Suicides Are Saps by Donald Bayne Hobart Read online

  Black Book Detective, January, 1939

  OU take a rich young dame, one

  “The face fits.”

  of these smooth dark guys that

  That last crack kinda got me. Sure,

  Y might be a crook, a detective who I have a face that a steam-roller would is kinda repulsive-looking but nice, a love to crush, but up to now I hadn’t string of pearls worth a hundred grand, thought it was something that was just mix thoroughly and what have you? I’ll pinned on the front of my head care-less-tell you, a hell of a mess, and I ought to like.

  know because I’m the detective.

  “So does yours!” I snaps, and then

  “Mugs” Kelly is the name, and I’m

  when I get a good look at her I see that I big and tough, with a face that doesn’t wasn’t lying. She’s a young and pretty leave any doubt about it. Sometimes I can blonde with a figure that is something startle myself by just looking in a mirror, grand. “What can I do for you?”

  and vice-versa, for I stood in front of a

  “Keep my uncle from committing

  glass one time and it cracked. But I’m a suicide, protect my pearl necklace from fairly good private detective, even if I being stolen, and—” she looked at me have to say so myself with unbecoming

  anxiously—“perhaps prevent me from

  modesty.

  being murdered!”

  But this trouble all starts when

  “All right,” I says flippant-like.

  Miss Susan Foster, of the society Fosters,

  “But no washing. I only do light

  comes tripping into my office. She takes housework.”

  one good look at me and sinks weakly into

  “Please, Mr. Kelly, I’m serious!”

  a chair.

  I realized that she meant it, so I

  “You’re Mugs Kelly,” she says, as

  dropped the patter and got down to cases.

  though there wasn’t the slightest chance of Seems that she lived with her uncle out in her being mistaken, and I might be Tyrone Westchester. They were rich, and he had Power, or Robert Taylor or something.

  given her the hundred-thousand-dollar

  Black Book Detective 2

  pearl necklace for a Christmas present.

  room, looking down at a gray-haired guy sprawled on the floor. There’s a gun close DURING the last couple of months the

  to him.

  uncle has been acting strange—talking

  “Uncle Dawson!” says Susan.

  about life not being worth living. I’ve “He’s done it! He’s killed himself!”

  heard that line of beefing more times than

  “Let me take a look!” I tell her.

  I can count, and I still claim that suicides I drop my gun back into the holster

  are saps. Anything ain’t never bad enough and examine the old guy. He’s got a

  for them to kill themselves over; though powder burn on his left cheek where a

  maybe they think so at the time.

  bullet almost hit him, but that’s all. Looks Anyway I learn that the uncle, to me like Dawson Foster tried to shoot whose name is Dawson Foster, has himself a couple of times, but didn’t insisted that Susan keep her pearl necklace succeed, and then fainted from excitement.

  at the house, and not stick it in a safety He’s not even hurt.

  deposit box where it would be safe. The

  “Is—is he—” asks Susan, then

  Foster gal figures that somebody might try gives a gasp as the old boy sits up. “Uncle, and murder her to get the necklace—she are you all right?”

  keeps it hid in her bedroom—but it don’t

  “Yes, I think so,” he says, as I help

  make much sense to me.

  him to his feet. “Who is this man?”

  I agree to take the job when she

  Susan tells him who I am, and

  produces some nice new-looking folding things quiet down around the Foster place money with large numbers on the bills, for awhile. I learn they have the usual and I don’t mean the serial numbers either.

  collection of servants: a maid, cook, and She leaves and it’s arranged that I’m to butler. But I don’t see the guy I had to arrive at the Foster residence that evening.

  sock outside. I’d thought he might be one About seven that evening I arrive.

  of the help around the place, but it don’t Just as I’m strolling up the driveway to the look like it.

  house a slender, dark-haired guy comes running toward me.

  JUST before dinner is announced a dark-

  “Get out!” he snarls. “No strangers

  haired guy dressed in dinner clothes shows are allowed on these grounds! Get out, I up. Sure, it was the same guy who ordered tell you!”

  me off the place. His name is Juan

  “Boo!” I says softly but firmly.

