Beware the Curves

into an existence of men deprived of women but not of sex, when he encounters the restrictions imposed by armed guards, strict discipline and narrow cells, there is a feeling of revulsion and of horror.
    Art Bernard contends, and many thoughtful penologists agree, that if it were possible to release these young men from prison after they have been there just long enough to get a strong taste of prison life and to realize what it really is, they would never commit another crime as long as they lived.
    Unfortunately, the minimum sentence is for a year. The young human male is remarkably adaptable and, as Art Bernard expresses it, after the first few weeks when the horror wears off the young man “becomes acclimated to prison life.”
    After that there are two strikes against him, or perhaps it would be better to say, two strikes against the society which sent him to prison in the first place and which maintains the institution in such a manner that it is a veritable crime factory.
    There is great need for reform in our prison institutions, particularly in regard to the first offender, as well as to the weak-willed individual who has drifted into a life of crime by following the paths of least resistance.
    There is no space available here to comment on these matters, but I do want to call attention to the work that my friend Art Bernard is doing in making an intelligent study of people about whom society should have a lot more information.
    So I dedicate this book to my friend, ARTHUR E. BERNARD, Warden of the Nevada State Penitentiary at Carson City, Nevada.
    —ERLE STANLEY GARDNER

CHAPTER 1 …

    BIG BERTHA Cool displayed all of the ingratiating mannerisms of hippopotamus acting coy during the season of courtship.
    “Donald,” she cooed, “I want you to meet Mr. Ansel, Mr. John Dittmar Ansel. This is Donald Lam, my partner, Mr. Ansel.”
    John Dittmar Ansel, a tall drink of water with the dark eyes of a poet, a thin straight nose, sensitive mouth, a profusion of wavy black hair, long tapering hands, and quiet clothes, was sitting very straight in his chair. He got up to acknowledge the introduction. His eyes were seven or eight inches above mine. I placed him at around six feet two or three. His voice was well modulated and quiet. His handclasp was the somewhat timid grip of a man who shrinks from physical violence.
    It was difficult to imagine any greater contrast than that existing between big Bertha Cool and John Dittmar Ansel.
    Bertha, seated behind her desk, went on in her most ingratiating manner, the diamonds on her fingers scintillating in the light from the window as she gestured with her hands.
    “John Dittmar Ansel,” she explained, “is a writer, I
    Donald. Perhaps you’ve read some of his stuff—I mean his material.”
    She paused, anxiously.
    I nodded.
    Bertha beamed.
    Ansel said apologetically, “I don’t do a great deal of fiction, mostly technical articles. I use the pen name Dittmar.”
    “He has a problem,” Bertha went on. “Someone recommended us to him. He asked for me because the name on the door B. Cool’ made him think I was a man.”
    Bertha smiled at Ansel and said, “He was very gentlemanly about it, and was most considerate in making excuses, but I recognized the symptoms. I told him my partner was a man and I wanted him to meet you.
    “If we can serve Mr. Ansel, Donald, we will, and if we can’t there’s no hard feelings, no hard feelings at all.”
    Bertha’s lips were smiling affably. It became difficult for her to control the expression in her avaricious little eyes that were as glitteringly cold as the diamonds on her fingers.
    Ansel looked dubiously from Bertha to me, from me to Bertha.
    Bertha, a hundred and sixty-five pounds of woman, somewhere in the late fifties or early sixties, as tough, hard and rugged as a coil of barbed wire, now smiling and purring in a manner so exaggerated that it was obviously phony, evidently didn’t appeal to Ansel. Ansel was still standing. He quietly maneuvered his position across the office so that he was between Bertha and the door.
    He looked at me, hesitated, and apparently was trying to find some way of saying what was on his mind without hurting my feelings.
    Bertha hurried along with a line of sales patter, talking fast, trying to get her ideas over before Ansel got out of the door.
    “My partner Donald Lam is young, and he doesn’t have the build you’d expect of a private detective. But he has brains, lots of