5 Detective Novels, Winter 1950 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: Thrilling Publications
Published: 1950-01-04T05:00:00+00:00

DARKNESS was pitch-black and heavy with perfume. Jeffrey stifled a groan. His head was pounding like a Chinese drum. His hands were numb from cords cutting into his wrists and his feet felt like stumps from the ankles down. He muttered savagely.

“Hugh!” came Pamela’s voice across the darkness.

A glow of warmth swept over him. She was unhurt! He tried to make his voice cheerful.

“What’s left of me,’ he answered. “What have they done to you?”

“Nothing—yet,” she whispered, “But they’re not going to let us go.” Her voice grew angry. “And just when I’d solved Tekele’s code. Hugh, that notebook will clear the whole mystery!”

Jeffrey didn’t say anything. Why tell her the notebook was in forty feet of water and the next storm would bury it forever?

“I can’t understand,” she went on, “why Rod Fanton doesn’t do something.”

“That lug!” growled Jeffrey.

“Don’t talk like that,” she protested. “Rod is a brilliant detective!’

Jeffrey’s heart dropped. She loved the man, And he knew he, Jeffrey, loved this gallant, courageous girl.

“Okay, then, he’s a brilliant shamus,” said Jeffrey quietly. “But he’s not here now, and we are. I’m going to roll across the floor. When I back up to you, see what you can do with these knots, The way they feel, Houdini would be stymied.”

He rolled across the floor until he felt the warmth of her body. He felt her quick fingers at work on the knots.

“As long as we’re both playing the same side of the street, why don’t you quit being the female Lone Ranger and tell me everything?” he asked.

By some instinct, she accepted him now.

“I was a fool,” she said, “a scared fool.”” And then, as she worked at the bonds, she told him everything. “The sunken plane and the notebook will clear me, Oh!” she gasped. “What did you do with it and the diamonds?”

Jeffrey told her. He heard her gasp again in dismay. “But Hugh, they’re lost for good!’

“No,” said Jeffrey grimly, “we’ll have to get them. Because we can’t locate the plane.”

She relapsed into discouraged silence. Jeffrey’s hands were now free. He rubbed some circulation into them. He untied his own feet and turned to work on her bonds.

He had just loosened her hands when a key rasped softly in the lock of the door. Jeffrey sprang up and groped for the wall.

“Don’t move,” he whispered

“Oh, Hugh!” Fear gripped her throat, closed it.

Just as he reached the wall, the door opened in front of him, A man entered through a yellow rectangle of light. Jeffrey hurtled forward, one arm hooking for the neck, the other reaching for a gun wrist. He respected Smooth’s deadly qualities with a gun.

But this was not Smooth Blake. Roderick Fanton’s voice whispered huskily :

“Hey, lay off!”

Jeffrey fell back, and within him an emotion welled up that he knew was jealousy.

“So,” he said bitterly, “you arrive in the nick of time!”

“Take it easy,” snapped Fanton in a low tone. “I’m risking my life here. I came for Pamela and you.”

“Oh, Rod,” cried Pamela warmly, “I just knew you’d come!”

“Not so loud,” said Fanton.

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