American Sherlocks Nick Rennison (best big ereader txt) 📖

the snug vantage point of an orchestra seat, waiting for the lights to flare up and the curtain to ring down. A shriek ran through my ears, jarring me back to the realization that I was not a spectator, but a part, of the play.

A figure darted toward the window. It was John Dorrence, the valet.

The next instant Inspector Taylor threw himself on the fleeing man’s shoulders, and the two went to the floor.

‘Can you manage him?’ Madelyn called.

‘Unless he prefers cold steel through his body to cold steel about his wrists,’ was the rejoinder.

‘I think you may dismiss the other servants, Senator,’ Madelyn said. ‘I wish, however, that the family would remain a few moments.’

As the door closed again, she continued, ‘I promised you also, Senator, the return of your stolen property. I have the honour to make that promise good.’

From her stand, which was rapidly assuming the proportions of a conjurer’s table, she produced a round, brown paper parcel.

‘Before I unwrap this, have I your permission to explain its contents?’

‘As you will, Miss Mack.’

‘Perhaps the most puzzling feature of the tragedy is the motive. It is this parcel which supplies us with the answer.

‘Your secretary, Mr Duffield, was an exceptional young man. Not only did he repeatedly resist bribery such as comes to few men, but he gave his life for his trust.

‘At any time since this parcel came into his possession, he could have sold it for a fortune. Because he refused to sell it he was murdered for it. Perhaps every reader of the newspapers is more or less familiar with Senator Duffield’s investigations of the ravages of a certain great Trust. A few days ago, the Senator came into possession of evidence against the combine of such a drastic nature that he realized it would mean nothing less than the annihilation of the monopoly, imprisonment for the chief officers, and a business sensation such as this country has seldom known.

‘Once the officers of the Trust knew of his evidence, however, they would be forearmed in such a manner that its value would be largely destroyed. The evidence was a remarkable piece of detective work. It consisted of a phonographic record of a secret directors’ meeting, laying bare the inmost depredations of the corporation.’

Madelyn paused as the handcuffed valet showed signs of a renewed struggle. Inspector Taylor without comment calmly snapped a second pair of bracelets about his feet.

‘The Trust was shrewd enough to appreciate the value of a spy in the Duffield home. Dorrence was engaged for the post, and from what I have learned of his character, he filled it admirably. How he stumbled on Senator Duffield’s latest coup is immaterial. The main point is that he tried to bribe Mr Rennick so persistently to betray his post that the latter threatened to expose him. Partly in the fear that he would carry out his threat, and partly in the hope that he carried memoranda which might lead to the discovery of the evidence that he sought, Dorrence planned and carried out the murder.

‘In the secretary’s pocket he discovered the combination of the safe, and made use of it last night. I found the stolen phonograph record this morning behind the register of the furnace pipe in Dorrence’s room. I had already found that this was his cache, containing the dagger which killed Rennick, and the second of Cinderella’s slippers. The pair was stolen some days ago from the room of Miss Beth Duffield.’

****

The swirl of the day was finally over. Dorrence had been led to his cell; the coroner’s jury had returned its verdict; and all that was mortal of Raymond Rennick had been laid in its last resting place. Madelyn and I had settled ourselves in the homeward bound Pullman as it rumbled out of the Boston station in the early dusk.

‘There are two questions I want to ask,’ I said reflectively.

Madelyn looked up from her newspaper with a yawn.

‘Why did John Dorrence bring you back a blank sheet of paper when you despatched him on your errand?’

‘As a matter of fact, there was nothing else for him to bring back. Mr Taylor kept him at police headquarters long enough to give me time to carry my search through his room. The message was a blind.’

‘And what was the quarrel that the servant girl, Anna, heard in the Duffield library?’

‘It wasn’t a quarrel, my dear girl. It was the Senator preparing the speech with which he intended to launch his evidence against the Trust. The Senator is in the habit of dictating his speeches to a phonograph. Some of them I am afraid, are rather fiery.’

JIGGER MASTERS

Created by Anthony M Rud (1893-1942)

Born in Chicago, the son of two doctors, Anthony M Rud studied at medical college himself as a young man but soon turned to writing. He became one of the many prolific, versatile authors who wrote chiefly for the pulp magazines. He produced dozens and dozens of stories in a variety of genres. He also worked as editor of Detective Story Magazine and Adventure. Probably his best remembered tales fall into the broad categories of horror or science fiction (‘Ooze’, reprinted many times, appeared in the first issue of the legendary Weird Tales) but he wrote plenty of detective fiction. The adventures of his crime fighter Jigger Masters were published in 1918 in The Green Book Magazine with enticing titles such as ‘The Vengeance of the Wah Fu Tong’ and ‘The Giant Footprints’. According to The Green Book, ‘Not since Sherlock Holmes has any fiction detective done such interesting things as our friend Masters’. This is exaggeration and hype, of course, but perhaps forgivable. In truth, the Jigger Masters stories, narrated by his Watson, the artist Bert Hoffman, are fairly standard issue crime fiction of the time but they remain good fun to read and their red-blooded, patriotic hero is a likeable character.

THE AFFAIR AT STEFFEN SHOALS

The bell rang insistently. Knowing that Central would have me fully