Published August 1955 by Herbert Jenkins Ltd., Darker Grows the Street is the third novel in the Steve Craig crime thriller series. Bevis Winter returns for his third outing with his sarcastic private detective along with partner Patrick Shaun Mulligan (now aged 31) and office-girl Kitty Callaway. The novel spans pages 9 to 190; it is comprised of 13 colorfully titled chapters. The cover art is by the highly competent Kingsbury / London illustrator Henry Fox.
Darker Grows the Street was later reprinted in 1964 via Digit Books in a mass market paperback edition.
The novel opens with another investigator (Milt Druse) contracting Steve Craig to handle some independent leg-work. Druse can’t be in two places at the same time. He’s busy handling a possible insurance-fraud case. Craig is standing outside in the dark, watching one Mr. Lentzyl. Druse has confirmed that this man has been in contact with a woman he’s watching. Said woman is the girlfriend of a cheap hoodlum, months ago arrested for robbery. His name isn’t important. He’s spending years in the pen, caught after foolishly pawning nearly all of the cheaper jewelry. The broker phoned the police. He was captured…
…but the emerald necklace, purchased and specially constructed at the request of Mr. Edgebrook for his wife, is still missing. It cost a cool hundred grand. Cost and value are two different things. It’s insured for some tens of thousands less, but the insurance firm isn’t cool with paying Edgebrook’s ex-wife for a bauble that might not be missing.
Thus enters Milt Druse, investigating the case on behalf the Vidor insurance company. He’s been tailing the convict’s girlfriend, one Alice Carpenter. And Steve Craig finds himself watching Lentzyl. And that individual is upstairs, on the fifth floor, in apartment 5c. The name on the tab says “G. Linton.” Steve’s already got a good view of her and she’s too hot a gem herself to be mixed up with the aged and nondescript Lentzyl. And he doesn’t have the moola to permit himself to paw her, despite working at Cyrene’s, a jeweler. The coincidence of his employment and the missing emerald necklace is too much to dismiss. How does he figure into the affair? And who is this Linton figure?
Who cares! Lentzyl is on the move. Steve hops into his Ford and tails Lentzyl’s Chevrolet onto the freeway near Los Feliz, in California. He’s tailing the man at the stereotypical “safe distance” when a dark limousine overtakes him, rolls down a window, and molests the Chevrolet with bullets, raking it with murderous abandon. The car looses control and comes to an abrupt deadly halt against the freeway wall; the limousine never slowed down, continuing on into the enveloping night.
Steve stops, inspects the scene. Lentzyl is a bloody mess. Driving onward, he stops at a callbox, phones in the wreck, and hangs up without giving his identity. Then goes home and phones in his report to Druse. That latter is gobsmacked. The killers riddled Lentzyl with either a Tommy gun or something equally devastating. And the limo’s plates were from Nevada. The driver’s and killer’s identities are unknown. Too dark to see them.
Steve could certainly use his muscular partner on this case, but they have a newly-contracted “paying” client, so Steve assigns Patrick Mulligan to sign the contract and stick with that assignment. While talking, Patrick remarks he can’t figure why Kitty Callaway works as a low-grade, barely payable secretary for them, when it was discovered she’s the daughter to a rich banker. We never are told (at least, not in this novel). Essentially, Patrick plays only a background figure in this novel, as we scarcely hear from him again.
Druse is flustered to discover Nevada is now in the mix. And Steve wants to know everything. Druse has been holding out. We know a convict robbed the Edgebrook estate, stealing jewelry from a safe, a safe that was apparently accidentally left open. This occurred likely during an argument between the still married couple, and they departed, distracted, leaving an open safe. Easy access. It’s believed the con secreted the necklace and that his girlfriend knows the location. How does Lentzyl figure in?
He didn’t, only recently he appeared at Alice Carpenter’s pad. Druse wasn’t sure how he figured in, and that’s how Steve became involved. Druse needed him watched. Only he doesn’t need watching. He’s a sieve.