  Manuel, and he seems to rate pretty high The dark-haired guy keeps on with Susan. I can see he doesn’t like me coming toward me and accidentally bumps any, and if I had my choice of being left his chin against my fist. Oh, all right, alone on a desert island with him or a maybe I did sock him. Anyway he drops to man-eating tiger I’d take vanilla.

  the ground; out cold. From the house I After dinner the evening becomes a

  hear two shots and then a dame screaming.

  nightmare, for by ten that night Foster has I made the front porch in nothing

  tried to commit suicide four times, and flat, and I have my .45 automatic in my made a mess of it every time. First, he tries hand. Those two reports I had heard hadn’t to shoot himself as I discovered when I got been made by a cap-pistol.

  to the house. Next I find him hanging in I barge in through the front door.

  his bedroom and cut him down in time.

  Susan Foster is standing in the living There’s an overturned chair about twenty

  Suicides Are Saps

  3

  feet away. Next I find him standing on a pearls.”

  third-story window ledge just about to fall.

  “Murder!” snarls Manuel. “You’re

  I get the window open and grab him just in crazy! He tried to commit suicide.”

  time. When I find him in the kitchen with

  “He did the first time,” I says. “He

  his head in the oven and the gas turned on asked you to go to Susan, to tell her that he I get tired of it.

  was in trouble financially.” I glanced at

  “Listen, you!” I snaps when I get

  the door. Foster is standing there listening him revived. “I’m sick of this. If you don’t and he nodded when he hears me. “When

  stop this foolishness I’ll put a bullet in you she refused Foster was so desperate that he myself. You’ll be dead then all right.”

  tried to kill himself, but lost his nerve.”

  “No!” shouts Dawson Foster. “I

  don’t want to die. I thought I did when I

  “But Juan didn’t tell me of Uncle asking had Juan ask Susan to help me and she

  my help,” says Susan. “I would have given refused—but I’ve changed my mind. I it to him gladly.”

  don’t want to die.”

  “Of course Manuel didn’t,” I says.

  He means it, too. Here is a guy

  “He wanted that hundred-grand necklace who has tried to kill himself four times for himself. He faked those last three and he don’t want to die. It starts me suicides that Foster was supposed to have thinking, and then it dawns on me. I attempted. A hanging man isn’t likely to remember that I haven’t seen Susan or

 
have strength enough to kick the chair he Juan Manuel for some time, and go is standing on twenty feet away. Nor is he looking for them. When I am passing likely to climb out on a window ledge and Susan’s room I hear voices—and I stop

  then close the window behind him, or stick and listen. The door is standing open a his head in a gas oven. Your uncle was little.

  knocked out then.”

  “You understand that I hate to do

  “That’s true,” says Foster. “I have

  this, Susan,” says Manuel. “But I must been afraid to talk—even though he did try insist that you give me the necklace.” He to kill me three times. He—he threatened laughs nasty-like. “You see your uncle to murder Susan also if I did not remain hired me to steal it.”

  silent. And I did not think anyone would I looked in through the crack in the

  believe that I had not tried to commit door. Manuel is covering the girl with an suicide again.”

  automatic and she has the necklace in her

  “Most people wouldn’t,” I says.

  hand.

  “But just like I always says suicides are

  “I won’t give it to you,” says saps—and when a guy like you tries it four Susan. “You—you thief!”

  times, Mr. Foster, I figure there is

  “Drop the gun, Manuel!” I tell him

  something wrong or you are just plain

  as I cover him with my automatic.

  crazy. You didn’t seem crazy to me.

  He tries to turn his gun on me, so I

  Besides Manuel is too anxious to keep me have to shoot him in the, arm. He drops away from this place.” I grin at the dark-the gun all right.

  haired guy who is glaring at me and

  “You nearly got away with it, holding his wounded arm. “Sure, suicides Manuel,” I tell him. “First trying to murder are saps, but most times murderers are just this girl’s uncle—and then stealing the plain dumb!”

 

 

  Monte Herridge, Suicides Are Saps by Donald Bayne Hobart

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