In the late 1940s Gardner, working with Argosy magazine, established the "Court of Last Resort," with investigated wrongful criminal convictions. Before concentrting on full-length novels, he had been a pulp fiction machine, witing hundreds of popular mystery and adventure stories and creating such characters as Lester Leith, Sydney Zoom, The Phantom Crook Ed Jenkins, The Human Fly Speed Dash, The Patent Leather Kid, Bob Zane, Ken Corning, among others. Gardner (1889-1970) was one of the world's best-selling authors, best known as the creator of Perry Mason, as well as the author of the Bertha Cool-Donald Lam mysteries and the D.A. The poor Mexican half-breed "woke" up confused and with no memory of his past personality or of what had happened. As Rane and the Mexican leave the cave, the old Spanish personality fades away - with the death of Bender, the hypnotic spell that had brought the reincarnated personaily to the fore faded and "Pablo Viscente de Moreno" was no more. He attacks Bender and slays him with the conquistador's centuries-old sword. Bender uses his hypnotic powers to help the escape, but before they leave the cavern, the Moreno personality revolts, declaring that he will not share "his" treasure with the others. Rane had heard of a group of Indians, disctncly separate for other natives of the area and far more primitive, who lived isolated in a "sacred cavern." The Indians attack, captured the three men, binnd them, and ready them for sacrifice.
The firt trasure chest they encounter are empty, filled with dust, the gold having been taken some time in the distant past by the native Indians. The conquistador personality was easily able to locate the secret cache from landmarks so Rane was never really needed, but logic does not necessarily prevail in pulp adventure stories.) Bender appears to be motivated strictly by greed, overpowering any common sense - determined to reach his goal as quickly as possible he pushes his jeep to the limits, overheating and melting the engine, and once inside the cave, he uses his already weak flashlight indiscriminately so that he drains it of power.Īnyway, the find the cave and the Moreno personality finds his old bloody sword, stillin the hands of his centuries-old corpse. (I can't find any real reason why Bender chose to take Rane along on this expedition.
Bender takes him and, guided by Rane, enter the desert to find the lost cave, with each agreeing to split the loot three ways. The Mexican, when his personality was overtaken by the Spanish merccenary, had no concept of time passing and did not realize he had been killed in the battle. Vargas and company - including Moreno - met their bloody end at the hands of Indians in a hidden, secret cave somewhere in the desert, leaving behind a cache of looted gold. Under hypnosis the man became Pablo Viscente de Moreno, an arrogant, imperialist, amoral soldier who served under General Diego de Vargas in 1692, who had followed Vargas into the New Mexico desert to conquer the territory for Spain from the native Indians/ Of course, to "conquer" meant to loot and kill. It seems Bender had been experimenting with past life regression (although it's never clled that in the story) and hit pay dirt with one subject - a half-breed Mexican with a "low forehead, black eyes, thick lips," and a surly look. Bender enlists Rane to help him on a search for Spanish gold that had been lost in the desert for 300 years. The man with the pin-point eyes is Emilio Bender, a professional hypnotist with a shaky reputation. Hr is understood to know more about the desert than any man living. Our narrator is Sidney Rane, a young man who had moved to the Southwest for health reasons years before. "The Man with the Pin-Ppint Eyes" by Erle Stanley Gardner (from Argosy, Janureprinted in The Human Zero: The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner, edited by Martin H. And the whites of the eyes had the same metallic luster the same appearance of having been coated with alluminum paint. When he got closer, I saw that the pupils were little pin-points. They glittered with a metallic luster, and they seemed to be all the same color - if you could call it a color. It was as though his eyes had been washed with aluminum paint. His eyes were gray, but not the gray of the desert. i have watched the eyes of a killer, crazed with blood lust, his hand clawing for the holstered weapon at his side.īut I have never seen eyes that affected me as did the eyes of the man who sought me out there in that place which is known as "Catina Gold Dollar Bar." I have seen the eyes of a mountainn lion reflect a phosphorescent green from the darkness beyond my camp fire. I have gazed into the eyes of a swaying rattlesnake.
Openers: If you are going to understand this story, you have got to visualize his eyes as I saw them there in that Mexicali dance hall.
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