Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 6, April 16, 1938
- Автор: Трит Лоуренс, Вулрич Корнелл
- Год: 1938
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 6, April 16, 1938». Краткое содержание книги:
Laura came out of the kitchenette pouring beer from a can into a tall glass. Dell took it, buried his nose in the suds and drank thirstily. He sighed as he set the glass down and said, “Another one would be about right.”
Trina shifted from one foot to the other Impatiently. “If that isn’t like you, Dell Breen. Here we sit all evening worrying our heads off, and. when you come back looking as if someone had been working on you with a meat axe, you haven’t got a thing to say for yourself. What happened? What did you find out? Who beat you up?”
“Just a minute, kid, just a minute,” Dell said softly. “One thing at a time.”
Benedict came on tiptoes into the room. He gave a start when he saw Dell, then said to Laura, “He’s asleep at last. He was very restless and excited. I had to listen to him tell me a dozen times about Black Bill and Waiki before he’d settle down.”
Dell’s eyes asked questions and Laura said, “Mr. Benedict has been with father all the evening. He can handle him much better than I can. Father is highly excited tonight.”
Dell wagged his head and said, “I see.”
Trina burst out again, “Come on you dull oaf and tell us what happened.”
Dell said, “I went down to the Pacific Queen to interview Captain Hardesty. But Hardesty was waiting for me. We had a little passage in which all the winnings went to the skipper. I got out of that with the major portion of the damages you see. Then I went to the Haven Hotel. I found Hardesty again and a dead man.”
Laura’s breath made loud whistling noises as she leaned tensely forward. Trina watched Dell with narrowed eyes. Benedict was standing beside a table, his round eyes on Dell.
Trina snapped, “You’re holding out on us, Dell Breen. I can see it in your eyes. You can’t fool me. I know you too well. Come on, what did you find.”
“I found the marbles,” Dell said softly. “I found the marbles that all the rough boys have been playing for.”
“Marbles?” Trina asked. “What do you mean, marbles? Come on, Dell, loosen up.”
“You found out what it was Daddy hid,” Laura said. “What was it?”
“I’m coming to that,” Dell said. He put his elbows on his knees and listened. The thunder of the Sixth Avenue L filled the room with echoes. Outside in the street a boy yelled shrilly. A radio was turned on somewhere in a neighboring apartment. Someone was climbing the stairs slowly.
He straightened his chair and smiled grimly. “Your father has a very fine and valuable collection of pearls, Miss Arnold. Undoubtedly it was what he took from Black Bill. Bill, like a lot of unsavory characters in those waters, wisely put a lot of his takings into pearls. Pearls, you know, represent great wealth in a small, easily transported medium. Then Mr. Arnold started for home with his pearls. But somebody else knew about them.”
Someone stirred in the corridor outside. Dell said in a loud voice, “If Benedict hadn’t tipped me off I never would have got past Hardesty.”
Benedict opened his mouth and gasped, “What?” in a frightened voice. “What are you talking about?” All the pink was flowing out of his chubby face leaving it white and strained.
The door into the hall jerked open and someone roared, “You damned bilge rat. You doublecrossing crook. I never should have trusted you.”
Dell dived out of his chair as Hardesty fired. The big gun had a voice like a cannon. It spewed orange flame half the length of the room. Benedict went back over the table as though an invisible hand had struck him.
Hardesty jerked around, his big gun leveling. His mouth was a wide in his gleaming whiskers. “As for you, Mr. Bloody Breen,” he roared, “I’ll make sure of you this time.”
V
Dell had snapped the gun from his holster as he dived out of the chair. He rolled over on one side just as Hardesty leveled the gun. Dell’s slug hit him squarely between the two hedges of red eyebrows, and Hardesty went over backward with a surprised look on his face.
Dell got up slowly. On the floor below a woman screamed like a banshee. Laura stood with her hands at her throat, her eyes wide.
Trina was the first to recover. She snapped in a high-pitched voice, “Dell Breen, you big mick, you knew that was going to happen. You led that big Tarzan right up here to make a killing.”
“It was the only thing I could do,” Dell said. “I had begun to suspect Benedict but I couldn’t be sure.”
Then his tone changed. Below in the street a cop’s whistle was blowing shrilly. “The coppers will be here. We’ve got to have a story for them.”
He crossed the room and frisked Benedict expertly. He found the chamois bag and slipped it into his own trouser pockets. “It’s like this,” he said crisply, “your father, Miss Arnold, was mixed up with Hardesty some way. It was Hardesty who beat him up and sent him to the hospital. Benedict was his friend. Hardesty killed another of the gang, a fellow named Gannon in the Hotel Haven. But you don’t know anything about that. You only know that you were frightened about your father and hired a bodyguard. Hardesty came in here tonight and shot Benedict. I shot Hardesty. We don’t know what it was all about. As far as you know it had something to do with your father’s career in the South Pacific. Hardesty won’t talk any more. Neither will Benedict. I shall explain my trip to the Haven Hotel as a matter of business for you. I was trying to head off Hardesty. If the cops want any more they’ll have to go to the South Pacific.”
A blue-coated patrolman with a big gun in his hand and a scared Irish face stuck his head through the door. “What’s going on here?” he blustered. He stared from the dead Hardesty at his feet to Dell. Then he saw Benedict’s feet sticking over the wreck of the table and his eyes widened more.
“It’s all over, copper,” Dell said harshly. “Call the homicide boys and I’ll talk to them.”
The cop came slowly into the room. “The homicide squad is on the way now. Boy, you’re going to have some explaining to do.”
Dell did have some explaining to do. But he had his story pat and was backed by Laura Arnold and Trina. They all left finally, taking Hardesty’s body and that of Benedict with them.
They had already picked up Gannon. Sergeant Hoyle, a horse-faced, frozen-eyed man who knew Dell said, “I guess you’re in the clear, Breen. But if there’s any kick-back on this I’m coming straight after you.”
Dell grinned, “Be yourself, Hoyle. Miss Arnold hired me as a bodyguard. You can see how she needed one. Poor little Benedict was killed because he tried to look after her. But Hardesty was the guy on the murder trail. And you’ve got him. What more could you ask?”
“I could ask, maybe, for the real story,” Hoyle grumbled. “But I know sure as hell that I wouldn’t get it.”
Dell talked for a long time after the last of the police had gone. “It was like this. When your father got the pearls, Miss Arnold, he knew he had the fortune he wanted. Black Bill had ruined him. He felt he was only squaring when he took Black Bill’s pearls. They represented blood money Black Bill had taken from others.
“Your father merely sent you word that he was coming home well heeled. He couldn’t tell his daughter the real story in a letter. But he could tell a friend who would understand. And, being human, he had to tell someone. So he wrote a letter to his best friend, Benedict, telling him what he had.
“Your father was coming home with Hardesty, a man who knew both Arnold and Benedict. But your father didn’t trust Hardesty so he told him nothing. Benedict went to the ship, hoping to get to Arnold before he went ashore. But Arnold was already ashore. He made for the first hotel.