Detective Tales February 1953 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: Detective Tales
Published: 1953-02-11T05:00:00+00:00

THAT had been a couple of nights ago.

Late this afternoon, Patsy Hurley had phoned him at the bank, asked him to come to the party she was having at her apartment tonight. She and her sister and the little fat Hubert Noakes had picked him up at his rooming house in Noakes’ shiny convertible car.

It had been a very nice party, except that Patsy—Miss Hurley—had seemed preoccupied and nervous. Dorothy had gotten drunk and maudlin. Hubert Noakes kept forcing drinks on Claude and asking all sorts of questions about his position in the bank. Claude tried to be polite, but he wasn’t used to all those strong highballs. They went to his head, and he got tipsy and giggly. Then he had gotten unsteadily to his feet and started to the bathroom. He remembered now, that Patsy had cried out behind him. And that was all—until he awoke in the bedroom a few minutes ago.

Now he was back in the living room, looking down at the body of Dorothy Hurley, still not able to believe his eyes. Patsy got to her feet. Her eyes were red and swollen. “I’m s-sorry, Mr. Dreeber,” she choked. “I’m sorry for this trouble I brought you. I didn’t mean it to be this way, honest. Just a loan. I just wanted to borrow a little money to get Dorothy out of town. I didn’t have a cent of my own left. I was frantic, and you were the only person I could think of that might help. You were so nice the other night.”

Claude shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” He looked at Hubert Noakes. The little round-faced man giggled. His eyes were white-rimmed, staring. The dry hair of his toupee was mussed.

“Glad you’re awake, Mr. Dreeber,” Noakes said in a tinny voice. “’Fraid I might have tapped you behind the ear a little too hard.” He giggled again.

Claude’s gaze returned to Patsy.

She stood very rigid, her long, lovely throat working. “Dorothy was a bad girl, Mr. Dreeber. I loved her because she was all the family I had. But she was always getting into trouble. Lately, she’s been working some blackmail badger games with Hubert here as her partner. She would start running around with a wealthy married man. Then Hubert would walk in with a camera at just the right minute, and they’d use the pictures to blackmail the married guy. They .were pretty bad pictures.

“That’s why those hoods tried to kidnap me in the alley the other night. One of Dorothy’s suckers hired them to pick me up, hoping he could either force me to tell him where Dorothy hid the photograph negative—or he would trade me back to Dorothy for the negatives.”

Tears ran down her cheeks again and she pushed her trembling fingers into her hair. “I guess Dorothy and Hubert musta been bleeding him pretty heavy and he was desperate. Today the guy came up here. He was just about nuts. He got down on his knees and begged her to ease up.

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