The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories
- Автор: Деминг Ричард
- Год: 2016
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- ISBN: 9781479423507
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
Barney stirred his drink and sampled it. Resting his elbows on the bar, he gazed at his wife’s profile.
“You wouldn’t fuss so much if I was top dog, huh?”
She was busy with her list again. Preoccupiedly she said, “I wouldn’t fuss at all.” Barney came to a decision. He was going to take advantage of what he had learned tonight.
He lay awake and thought about it long after Phyllis had gone to sleep. The first step, he decided, was to make sure the motive would come to light immediately after the murder, before the police had time to look in any other direction. And the surest way to accomplish that was to let the affair between Mark Drennan and Johnny Nash’s wife become known to the police in advance.
He could hardly just inform them. But there was a way to let information seep to the police naturally without leaving any trace of its source. A rumor planted in the underworld grapevine would eventually reach some informer, who in turn would relay it on to the police.
Of course if the rumor also reached either Drennan or Nina Nash, caution might cause them to break off the affair. But he was reasonably certain that none of the principals would hear the gossip, because those talked about are always last to hear.
The next morning Barney entered a pool hall on lower State Street. Singling out a tall, lanky man of about forty who was idly watching a snooker game, Barney called him aside.
“I’ve got a little private job for you, Bulletin,” he said. “Can you keep your mouth shut?”
Bulletin Willie Gloff nodded eagerly. “Sure, Barney. You know me.”
Barney did know him, which was the reason he had picked him. Bulletin Willie got his nickname from his chronic eagerness to be the first to pass on gossip. As he worked as a leg man for a half dozen of the combine’s bookies, he had daily contacts with a lot of people. No one could spread a rumor faster than Bulletin Willie Gloff.
“This is strictly confidential,” Barney said. “I don’t want you to mention it to a soul.”
Bulletin Willie raised his right hand. “I’m a clam, Barney.”
“Okay. This has to do with the good of the organization. I’m a little worried about Johnny.”
“Johnny Nash?”
“Nuh-huh. You know how nuts he is about his wife.”
“Sure. Something happen to Nina?”
“Not yet. And I want to make sure it doesn’t. I got wind that she’s doing a little drifting.”
The lanky man emitted a soundless whistle. “Johnny’ll knock her ears off. Who with?”
“That I didn’t hear. I want to make sure the scoop is right before I got off half-cocked by giving her the Dutch uncle bit. Johnny would blow his lid if I stuck my nose in and it turned out there was nothing to it.”
Bulletin Willie nodded sagely. “Yeah, I can see how it’d be a kind of delicate spot for you. You’d like to nip it, but you can’t just walk up to Nina and start accusing her. If she’s innocent, she’d run crying to Johnny and he’d come down on you with both feet.”
“You get the picture. I have to know for sure before I make a move. If it’s a bum steer, I’ll keep my trap shut, but if she is drifting, I want to know it. You follow me?”
“Sure. You want me to do some tailing.”
“I want you on her every night. Days don’t matter, because she won’t be playing footsie while the sun’s out, but you have her staked out by dusk every night. I want to know everywhere she goes and everybody she sees.”
“You can count on me, Barney. I’ll stick to her like a can tied to a cat’s tail.”
Barney took out his wallet and removed a fifty-dollar bill. “Here’s something for your trouble. Do a good job and I’ll match it.”
That took care of that, he thought as he left the pool hall. Even if the rumor was traced back to its source, which was unlikely, no one could say that Barney Stroud had ever mentioned Mark Drennan and Nina Nash in the same breath. All he had to do now was relax and let nature take its course.
Four nights later, on a Sunday, Bulletin Willie phoned him at home.
“Anybody listening?” he asked.
“Yes,” Barney said. Phyllis was seated not ten feet away.
“Then I’ll hold it until morning. About nine o’clock at the pool hall?”
“Okay,” Barney said, and hung up.
“Who was that?” Phyllis asked.
“Business,” he said, which killed her interest.
At nine Monday morning he found Bulletin Willie waiting for him at the pool hall. The lanky man was so bursting with news, he could hardly contain himself.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “But it’s gospel truth. Saturday she spent the whole blame night at a guy’s place.”
“What guy?”
Bulletin Willie grinned, drawing it out in order to increase the suspense. “You’re never going to believe it.”
“Try me,” Barney said impatiently.
The lanky man let a pause build before saying with relish, “Mark Drennan.”
Barney let his eyes register shock, then narrow. After a moment of silence, he took out his wallet and gave the man another fifty-dollar bill.
Bulletin Willie pocketed the bill. “Johnny will kill him,” he commented.
“Not if he never finds out,” Barney said. “I’ll take it from here. Just keep your mouth shut.”
“Sure, Barney. I wouldn’t say anything.”
Except to your friends, in strict confidence, Barney thought. He gave the gossip three days to spread all over the grapevine.
His estimate was conservative. Within two days he had heard the news from three different sources that Mark Drennan was carrying-on an affair with Nina Nash.
The following Saturday was Phyllis’ party, and both the Nashes and Mark Drennan were there. In public Nina and Drennan were being very cautious, Barney noted. Except for one duty dance, Drennan didn’t go near the woman all evening.
Johnny Nash, big and wide-shouldered and somehow rumpled-looking despite his perfectly pressed two-hundred-dollar suit, as usual spent most of the evening at the bar. About midnight Barney drifted over next to him.
“Having fun?” he asked.
The big man shrugged. “You know me, Barney. These friends of yours ain’t exactly in my class. I come because Nina likes to rub shoulders with the aristocracy.”
“Oh, they’re not so bad when you get to know them,” Barney told him. “Buy you a drink?”
“Sure,” Nash said, draining his glass and setting it on the bar.
The white-coated bartender Phyllis had hired for the evening was snowed under. Barney walked behind the bar and personally mixed Nash a new drink, using a fresh glass.
As he handed it to Nash, he said, “Nina seems to be having a good time.”
Nash turned to look toward his wife, who was dancing with a portly stockbroker named Myron Wood. With a paper napkin protecting his fingers, Barney quickly lifted the used glass and set it in the waste receptacle beneath the bar. He dropped the napkin over it.
He hadn’t definitely devised a murder plan yet, but a glass with Johnny Nash’s fingerprints on it might come in handy.
Hours later, after everyone had gone home, he retrieved the glass and hid it behind some bottles in the liquor storage cabinet.
Before he was able to devise a workable plan, Barney had to postpone the whole thing. The syndicate which furnished the combine its turf news and form sheets announced a hike in price. The syndicate was headquartered in Kansas City and the local branch printery claimed it had no control over the decision. Mark Drennan sent Barney to Kansas City to register an objection and try to dicker the price back down. It took him three weeks to work out a compromise deal.
The evening he got back, he found Phyllis all dressed to leave the house.
“Where we going?” he asked. “I planned to spend tonight at home.”