Free Gamblers Don't Win by W. T. Ballard Page A

other than Lennox.
    Ballard tried to do about ten pages a day after that first Black Mask flush, sometimes more, sometimes less. He tried to work regularly, writing something every day even if he later threw it away.
    Twenty-seven Bill Lennox stories appeared in Black Mask from 1933 to 1942, and they rivaled the popularity of Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Carroll John Daly during those nine years.
    Ballard got along with all the Black Mask boys, and knew Raymond Chandler, Hammett, Horace McCoy, Frank Gruber, and Norbert Davis well. Late in his career he and Robert Leslie Bellem worked on television scripts together.
    Bill Lennox lived on, long after Black Mask ceased publication, in hardcover and paperback novels: Say Yes to Murder (Putnam, 1942), Murder Can’t Stop (McKay, 1946), and Dealing Out Death (McKay, 1947). Much later on saw a fourth book, Lights, Camera, Murder (Belmont Paperbacks, 1960).
    Ballard was the first cousin of Nero Wolfe creator Rex Stout, with whom he shared a middle name (Todhunter). Ballard wrote as Neil MacNeil, P.D. Ballard, John Shepherd, and the house names Nick Carter and Robert Wallace. W. T. Ballard continued writing westerns late in his life until his eyesight made reading difficult.
    â€œGamblers Don’t Win,” one of forty-three stories Ballard wrote for Black Mask , was published in the April 1935 issue.
    Keith Alan Deutsch

Gamblers Don’t Win
By W. T. Ballard
    Bill Lennox, Hollywood trouble-shooter for Consolidated Films, finds that it is not so easy to clean up at the races when all bets are on murder!

    BILL LENNOX, trouble-shooter for General-Consolidated studio, stared thoughtfully at his program. The third race was just coming up. The horses were already on parade, the bright silks of their riders making color splotches against the gray-green background of the distant hills. Nancy Hobbs, pert and chic, plainly pleased with Lennox, said, “It’s a nice place.”
    Lennox nodded as he looked around the clubhouse lawn. “Nice, and all the movie bunch are here, to be taken.” His voice was cynical.
    She smiled slightly. “You’re here, too, aren’t you?”
    He said: “I had to be here, Honey. Spurck decided that what he needed was a racing stable. He’s got one, and one of his horses starts in the feature this afternoon. If I hadn’t been here to see the nag perform, Sol would never have recovered. There he is now.” He pointed with his program to where Sol Spurck, head of the West Coast studios of General Consolidated was standing in one of the front row boxes. “Look at him. He’s having the time of his life.”
    The girl looked in that direction, shielding her eyes with one hand. “Next you’ll be telling me that you don’t like races.”
    â€œSure I like them,” Lennox told her. “I think the horses are swell. It’s the people I object to, the chiselers, the touts, the gamblers.”
    She said: “But they aren’t going to have any out here. They’re being very careful to keep them off.”
    Lennox’s lips twisted slightly. “I’ll admit they’re being careful, Honey. I’ll admit they’ve got a better class of horses here than they ever had on the Coast before. I’ll admit that this track is run on the level and that the racing commission is making every effort to keep the sport on the highest plane possible, but there’s easy money connected with racing, and you’re bound to have some chiselers. Come on. Let’s walk around and have a look. This is a nice plant.”
    He linked his arm through hers and they crossed the lawn towards the grandstand entrance. Several people spoke to them, others waved. It seemed to Lennox that Hollywood had moved en masse to the track. Movie capital had helped build it. Movie capital had helped bring racing back to California after some twenty years, and the picture people were entering the