Easy to Kill by Hulbert Footner

Author:Hulbert Footner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: detective, mystery, classics, women sleuths
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1968-12-15T05:33:28+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - A Crowded Hour

“WHERE shall I take him?” asked Crider, who was driving.

Mme. Storey leaned forward to keep her voice from carrying to the prisoner’s ears. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “Drive around for an hour.”

We rolled at a quiet pace through the deserted streets of the town and out by what they call the West Road, one of the two highways that connect the island of Rhode Island with the mainland. This route carried us past the public airport, a golf course, and the ancient windmill with its long arms that is one of the sights of the neighborhood.

Benny Abell unbuttoned his coat and produced a pair of curious objects that he had thrust inside.

“Found these in his car,” he said. “Thought they might be useful as evidence.”

It was a pair of heavy wooden sandals that strapped on over the ordinary shoes. There was a row of short steel spikes projecting from the square toe, and a row of longer spikes from under the ball of the foot, inclining forward and forming a sort of fulcrum.

“With these,” murmured Mme. Storey, “he could go straight up the side of a wooden house if he had a rain leader or any other projection to steady himself…Search him,” she added to Stephens.

This was not altogether easy while Nick was lying huddled on the bottom of the car, but Stephens went about it systematically.

“Take his money, too,” said Mme. Storey. “It can be returned to him.”

Stephens produced in turn a wallet, a handful of change, a pocket flash, a gun, and a curious furry object that at first we could not identify. Mme.

Storey handed the gun to me to keep. It was an old fashioned six shooter of thirty eight caliber, a formidable weapon. I shoved it in my stocking.

She turned on the dome light, and we saw that the furry object was an ingeniously made wig, mask, and beard all in one. The wig part represented a completely bald pate, and when Nick drew it on and fastened it he must have been a truly horrible object and, of course, entirely unrecognizable.

Meanwhile Nick was groaning protestingly under his gag, and since we had left the town far behind, Mme. Storey whispered to Stephens to tell him we would take the gag off, but that if he made any outcry it would have to go back again. The gag was removed, and Nick rubbed his sore mouth gratefully against his shoulder.

“Why do I have to lie here under your feet?” he said, sullenly. “Can’t you stick me in the corner of the seat?”

Mme. Storey could not deny a defeated enemy this small favor, and between them she and Stephens yanked him up and propped him in the corner.

Smiling, she stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lighted it, but after a puff or two he said: “Throw it away. It’s no good when you can’t see the smoke.”

After a while he said, with restored good humor:

“What’s to be gained by keeping me in blinders, anyhow? I know perfectly well that I am riding with the adorable Rosika.

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