The 24th Horse
Page 17
“Then her luck changed. She went to Guy’s apartment to find the copy of that agreement, having taken a key from Gloria’s purse. While she was there, Douglas Prayne arrived. Your brother-in-law, Miss Devon, was, I am afraid, not a nice person. Gloria had told him the facts. He saw himself in a position to continue the blackmail of Severied and lost no time in hurrying to Guy’s apartment.
“He probably caught Linda red-handed going through Severied’s desk, put two and two together, and accused her of murder. She shot him.
“Her next bad break came when I refused to believe in coincidences and began prying into Dorothy Pelham’s past. She watched me drawing closer and closer to the truth. She thought if I put the heat on Guy and Williams they’d talk. She was on a sort of murder merry-go-round by then. There wasn’t any stopping.
“Last night I gave her a chance. I offered to protect her secret if she would submit to arrest.” Bradley shrugged.
“And now,” said Miss Devon, “the secret …”
“Will remain a secret,” said Bradley. “Since there will be no trial, the motive I gave the press will stand up. George Pelham will never know the truth about his wife. Linda had courage, Miss Devon.”
“One thing I don’t understand,” said Miss Devon, “What were you doing at the school last night and how did Linda happen to find you there?”
“I told her where I was going to be,” said Bradley.
“You what?”
“I told her. I had a hunch she’d come after me.”
“But the risk! The risk that she would shoot you down in cold blood.”
“I had arranged a trap for her before I told her,” Bradley said. “I had men stationed at the school. They let her go in and hide. She was covered every instant. I had to draw it fine.”
“But why?”
Bradley gave her a small-boy smile. “Because I’m just a sucker, Miss Devon. I wanted to make a case against her if I could without dragging Pelham and the rest of you through the scandal of a trial. In a way, I wanted to do her a favor—to keep the secret she had struggled so hard to keep herself. Severied, too, deserves a break.”
“But if she hadn’t shot herself …”
“Maybe I had another hunch,” said Bradley.
###
About the Author
Judson Philips, a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award winner, was born in Northfield, Mass. in 1903. He began his writing career in the pulp fiction magazines in 1924, while earning his journalism degree from Columbia University.
In 1939 he won the $10,000 Dodd Mead Mystery Contest, using the pen name Hugh Pentecost, for Cancelled in Red. This marked a turning point in his career, as he created a second body of work for slick magazines and paperbacks as Pentecost.
He continued using both names simultaneously, living between New York and Connecticut, producing more than 500 works. One of his best-known series was The Park Avenue Hunt Club, which appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly.
Philips owned a newspaper, and wrote columns for other newspapers. He owned an equity summer stock theater, “The Sharon Playhouse,” where he wrote and produced plays. In the meantime, he wrote radio and film scripts for movies and television. Later he hosted a political and arts program in Connecticut’s “Northwest Corner,” broadcast out of Torrington.
Philips was married five times and had four children. He died of complications from emphysema in 1989, at age 85, in Canaan, Connecticut.
Other books by this author
Visit our website to discover other books by Judson P. Philips and Hugh Pentecost:
The Inspector Luke Bradley series by Hugh Pentecost
Cancelled in Red
The 24th Horse
I’ll Sing at You Funeral
The Brass Chills
Pulp Adventures magazine #21
“The Lacquer Box” by Judson P. Philips
Judson P. Philips biography
Once a Pulp Man: The Secret Life of Judson P. Philips as Hugh Pentecost
By Audrey Parente
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