On the 15th of every month, we publish a review of Our Fave Lawyer
The Case of the Fabulous Fake - Erle Stanley Gardner
Los Angeles. 1969. Diana Douglas and her brother Edgar worked for Escobar Import & Export out of San Francisco. The books didn’t balance. Ten grand short. That’s about seventy-two large in today’s money. Edgar, a smooth talker with a gambling habit, might’ve skimmed it to pay off some wise guys.
Enter Moray “The Eel” Cassell. Blackmailer. Heard about the missing cash. Put the squeeze on Edgar. Edgar got in a car wreck. Coma. Diana stepped in. Tried to pay off The Eel. Lied to Mason. Hid facts. Mason took the case anyway. He hates blackmailers.
Then came the body. Apartment. Murder weapon: a .22 with a wooden handle. Registered to Edgar. Diana got charged with Murder One.
Mason made a mistake. Gave Diana too much rope. She nearly hung herself. But he stuck with her. Beat the rap. Barely.
The book’s short. About 25% less than usual. Few
suspects. One big coincidence late in the game. Gardner plays dirty pool - holds
back key facts. No Hamilton Burger. No Paul Drake. Della’s barely there.
Gardner leans hard on adverbs. People glance meaningfully, nod solemnly, speak
impressively. Gets old.
Still, Gardner kept up with the times. Mentions computers, credit cards, electric typewriters, car phones, Miranda rights, and how easy it was to carry guns on planes. That’s 1969 for you. Gotta take the bad with the good, just like nowadays.
Diana’s a classic Gardner dame. Brave. Smart. Loyal. Scared - not of losing stuff, but of losing her brother. She’s grateful when Mason saves her from the gas chamber.
Gardner liked to teach. Chapter 3: Mason defends a young Black man. Robbery charge. Mason says eyewitnesses are unreliable. People remember vague traits. Police push them. Witnesses convince themselves they saw more than they did. Jury says “guilty.” But before the verdict’s read, cops nab the real perp. DA wants to keep it quiet. Says it’ll shake public trust. Gardner was right - this time. Eyewitness ID is shaky. Own-race bias makes it worse.
Verdict: Gardner’s last Mason mystery gets a qualified thumbs-up. Not his best. But worth it for fans.
Notes: Glossary for the Youngs and the English Learners and Also Maybe the Time Travelers
Oh no! The pandemic came and gobbled up my part-time ESL job like a big hungry job-eating monster. Chomp chomp! So now my teacherly instincts are wandering the earth like ghostly pedagogical tumbleweeds, looking for a place to haunt. And lo! They have found refuge in this glossary!
This glossary is for:
- People under 50, who may not know what 1969 was, except maybe it was a year with moon men and Jimi Hendrix and pants with flares.
- Non-native speakers of English, who bravely battle the language dragon daily and deserve a sword made of definitions.
- Me, because I like glossing things. It is fun and makes me feel like a wizard of words.
Why do this? Because old-school mysteries are full of weird old words and cultural doodads that might seem dusty or embarrassing or like they crawled out of a thrift store. But they are still good stories! And they should not be locked away in the attic of time just because they say things like “groovy” or “hep cat” or “he’s got moxie.”
So here is a glossary. It is a bridge across time. It is a decoder ring. It is a love letter to idioms and mystery and the year 1969, which was probably very confusing but also had cool jackets.
You can’t tell
much from a woman’s hands until after she’s turned 30.
When reading old mysteries, allowances must be made to sexist comments and attitudes. Research published by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons says most people – male and female - can accurately tell a person's age by viewing only their hands. So if you want to know a person's real age, just look at their hands. Male and female.
Give her a button
and she’ll sew a vest.
This comment by Della Street about imaginative Gerties sounds proverbial but I can’t find any other instances of its use. It does not mean the criticism “she makes big deals out of nothing much” (make mountains out molehills). But rather Gertie’s so imaginative and resourceful that she’ll build a whole story out of just a little information.
You’ve reached
your thumb by going all the way round your elbow.
This comment by Paul Drake also sounds idiomatic, but I don’t think it is. It means you have reached a conclusion though not following a direct line of thinking. Thinking in a roundabout way.
Be on the horns of
a dilemma
When a person is on the horns of a dilemma, they have to choose between two things, both of which are unpleasant or difficult.
Cloak and dagger
(story, situation, situation)
Involving mystery, secrecy, conspiracy, or espionage. It’s from the image of spies wearing roomy coats and capes and killing silently with knives.
Live and let live.
This proverb means that we should live our own lives the way we prefer and allow other people to live the way they want to. As the Japanese say juunin toiro 十人十色 literally “ten people, ten views” for “Different strokes for different folks.”
Come out cold
turkey
In this novel this idiom means “say clearly and directly.” Nowadays we only say “quit / go cold turkey” to mean quit a bad habit like smoking immediately, not tapering off.
Prices
In a used bookstore, Perry Mason buys some old histories of California for $28.00. This is equivalent to $200.00 today. I enjoy the idea of Our Hero in a used bookstore and paying big bucks to keep them alive. One wonders if back then their proprietors were as mean and grasping as they are now.
Before they
proposition you, men may test you by telling a story that’s a little broad.