Next day, Steve sends Kitty to visit Sylvia, daughter to the slain Lentzyl. She’s eighteen, works at a beauty parlor, and is cut skillfully in all the right places. Kitty goes to the parlor and while there getting her looks in order, the pair talk. Sylvia is shaken, and willing to talk to a friendly female. Kitty realizes there’s more to the case and gets Sylvia to agree to meet with her private detective boss. She does. She speaks with Steve, unsure how her father could possibly be involved. She didn’t cough up any useful information to the police. Fact is, her father’s been acting peculiar. And she discovered unaccounted sums of cash in the home. In a cash ledger, she found the sums recorded, along with the name “Alice Carpenter.” Recorded entries summed up to hundreds of dollars, into the low thousands. Where was all this money coming from? Or was the money actually going to Alice Carpenter? Sylvia couldn’t be certain. Then one day, daddy Lentzyl mentioned that maybe they ought to move to Bermuda or Jamaica. This shook her greatly. They didn’t have money to move, let alone live that sort of lifestyle. Then one night, Lentzyl received a phone call and an argument ensued. She learned enough to investigate, discovering an address he was to go to. This would be the Linton pad, where he would eventually depart and later die…
Sylvia didn’t like it, and went to investigate this Linton woman herself. Only, when the door opened, the woman inside was a woman she knew under another name: Gina Edgebrook. She freaked out and ran from the scene before Gina could get a good look at her. Gina is the ex-wife, the one who legally owned the emerald necklace, and collected $80k on the claim.
All this mysterious excitement in two chapters? Oh yeah. Bevis has a wonderful way of telling a story and a sure-fire thriller when it comes to web-work techniques. To speed the narrative along, Sylvia is nearly murdered, hospitalized after a speedboat ran her over in a rowboat. She’s in critical condition. Will she survive?
Steve and Kitty were along with Sylvia, accepting an invitation. While out at the rich and fancy retreat, Kitty noticed they were being tailed. Steve pulls over, walks across the highway and pulls some fist work and fast-tongue actioned wit upon the pair inside the dark limousine. He doesn’t like the coincidence, and when one pulls a pocket-gat, he knows he’s likely found Lentzyl’s killers. They take off, but Steve has these morons photographically memorized. They turn out to be hoods working for a Las Vegas gambling syndicate.
We learn Gina Edgebrook was having an affair with a Las Vegas mobster, name of McAvery. But when she ran up tens of thousands in gambling debts, and her sugar-daddy husband cut off her allowance, she finds that her love affair isn’t worth a dime. The man informs her she’s crossed the wrong type of people, and suggests the “loses” the emerald necklace. Now we know how she figures into the affair. The convict was chosen by the mob, only, that fool had plans of his own. He wasn’t supposed to “think.” But he decided to sell the cheaper goods and hide the real gem. You know the rest… So the mob is watching Alice Carpenter (whose real name is Arlene French) and they’d had their eyes glued to Lentzyl. Suspicious of his involvement, they rubbed him out. This would isolate Alice Carpenter and put the scare into her. It worked. She vanished.
Only problem is, so did Steve’s contact, Milt Druse. Following a lead, Steve investigates a pad and discovers the corpse of Milt, shot once, in the back. Clearly he never knew it was coming. He leaves the body as discovered, making sure the scene remains relatively untouched. He doesn’t watch Alice to know anyone is aware of the murder, certain she might be involved.
Steve puts the scare into Gina Edgebrook, and she flees her pad. Watching from a distance, Steve tails her until she hooks up with one of the pair from the limousine. Spotting that she is about to hand over a small packet to the hood, he moves in, snatches the package and gets into a fight with the hood in broad daylight. Escaping, he opens the parcel to discover the emerald necklace inside. Patting his back over the clever discovery, he shows it to his secretary. She’s not impressed and remarks it’s a fake. Taking out a “glass,” they inspect it. She’s right. Not only that, but they spot dirt and grit in evidence. I won’t explain the relevance of that, lest I reveal too much of the plot, but it’s important.
