Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 62, No. 2, October 3, 1931
- Автор: Энгланд Джордж Аллан, Philips Judson P.
- Год: 1931
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 62, No. 2, October 3, 1931». Краткое содержание книги:
“I know it isn’t a finger-print,” she said. “But if you look at that smudge very close you will see that that smudge is a perfect impression of a herringbone cloth of very nice design — just like the nice suit Mr. Talbott has on.”
There was tense silence. The detectives were looking from one to the other.
“The reason I noticed it,” said Louise, “is that I always kept Mr. Schuyler’s desk very clean. And I know Mr. Talbott left that impression of his elbows on the polished wax to-day because I cleaned that desk this morning and—”
Louise Long was rather rudely pushed aside by Detective Jenkins, who bent over the desk with a magnifying glass.
“You don’t need a glass,” said Louise, “because if you bend over you can see it—”
“No!” roared Hogan, “He may not need a glass, but what he needs is a new head — the dumb-bell! Why, he’s dumber than you are! He missed that one!”
Jenkins, with his glass, straightened up, grasped Talbott’s arm, looked at the texture of his suit, bent over the desk again.
“Correct,” he said in a monotone. “I mean it is correct that these are perfect impressions of the elbows of Talbott.
“The wax was softened by the heat and took the impressions. He’s the guy who sat here — to-day!”
“Outside with him!” roared Hogan. “Outside and... and choke it out of him.”
He rushed across the room, held his stubby finger beneath the nose of the quavering Talbott.
“Talbott,” he snarled, “you’re elbow prints are going to send you to the electric chair.”
Two detectives grabbed the shoulders of the struggling Talbott. He swung around, almost freed himself and faced Louise Long.
“Do you know what you’ve done, you little dumb-bell?” he rasped.
“Why... why, no!” stammered Louise.
“Cut it!” snapped Hogan.
The detectives dragged out Talbott. In less than two minutes Jenkins was back in the room — grinning. He walked to a far corner and Hogan joined him. They whispered together.
“Well?” said Hogan.
“Sure,” said Jenkins. “What chance did that guy have when he left that pair of elbows on the desk? He came clean.”
“And?” said Hogan.
“He told us where he hid the money — in a safe deposit vault. We found the key on him.”
“Well,” said Hogan, “the great Royal Caledonian Sweepstakes has been drawn and the public gets a break, gets its money back — because a dumb stenographer had more sense than the so-called best minds of the police department.”
They walked together to the center of the room.
“Mr. Hogan,” said Louise, “have I done anything I shouldn’t have done?”
“Not in the least sweetheart,” said Hogan.
A detective broke in on the conversation.
“The newspaper boys in the hallway says a rumor leaked out,” said the detective, “that a girl stenographer solved this case.”
“How did that get out?” roared Hogan. “If I find the guy that’s tipping off newspapermen,” he threatened, “I’ll have him walking a beat before morning.”
Louise was sobbing.
“I don’t want any lies about me in the newspapers,” she said.
“Your name won’t even get in the newspapers if I can help it,” said Hogan.
“I’m really sorry that I couldn’t have been of some help,” sobbed Louise.
“That’s all right,” said Hogan. “I guess you can go home and — and explain to the newspaper boys on the way out that you weren’t any help.”
Louise smiled and nodded her head. Quickly she put on her hat and marched out of the room. As the door closed behind her, Hogan solemnly shook his head.
“Jeez, you’re dumb,” he said to the door.
Drums of Death
by Madeleine Sharps Buchanan
An Amazing Revelation in the Case of the Mill Wheel Murders Starts Tom Grant Looking for a Jealous Man
It was the weird roll of the death drums in the old mill that drew Ed Delander to the quaint mill and led to the discovery of Paul Nicolay stabbed to death and lashed to the mill wheel, and a woman believed to be Mrs. Walter Cleet lashed to the under side of the wheel and drowned.
The old mill was being converted into a tea room, and the African war drums were part of its unusual decorations. There were also a number of pieces of pewter there. And on the same night the pair were found murdered, police in a near-by city picked up Bill Brasson driving a car full of that pewter from the old mill. Brasson admitted to Detective Billy Farrell that his accomplice had been Jack Morse, denied any knowledge of the murders, but said he had heard the death drums mysteriously beating.
Detective Tom Grant went to the home of Paul Nicolay. He found a strange household there composed of Ann Malliett, Nicolay’s sister-in-law, Edgar Malliett, her brother, Dorcas Nicolay, the murdered man’s daughter, and a distant cousin, Louise Lee, who had strangely fled from the house.
Into this complicated drama of love and hate and murder came the revelation that Enid Cleet returned the love of Larry Devore, orchestra leader at the Walnut Club, and that Edgar Malliett was in love with Francine Yocum, pretty hostess at the same place. And while Detective Farrell of the city police was finding that out, Tom Grant was discovering that Edgar Malliett was involved with Brasson and Morse in a burglary racket, and that the headquarters of the gang was in the same farmhouse where Paul Nicolay told Seymor Carson, his attorney, to meet him the night he was murdered.
Chapter XXVIII
Malliett’s Attempt
For a brief moment Firth and Tom Grant looked at each other, too astonished to speak.
That a man like Malliett from such a good family should stoop to this sort of thing seemed impossible. Yet Tom took another look at Malliett’s face, at the weak, peering, cunning eyes, the sagging mouth, the cruel possibilities the oddly assorted features seemed to predict, and understood. This man could not only have filled the little cellar at the deserted farm with his loot, but it was not beyond belief that he had killed his brother-in-law and Enid Cleet! He was the sort to tie the two to the wheel; yes, and possibly to beat the death drums as they died!
And here he was doing his best to place blame for those two hideous crimes on his crook associates!
“Come to headquarters now, Malliett,” said the chief as he rose. “We’ll leave Tom here to guard this stuff until I can send a man out to move it. You realize that we shall have to hold you for robbery, if for nothing else more serious. That must be determined later. I’ll want a list of the places your men broke into.”
“Oh, I shan’t make you any trouble,” grinned Malliett as he rose. “I know when my game is played. But I had a good time. I got a thrill out of life while it lasted. I got out from under Ann’s rule. That was enough to live for, even if it was short.”
“Nobody else in your gang, Malliett?” asked Tom as he followed the two men up to the garden. “Just Brasson and Morse?”
“That’s all,” said Malliett. “Just us. Mind telling me how you spotted me to-night?”
“A boy saw you vanish into the earth and thought you were a ghost,” said Firth. “Have you got a car here?”
“Yes, out on Willow Road. I never drive in here. None of us ever did. We park and sneak in. It has been a good game. I’ve enjoyed it. But I never thought those two boys would get themselves into a murder.”
2
This story began in Detective Fiction Weekly for September 12