Long Live the Dead by Hugh B. Cave

Author:Hugh B. Cave [Cave, Hugh B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Anthology, Mystery, Private Investigator, Suspense, Thriller, USA
ISBN: 9781480462335
Amazon: B00INITQ4C
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2014-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

Edgerson did some serious thinking as he drove away from the elaborate home of the slain McKenna. It was high time, he realized, to do some thinking. Up til now this affair had been little more than a pleasant diversion, a relief from the monotony of being president of a greeting card concern. A hobby, like amateur theatrics or peephole photography. Now it was murder.

He scowled at the windshield and mentally fitted together the pieces of the puzzle as he saw them. The pattern was a bit startling.

“You know, Angel,” he said, “the safest thing we could do right now would be to go straight to the police, tell them all we know and then go for a nice long ride into the country.”

“Nonsense!” she said scornfully.

He sighed. “We’ll do the next best thing. Plouffe, we’ll leave it to you to phone the police and report McKenna’s death. You can do it from a booth somewhere without leaving a trail.”

“And what’ll you two be doing?” Plouffe demanded.

“Pushing our noses deeper into affairs that don’t concern us.”

“Well,” Plouffe said, “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.”

Smith stopped the car at a restaurant. “There should be a phone inside,” he said. “Use it, then go home. If we need you again, I’ll call you.”

“I still don’t like it,” Plouffe muttered, but he got out.

“And now,” said Angel, when the car was under way again, “just what do we do?”

“What time is it?”

She looked at her watch. “Four-ten. Fine time of night to keep your best girl out.”

“We drive to Warren Avenue now,” Smith declared calmly, “and get out of bed a young man named Timothy Kenson. I don’t believe you know Timmy.”

“Who is he?”

“He works at the office. But for the past several hours he’s been working at the Krashna Tobacco Store, downtown.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see,” Smith said, “in due time.”

She didn’t like that. She glared at him. “He knows all, sees all, tells nothing.” Smith ignored her and she adjusted her red cape about her angrily.

He drove in silence. The streets were deserted, and it was difficult to realize that on so calm and peaceful a night murder had been done. But Smith’s mind, agile now, was ahead of the murder and groping for the motive.

He knew, or thought he knew, the elaborate steps leading up to McKenna’s death, and the probable aftermath. But the motive still evaded him. Unless, of course, the answer lay at the Glickman Company.

He turned the car into Warren Avenue and stopped. “You wait here,” he told Angel. Climbing the steps of a brown cottage, he put his thumb against the doorbell. In a moment a light winked on and the door opened. A young, red-haired man in wrinkled pajamas blinked at Smith and said, “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Edgerson.”

“Any luck, Timmy?”

“Sure thing. He came in late this afternoon. I been trying to get you ever since.”

“A tall, dark man, Jimmy? With a beard?”

“Nope. He was a little runt. Crummy looking.”

“Oh. You followed him?”

“Sure thing. He walked down the street a ways and got into a taxicab.

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