In this sentence broad means off color, a little indecent, in poor taste, crude, suggestive, rude. Nowadays I doubt if anybody would use broad in this sense; just say dirty stories.
Helen, Joyce,
Ella, Stella
Helen and Stella were popular names for girl babies in the 1920s; Stella has come back gangbusters in the last couple of years. Joyce was popular in the 1940s. Ella is an old name that has become much more popular in the last 10 years.
Magnetic personality
/ person
This expression is still used for very attractive, charming, charismatic. But to me it sounds a little old-fashioned.
You can say that again.
This is a very informal way to say I strongly agree. Don’t use with bosses, supervisors, elderly people or teachers.
Hell’s Bells!
This is an old expression to express anger of annoyance. If you use this expression, people will ask you if your English teacher was 85 years old.
Get the
heebie-jeebies
This is 1920s slang for feel anxiety or nervous fear. I think most people know what it means but I don’t hear it often in conversation.
ride herd on (this
room, people, employees)
This expression is American English for watch over. This idiom is from cowboy slang when they were driving cattle while riding along with them.
on the square / on
the level
This is old slang from carpenters for honest, open, true, truthful.
badger game
This is an extortion technique in which the victim is tricked into a compromising position to make them vulnerable to blackmail. A noir standby is the photographer bursting into a hotel room where the victim is embracing a femme fatale.
bark up the wrong
tree
This idiom means that a person completely misunderstands a situation and is acting on wrong assumptions.
It was like
rolling off a log
This American idiom means be very easy to do, requiring no skill
a kettle of fish
An awkward, difficult, or bad situation; a fine mess. This informal expression is old but still used.
The taxi driver
started to make time.
In this sentence make time mean proceed rapidly, but usually it means to arrange your schedule to find time to do something.
Don’t let yourself
go, Diana.
Mason is telling her not to allow her emotions to overcome her ability to think clearly. Nowadays we use this idiom more often to mean to allow yourself to become unhealthy and unattractive: It’s easy to let yourself go during a pandemic by eating too much and never exercising.
Make arrangements
This is a delicate expression for to plan a funeral. In the US, almost all references to death are made in mild, gentle words. In middle-class company, anyway.
You’ve had a hard
row to hoe.
This idiom means you are in a difficult position or situation. This is a farmer’s expression from the early 19th century; row crops are, to name a couple, potato, dry bean, and field pea. If you hear a person say a tough road to hoe you can safely assume she doesn’t think about the words she uses and probably puts gasoline in CVS plastic bags. How the hell do you hoe a damn road? It’s like saying, “That really took the steam out of my sails,” which I swear I heard on – where else? - sports talk radio where language goes to curl up and die.
chunky
In the olden days this meant having a bulky and solid body type, but nowadays it means overweight or fat. There is no situation in the US today in which you can safely use the word fat when you are talking about people.
tortoise-shell
glasses
These were out of style for a long time but now they are back in style but in more various colors such as green, orange, and red. The tech to make them from acetate and in bright colors is probably cheaper nowadays.
You’re getting the
cart before the horse.
Doing things in the wrong order.
Put two and two
together
Draw an obvious conclusion from facts or evidence
Good girl!
Male bosses used to use this expression when praising the female help. If you said this nowadays, you would lose your job.
Miranda decision
In the case of Miranda versus Arizona, in 1966, the Supreme Court ruled that, before questioning by the police, suspects must be informed that they have the right to remain silent and the right to consult an attorney, and that anything they say may be used against them in court.
Fountain pen
Nobody uses in 2021 except those who love writing with one, those who want to make a strong statement about fashion or communication, and those who have made using and taking care of one a hobby.
Pull the wool over
one’s eyes
To hide the truth from somebody. This is an extremely old expression: at fairs in the medieval days, thieves would pull down people’s hood over their faces and steal from them.
Shaking hands
Before the 2020 pandemic, it was widely believed that you can tell a lot about a man by his grip when shaking hands. The idea was that by exchanging animal magnetism by touch, one would feel a man was firm and sincere or evasive, oily, manicured, self-conscious, or irritable.
That kind of a
girl
This is an old polite way to say a woman is behaving in a sexually promiscuous (loose) or provocative (teasing) manner. It is often used in the negative, “I would never sleep with a guy on the first date; I'm not that kind of girl!”
He was a nut about
his women being able to protect themselves.
Be a nut about means extremely strong-minded or firm about something. In this case, poor Edgar badly wanted his sister and girlfriends to be able to handle a gun effectively for personal protection. Among many Americans responsible gun ownership and use is a highly cherished right. As for the phrase “his women” or “their women” etc. it’s a good idea not to use language that implies you think women are objects or possessions of anybody.
Keep a stiff upper
lip, Diana.
Repress your emotions for the sake of reasoning clearly. This habit of emotional regulation is associated with British unemotionality, but the phrase in fact originated in the US in the early 19th century.
The deuce! The
deuce you say!
This is an expression of surprise at what someone says. The word 'deuce' is a euphemism for the devil and dates back to late 17th century England.
gadabout
A person who goes here and there for fun
Six months later
she was a girl in trouble and she hadn’t seen her boyfriend in a while.
Be in trouble means
to be single but pregnant
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