Black Ace— you’re just the thick-wit who obeys orders! If Hansard didn’t think you’d make a break one day, and lead him to the Ace, you’d be breathing good, healthy Dartmoor air this minute!”

The Italian’s lips twisted cruelly.

“So? Vell, leesten, Signor Honourable Rick Leroy! Be varned! Your habeets, dey are not liked! Eet ees vell known you haunt-a da East End, da Pool of London, in disguise. Eet ees common knowledge you know-a every hide-out east of Tower Bridge, and every crook in da game! Your book, ‘Criminal Secrets,’ put-a da vind up many deadly men! You are not a policeman, maybe; you are only—vat ees eet yoa call yourself?—a student of criminology! So! Neverdaless, you are more dangerous dan dat Hansard yonder! Von day, you get a bullet “—he pressed a thick forefinger against Rick’s stiff shirt-front, over the heart—”right dere! Yes!”

Excerpt From: Barry Perowne. “The Black Ace.”