Did Gina know the necklace she was handing to the mob was a fake? If yes, then her life wouldn’t be worth much. If she claimed to not know it was legit, then who made the fake? And how did it come into her possession, after being stolen? Clearly, she had to have obtained it from wherever the convict hid it, given the grit.
Steve has it figured. When McAvery suggested she lose the bauble and claim the insurance to pay off the gambling debts, Gina wasn’t willing to surrender the emerald necklace. So she approached Lentzyl about possibly making a duplicate. Having grown up dirt poor and discovered for her beauty by her ex-husband, she wasn’t aware that rich debs often made duplicates of their jewelry. Lentzyl knew “somebody” and had the goods duplicated. With the fake in hand, she planted it in the safe. The convict made off with the cheaper bunch of real jewels and the fake emerald necklace. The real one had never left her possession. The insurance company legally was forced to pay up. She paid off the mob and kept the profits. Only one problem. Lentzyl read of the robbery and got wise, began to blackmail her. Only, when he discovered the mob was involved, he wanted out, became scared. Hence why he suggested to his daughter Sylvia that they relocate. Only, he waited too long. They rubbed him out, then attempted to remove Sylvia, too. And Steve didn’t take kindly to this attempted murder. Steve enters Gina’s pad with one of the hoods present and slaps him down then browbeats a confession from Gina, going so far as to note that the necklace given to that very hood had been a fake. Realizing she’s a two-timing dame, the hood wants to murder her, but Steve tosses him into another room. Returning, he discovers Gina has fled the scene.
It’s not long before he receives a call from Gina, and with Kitty in on another phone line, the pair listen to her spiel. She’s fleeing the country with the real goods and what cash remains. While crying over the phone, she laments her foolish greed and faux love affair. It’s ruined her, and led to various deaths, etc. She panics over the phone when she hears someone enter, and then all is silence. Steve and Kitty rapidly drive across town and leaving her in the car, he goes up and discovers Gina Edgebrook bent backwards into an illogical position, strangled to death. Kitty followed Steve in, unwilling to remain in the car during the dead still of the scary night, alone. She spots the tongue-protruding corpse and nearly faints.
The pair are surprised to discover another car has arrived. Turning off the light, they wait in darkness while the figure enters and with a flashlight, makes for the safe. Flipping on the light they find Arlene French, aka Alice Carpenter. Steve confronts her and she plays innocent, claiming to be there to see Gina about private business. Informing Alice that Gina is upstairs in the bedroom, he sends her up all alone. She sees the corpse and alarmed, accuses Steve and Kitty of murder! She has them figured all wrong, suspecting they are tied up with the Las Vegas mob! Clarifying their positions, and confirming that she murdered Milt Druse (she had entered her pad, found him, and thought he was also a mobster) she is shaken by all her mistakes.
The plot takes another turn when they begin to hear “thuds” on the upper landings in the house. Someone else is present, and whoever it is, that person isn’t aware that Steve, Kitty, and Alice are present. They are most likely the murderer of Gina, and doubly-likely, upstairs searching the entire house for the missing emerald necklace. Making his way up to confront the intruder, Steve comes face to face with gambler/lover McAvery. The pair duke it out. Steve is losing badly, and McAvery makes to depart…only, he finds himself now confronted with two women: Alice and behind her, Kitty. Drawing his gun, he plugs Alice in the arm, but that’s his last gasp. In her coat pocket is a small caliber gun, and she pulls the trigger six times. Five bullets roost in McAvery, and click six fires nothing. That empty chamber? That one is in the back of Milt Druse.
But, where is the infernal emerald necklace? McAvery had slain Gina, tossed her and her bedroom possessions, and moved thoroughly throughout the house, clearly on a search-and-obtain mission from the mob. He didn’t find the goods. Steve, after making a literary reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letter, shows the two girls what McAvery had overlooked…and what I am not going to reveal to you!
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