Black Mask July 1947 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: Black Mask
Published: 1947-11-12T05:00:00+00:00

Lee was grappling with an idea— something growing so rapidly in his mind that he scarcely heard the girl say: “You’re a filthy liar, Ray. You know I despise you, don’t you? That I’d never have said I’d marry you except Uncle John wanted me to so bad? Now Id rather die!”

“You’ve got a good chance,” said Connor.

Fogarty said: “The cute part is, neither one of you needed to be here. You simply leave the back door unlocked, and tell Bassler here the time you want that switch rigged up. He can pop in and do it, and nobody’d give it a second thought. Repair trucks, mailmen, milk drivers—they come and go and nobody notices.”

“That’s right, officer,” Phillips said. “And I still think nobody but an electrician would be sure of the killing power of the set-up. And if it failed to kill, it’d be an awful boomerang!”

“Hey, that’s right!” Lee said suddenly. “I just happened to think. This same transformer was burned out a few months ago by an electrocution!”

Fogarty said: “So what?”

“So what Fatso was saying here,” Lee said, and jerked a thumb at Phillips. “Nobody that hadn’t had some experience would know enough to use the 220-volt line and put a ground plate down.”

“You tryin’ to hang yourself?” Fogarty asked.

“Listen,” said Lee. “Anybody that went through that first electrocution— a woman in a bathtub—would know how to rig another. And he’d know the transformer’d go out!”

“I still don’t get it.”

“When we fixed that transformer, I went to the Phillips house next door. He had a kerosene lamp burning—didn’t even have a light switch on so that the light would come on when the current came back.

Fogarty looked suddenly interested in Bassler’s remarks.

“If the lights went off in your house, where would you find a kerosene lamp?” Bassler demanded. “Hell, like the girl here, most people can’t even find a candle or a flashlight, So who knew the lights were going out? Who rigged McCready’s electrocution?”

“You trying to say I came over here and killed my next door neighbor?” demanded Phillips.

“I’m saying nothing,” Lee said. “But I’m going to call the company and find out if it wasn’t your wife that got electrocuted in the bathtub, Then I’m going to call the paper and see if she didn’t have quite a lot of money.”

Phillips broke then, turning swiftly to the door only to face a broad, blue-clad chest. The chubby little man hid his face in his hands and sank slowly to his knees…

“Sure we found motive,” Fogarty told Lee next day. “You can always find motive when you know who the killer is. Phillips’d lost most of his wife’s money in a lumber deal with McCready, but all McCready had was his verbal agreement, He figured to save several thousand dollars with McCready dead. But you spotted him without knowing that. Too bad there was no reward!”

Lee thought about a girl in a silver evening gown.

“I’ll get my reward,” he said.

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