Popular Detective January 1950 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: Popular Detective
Published: 1950-01-11T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5 - The Matter of the Madhouse

ON SEARCHING the radio log of the morning newspaper Madeline discovered that there would be a newscast on another station in half an hour. She listened to it. There were more details, this time. There seemed to be little question but that Fred McHugh had been murdered. He had been supposed to be on duty at the rest home the night before. Apparently he had left, but why or under what circumstances, Dr. Paulson didn’t know. His body had been found late this morning in a gully in ne hills above San Mateo. His head had been crushed. The San Mateo police were of the opinion he had been thrown into the gully from a passing car. He was not known to have any enemies. According to Dr. Paulson, he had been an ideal employee.

Of course, McHugh was a common name. It might have been some other Fred McHugh who had called her. There was that chance. Madeline stretched out on the bed, closed her eyes, and tried to find in her mind some key to this entire puzzle. There had been first the explosion which had killed her father and Eric Warren, then the near accident on Market Street, the telephone call from Fred McHugh, the visit from San Delafield, the strange silence on the pare of her sister Joan, the telegram from Joan, the fruitless trip to Oakland and her moment of terror on the ferry boat. How did this add up? What had happened to Joan? Who would gain tf she and Joan were killed?

She sat up and looked at her watch. It was after three. The appointment at the Green Lantern had been for four. She could get out the back way and thus avoid the man watching the flat from across the street.

She would still be able to keep the appointment.

She did. She sat in the Green Lantern restaurant on Turk street and had a cup of coffee, and then another. She was there from ten to four until four-thirty. No one but the waitress spoke to her.

The door which had been slammed in her face by McHugh’s death was still closed.

But it wasn’t, Fred McHugh had worked at a rest home. He had said he had word of Joan. Where was a more ideal place for holding a person than a rest home? Where was it more possible that McHugh could have met Joan? And if she had been held there against her will, McHugh’s approach to her sister would have had to be cautious, would have had to fit the very pattern he had used. There was a telephone booth in the restaurant. From it, Madeline called Andrew Bellamy. She held her voice low but she couldn’t hide the excitement which gripped her.

“Andrew!” she said. “Andrew. I know where Joan is.”

She could picture the puzzled look which must have come into Andrew’s face. “Where is she?” he asked after a momentary pause. “On the way home?

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