Cellini Smith

Darn it! Here's another one. Yet another series of highly-regarded hardboiled P.I. stories from the Golden Age of Pulps that I haven't read and that haven't been properly anthologized!

The Cellini Smith stories were published from 1940 to 1945, mostly in Black Mask Magazine, with the series coming to an abrupt end when author Robert Reeves was killed during the war. 

They are reputed to be quite good, but they are a bit hard to find. The first Cellini Smith novel (which was originally serialized in Black Mask in 1940) did come back into print this year, but as an expensive trade paperback that's out of my price range. So, as of this writing, one must search through pulp magazines that have appeared online to find Smith's adventures. Not all of them are to be found that way. 

One of those that can be found is "Bail Bait," a novella that appeared in the January 1942 issue of Black Mask.

It's easy to see right away why the Smith stories are so well-regarded. The story starts off at a sprint, with a judge turning down a bribe to release a criminal, but then releasing him anyways because (as we soon learn) a man with a pistol is hiding under his bench, intending to shoot the judge if the criminal is not set free. 

The freed crook---a safe cracker named Jimmy Legg--is happy to be out of jail but has no idea how it happened. He calls Cellini Smith, intending to hire the P.I. to find out what's up. But Legg is murdered before Cellini can meet up with him.

In the best private eye tradition, Cellini's relationship with the homocide detective on the case is a tad adversarial. So, to keep from having Legg's murder pinned on him, Cellini has to find the real killer.

He soon finds a paying client, a beautiful woman with a connection to Legg. But she is paying him to find out why Legg was killed and has no desire to find out who the killer might be. 

Soon, Cellini learns that a number of people involved in the case have connections to the investment firm that Legg had been arrested for robbing. Also, Legg apparently stole something other than money from the firm, though Cellini has no idea at first what that might be.

The P.I. teams up with bookie and former safe cracker who has an interest in the case and the two of them soon find themselves dodging machine gun bullets. 

Cellini is persistant and smart. Soon, he begins to piece together what's going on.

It's a wonderful story, with a convoluted plot that is resolved satisfactorily, some fun action set pieces, and an engaging protagonist. I've found one other Cellini Smith story online-- a novel that was re-printed in Thrilling Mystery Novel Magazine in 1946. That one is apparently about a murdered hobo who has a treasure map. I intend to read it promptly and review it here, because it is impossible to read the sentence "murdered hobo who has a treasure map" and NOT read the story to which this refers. 

You can read "Bail Bait" HERE.