Erle Stanley Gardner
The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith
The editors hereby make grateful acknowledgment to Mrs. Erle Stanley Gardner, to Thayer Hobson and Company, and to Lawrence Hughes for giving permission to reprint the material in this volume and for their generous cooperation.
In Round Figures, copyright 1930 by Red Star News Co., renewed 1958 by Erle Stanley Gardner.
The Bird in the Hand, copyright 1932 by Red Star News Co., renewed 1960 by Erle Stanley Gardner.
A Thousand to One, copyright 1939 by Red Star News Co., renewed 1967 by Erle Stanley Gardner.
The Exact Opposite, copyright 1941 by Red Star News Co., renewed 1969 by Erle Stanley Gardner.
The Hand Is Quicker Than the Eye (original title Lester Leith, Magician), copyright 1939 by Red Star News Co., renewed 1967 by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Introduction
Dear Reader:
Erle Stanley Gardner probably invented more series detectives and criminals than any other writer in the mystery field. Foremost, of course, is his lawyer-detective, Perry Mason, the best-selling fictional sleuth in the history of American publishing. Other Gardner creations include Señor Arnaz de Lobo, professional soldier of fortune; Sidney Zoom and his police dog; the suave and sinister Patent Leather Kid; the firm of Small, Weston & Burke; Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook (one of Gardner’s personal favorites); Whispering Sands; Speed Dash, a human fly with a photographic memory (Gardner’s earliest series character); Major Brane, freelance secret-service man; El Paisano, who could see in the dark; Larkin, a juggler who used only a billiard cue as his weapon; Black Barr, a two-gun Western avenger; Ken Corning, the slick lawyer who antedated Perry Mason; Hard Rock Hogan; Fong Dei; Crowder; Rapp; Skarle — all of whom appeared in pulp magazines and were followed by the hardcover-book protagonists, D.A. Douglas Selby, Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, Sheriff Bill Eldon, and, of course, the one and only Perry Mason.
Of the many wood-pulp characters the most popular undoubtedly was Lester Leith, the Robin Hood of detectives who solved baffling mysteries in order to crack down on cracksmen. Instead of robbing the rich to help the poor, Lester Leith robbed the crooks “of their ill-gotten spoils” and gave the proceeds to deserving charities — less “20 percent for costs of collection.”
Lester Leith was, in Gardner’s words, “a typical character of the pulps, and written for the pulps.” He was light-fingered and lightning-witted, a “dapper, ingenious chap” gifted with “sheer mental agility.” So far as we have been able to check, Leith was born in print some time in 1929. During the next ten years Mr. Gardner wrote more than 60 novelets about his criminologist-criminal. After 1939 the debonair young clubman appeared less frequently — about one dozen more exploits were added to the saga. So it can be estimated, with reasonable accuracy, that Lester Leith’s larcenous career totaled approximately 75 adventures.
Now, the lean, languid Lester was no piker. He was seldom interested in picayune pirating. The mysteries which caught his fancy were usually loaded with loot. It would be entirely on the modest side to calculate his average “take” at $100,000 per caper. This means that Leith’s life of detection and crime “earned” him a cool gross of $7,500,000 and an equally cool net of $1,500,000. Not bad for a decade-plus of buccaneering in the depression years of the 1930s!
Lester Leith is pure nostalgia — and great fun. The plots are imaginative, sparkling, audacious. To paraphrase Anthony Boucher’s statement about another American detective: “We envy anyone who here discovers the amazing Lester Leith for the first time.”
Ellery Queen
In Round Figures
Lester Leith rolled over in bed and grinned at the ceiling. In the lazy flexing of his well-oiled muscles there was something of the litheness of a stretching panther.
The electric clock on the dresser marked the hour of ten-thirty.
Leith stretched forth a silk-sheathed arm and rang for his valet. Almost instantly a door swung upon silent hinges and a huge form made an awkward bow.
“You rang, sir?”
“My bath, Scuttle.”
“Yes, sir.”
The door closed as silently as it had opened. But the square-shouldered valet had oozed into the room between the opening and closing of the door. On ponderous tiptoes he set about the tasks of the morning. The bath water roared into the great tub. The clothes closet disclosed an assortment of expensive clothes, from which the heavy hands of the servant picked suitable garments.
Propped up in bed, smoking a cigarette, Lester Leith regarded the man through lazy-lidded eyes.
“Scuttle, you remind me of something, but I can’t quite place what it is. Do you suppose you could help?”
The coal-black eyes of the valet glinted into smoldering fires of antagonism. He half-turned his head so that Lester Leith might not surprise the expression of enmity on his face.
“No, sir. I’ve reminded you of so much, sir. First it was of a reincarnated pirate, and you disregarded my real name to call me Scuttle. Then—”
Leith held up a well manicured hand. “I have it, Scuttle!”
“Yes, sir?”
“A locomotive, Scuttle; a big, black, shiny, powerful locomotive, but running on rubber tires.”
“On rubber tires!”
“Quite right, Scuttle. It’s the way you have of oozing about the room.”
The man straightened. The broad shoulders snapped back. For a quick half-instant the sweeping black mustache bristled with aggressiveness. Then the servant sighed.
“Yes, sir. Very good, sir. The bath is to be just a little warmer than lukewarm, sir?”
“Quite.”
The valet used the pretext to ease his huge body into the bathroom. He closed the door, turned, straightened, and the air of servility evaporated from his personality. His black, beady eyes glittered defiance. His hamlike hand knotted into a fist. For seconds he stood quivering with rage.
Lester Leith, lying back on the bunched pillows, chuckled softly and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. It was as though he took a fiendish delight in flicking this man on the raw.
The valet took a deep breath, regained control of himself, shut off the bath and oozed into the bedroom.
“The bath is ready, sir.”
Lester Leith yawned, stretched, paused with one pajamaed leg thrust over the edge of the bed.
“Scuttle, how long’s it been since we checked the crime clippings?”
A look of eagerness flashed over the heavy face of the giant servant.
“Some time, sir. There have been several interesting crimes recently.”
“Crimes the police haven’t been able to solve?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you think I’d be interested?”
“I know it, sir.”
“Why?”
“Because of the very valuable loot which the police haven’t been able to trace yet.”
“Tut, tut, Scuttle, how often must I tell you that my interest in crime is purely academic? That’s why I never make personal investigations. I only study the reports published in the newspapers. Scuttle, get out the clippings and I’ll glance over them.”
And Leith slipped from his pajamas and into the lukewarm tub while the valet opened a drawer and thumbed out an assortment of newspaper clippings dealing with various unsolved crimes. By the time Leith had rubbed himself into a glow, attired himself in faultless flannels, and poured coffee from the electric percolator, the valet had arranged the crime clippings and took up a recital in a husky monotone.