Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 2, March 19, 1938
- Автор: Clark Dale, 12627 Convict
- Год: 1938
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 2, March 19, 1938». Краткое содержание книги:
Hatch stretched out on the bed.
“Danny, get on that telephone and find Kerrigan,” he directed. “No matter where Kerrigan is, find him. Even if he’s flying over the North Pole on his way to Little America, find Kerrigan. Tell him to come here. Tell him I need him. Tell him we might as well all hang together, because if we don’t all hang together, we’ll all go to the electric chair separately. Benjamin Franklin said that. Benjamin Franklin wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac while flying a kite. Danny, you’ve got to find Benjamin Franklin Kerrigan right away.”
“Okay, chief,” Delevan said, taking up the telephone. “What you gonna do now?”
Hatch lifted his head and stared at Sanders. “My friend,” he inquired, “have you ever fallen in love with a murderess who’s in love with her sister’s husband?”
“I love Millie,” Sanders said. “I love my Millie very, very much.”
Hatch peered at Delevan. “Danny,” he said, “have you ever fallen in love with a murderess who’s in love with her sister’s husband? Have you?”
“I never did, chief,” Delevan said, “but once I went for a dame she was a lady wrassler.”
“That’s different,” Hatch said. “That’s nothing. This is worse, much worse. Falling in love with a murderess who’s in love with her sister’s husband is one of the worst things that can happen to you. Here’s to love. Hurray for what.”
“Chief,” Delevan said, “what you gonna do?”
“To sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream, something something something,” Hatch said. “Good night, good night, parting is such sweet sorrow, something something something the morrow. Shakespeare wrote that while Benjamin Franklin was flying a kite. Well, as Benjamin Shakespeare said, the morrow the merrier.”
His head sank back.
Delevan gazed at him in dismay. Sanders stared, looking sick.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,” Hatch muttered. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Who the hell else would want it, anyway?”
He closed his eyes and slept.
Chapter XVII
Hatch Plays His Hand
Feeling someone chipping little bronze letters off his skull with a hammer and a chisel, Hatch rolled over. While the banging persisted, he lifted his head and opened his eyes. “Good heavens!” he moaned, and instantly closed them again. The noise was still reverberating through his brain when he ventured to lift one lid slightly.
He saw the bottle of Scotch standing on the dresser. Delevan was not in sight. Sanders was coming from the bathroom, a glass of water in his free hand, dragging the chair to which he was cuffed.
“What the hell kind of a chair do you think that is?” Hatch demanded. “That’s no way to treat it.”
“It’s worse than a bloody ball and chain,” Sanders complained.
Sanders maneuvered the chair into the corner, where he dropped into it breathlessly. The loud knocking continued.
“Where the hell’s Danny?” Hatch asked.
“He’s gone again,” Sanders said. “What’s more, the bloody bounder robbed me of fifty dollars.”
Hatch achieved a sitting position. “Robbed you of how much?”
“Fifty dollars,” Sanders said. “The blinking thief took it right out of my pocket.”
“Don’t call Danny a thief,” Hatch said. “Danny might take your money, but he’s no thief. You told me you were down to your last quid. I don’t remember just how much a quid is, except that I’m damned sure It isn’t fifty dollars.”
“Fifty dollars was all I had, and the bloody crook stole it,” Sanders said.
The knocking grew louder.
Hatch howled at the door, “Quit that racket and wait a minute!” He moaned and held his head. “I shouldn’t have done that. Why did Danny take your fifty dollars, Sanders?” he asked in a whisper.
“I’m damned if I know,” Sanders said. “First he found some sort of paper in your coat and he sat staring at it.”
Hatch dragged his coat onto the bed and fished in the pockets. “He took that photostat.”
“He sat there grinning like a half-witted baboon, then he went through my pockets and took the fifty dollars and left,” Sanders said.
“Did he say where he was going and when he’d be back?”
“He didn’t even say thank you.”
Knuckles were still pounding the door. Hatch struggled up and opened it. Kerrigan came in with a bundle of newspapers under one arm. He stared at Hatch and Sanders.
“Mr. Kerrigan, Mr. Sanders,” Hatch said, “if it matters.”
He went into the bathroom. When he came out, Kerrigan was opening the bottle of Scotch.
“That’s fine,” Hatch said. “Send down for some cracked ice and some seltzer and four or five stacks of sandwiches and a gallon of black coffee and a bottle of aspirin, will you, Kerrigan? Don’t forget the aspirin.”
Hatch put on his shoes and his tie while Kerrigan telephoned, then he drank a mouthful of Scotch.
After a hopeful moment he announced, “I still feel lousy. I wonder where Danny went.”
He unfolded the newspapers and tried to read. Kerrigan gazed from him to Sanders and back, hopelessly, until the bellboy knocked at the door. Kerrigan took the tray and paid the bill. While he made highballs, Hatch munched a sandwich and drank black coffee.
“Pass some to Sanders,” Hatch said.
Sanders took a cup of coffee in his left hand and a sandwich in his right. He had to double over in order to get his teeth into the sandwich.
“What time is it?” Hatch asked.
“The night’s young yet,” Kerrigan said, “but personally I’m aging rapidly.”
“I feel older than the hills,” Hatch said.
He placed two aspirin tablets on his tongue and washed them down with a highball.
“What the hell do you want to talk to me about, Hatch?” Kerrigan asked.
“Kerrigan,” Hatch said, “the trouble with these murders is that nobody committed them.”
“If nobody committed these murders, then Seligman and Flack and Rhoda Quinn are making damned fools of themselves,” Kerrigan said.
“Nobody did it,” Hatch insisted. “Nobody could have done it. It’s the only logical explanation.”
“Listen, Hatch,” Kerrigan protested. “I’m near enough to going screwy as it is.”
Hatch drained his cup and refilled it with black coffee. “I will concede a point,” he said. “I’ll grant you that these murders were committed. I’ll go even further and say that — assuming that somebody committed them — all three murders were committed by the same person.”
“They weren’t all necessarily committed by the same person,” Kerrigan said.
“How many murderers do you want, anyway?” Hatch asked. “One is enough for me.”
“There might be one murderer, or two, or three,” Kerrigan said, “or more. What do you care?”
“Why shouldn’t I care?” Hatch asked. “Do you mind if I care?” Kerrigan shrugged.
“You and I both wanted to clear Rhoda Quinn. There’s no point in trying to clear her now.”
“We don’t even need to try any more,” Hatch said. “She cleared herself by getting murdered.”
“Then you can drop out of the case and forget the whole thing,” Kerrigan said.
“It’s not that damned simple,” Hatch said. “The only way I can extricate myself from this case is to collar a murderer.”
“The hell with that,” Kerrigan said. “I’m not interested in catching any murderer. I don’t care a damn who the murderer is. You know why I’m in this case. My job is to keep certain parties out of it.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Hatch said. “Everybody I know is trying to keep out of it. The whole cockeyed world is trying to keep out of it, except me. I’ve outdone myself trying to stay in it. I’m in it, all right. Kerrigan, I got the Commissioner into a jam and now I’ve got to get him out of it. I’ve got to vindicate myself.”