Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter

by Tinsley, Theodore A.

  He halted on the threshold and closed the hall door softly. He was in the room less than five minutes. When he emerged his eyes were like bright coals.

  He crept down the stairs without sound, heading toward the voices in the living-room. He was so eager to eavesdrop that the darkness betrayed him. He fell over a footstool with a thumping crash.

  There was a yell from the front room. Before Tracy could spring to his feet, the door opened and Cass Payton raced in. The light from the doorway outlined Tracy on hands and knees. Payton had whipped a gun out of his pocket. His voice was as steady as the weapon’s muzzle.

  “Hands up! Back into the other room!”

  Martha Nixon screamed at sight of the Daily Planet’s columnist. But Payton wasn’t frightened. He was livid with rage.

  “You damned little gutter snoop! I ought to kill you!”

  “You’re not that dumb,” Tracy muttered huskily.

  “No. Killing won’t be necessary. This time you’ve cooked your own goose, Martha, get on the telephone and call the state police! Tell them I’ve just caught a housebreaker. I’m going to cage this smart little busybody for a while in a Connecticut jail!”

  Martha protested. Tremulously she tried to point out to Payton the unpleasant publicity that would follow the arrest of a scandal columnist in her home. But Payton insisted, and she telephoned the police. They waited in awkward silence. Tracy didn’t dare lower his aching arms. The stony look in Payton’s eyes scared him. He was glad when the front doorbell finally rang.

  Martha backed away and opened it. She uttered a surprised gasp. So did her two visitors. It wasn’t the police. Paul Voisin walked slowly in, accompanied by Julie.

  Julie didn’t look very happy. Her strong-fingered hands were clenched into taut fists. There was fright in her eyes, a fright that seemingly had nothing to do with Payton’s gun or Tracy’s elevated arms.

  Payton explained curtly what had happened. Voisin didn’t seem too interested. He had a problem of his own he was anxious to discuss.

  “I found out purely by chance,” he said quietly, “that this smart young lady paid you a call earlier this evening.”

  “Skip it!” Payton snapped. “Wait until we get rid of this dirty little journalist.”

  Voisin’s contemptuous shrug dismissed the nuisance of Tracy. “I understand that Julie came to you with a nasty story that she was my mistress, and that you very properly threw her out.” He turned menacingly toward his companion. “Tell him the real truth, my dear!”

  Julie swallowed. She looked cowed. In a low voice she denied that she was Voisin’s mistress. She had lied, hoping to avenge herself after she had tried in vain to extort money from Voisin.

  “I thought I could bleed him by threatening to make trouble about his marriage,” she declared faintly. “That I ’ave ever shared M’sieu Voisin’s bed, that ees simply one beeg lie.”

  “Like hell, it is!” Tracy growled. “Voisin’s got a dowry coming to him, according to the terms of the marriage contract. Unless moral turpitude is proved! That’s the catch! What did he do, Julie—threaten to kill you, unless you gave him a clean bill of health?”

  Julie’s clenched fists opened. Her long-nailed fingers curled into claws. She started to spring at Tracy, but Voisin shoved her backward toward the wall. He and Cass Payton moved ominously closer to Tracy. Payton’s finger was tense on the trigger of his gun.

  Tracy dropped both hands. A quick clutch unhooked the watch chain from his vest. It swung like a golden slingshot as Tracy ducked and pivoted. He threw the watch crashing through the living-room window.

  Payton had expected the missile to be flung at his head. He jumped nimbly aside. It gave Tracy a chance to uncork a wild punch that staggered Payton. Then, with a wild Indian yell, Butch and Metaxas came crashing headlong through the window.

  Butch’s tire iron smacked against Payton’s extended forearm. It looked like a light, hasty tap. But the arm dropped limply, and so did the gun. Tracy kicked it skidding toward the wall.

  Metaxas took care of Voisin. He didn’t have to hit him. There was no mistaking his grim intent if the Frenchman batted an eyelash.

  The Greek uttered a capitalistic yell. “Anybody that hoits Mr. Tracy gets his noggin cracked! The guy owes me two hundred bucks. Right, Jerry?”

  “Right,” Tracy panted.

  His eyes jerked toward the ruined window sash. For an instant he looked puzzled. Then his face twisted with savage delight.

  A car had roared in from the road. A lieutenant of Connecticut police came vaulting into the room. He had a big gun in his gloved fist. He looked dazed as he tried vainly to cover everyone in the mad tableau. But Tracy’s grin was for the tall, white-haired figure behind the lieutenant.

  It was Inspector Fitzgerald. With him was Richard Druse. They were both petrified with astonishment.

  Butch and the taxi driver lowered their tire irons. They became sheepishly peaceful. Payton was yelling fiercely for Tracy’s immediate arrest as a common housebreaker. The Connecticut cop reached out to grab Tracy, but Fitz halted that with a quick cry.

  “Wait a minute, Lieutenant! There must be some sense to all this.” Cass Payton didn’t like Fitz’s interruption.

  “You’ve got no jurisdiction here. I demand the arrest of this dirty little snoop. And I don’t want Druse in here, either! Throw him out! He’s nothing but a sly, fortune-hunting—”

  Tracy said sharply, “Druse stays here. Fitz, I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve brought me the one guy I want!”

  Fitz was still fuddled. “I got to thinking after you left,” he told Tracy slowly. “I decided to come up here and see what the hell you were up to. Druse volunteered to come along, too. Naturally, I have no authority in Connecticut, so I went over to Headquarters first. I was there when Miss Nixon phoned that you were being held at her home for housebreaking.” Druse eyed the columnist queerly. “What do you mean you want me?”

  “You can help me clear up Linda’s death by answering a single question. Did you have a woman visitor at your home this morning?”

  “Huh? Why, yes. I—”

  Everyone was watching Druse. But before he could finish what he was saying, Druse and everything else in the room was blotted out by blackness!

  A woman screamed. A man snarled an oath. Then a quick stab of scarlet split the darkness. Something hit the floor with a jarring thump the echo of a pistol shot hammered.

  The next instant a white oval of light appeared. The Connecticut cop moved the beam of his flashlight over every face in the room.

  Payton hadn’t moved an inch. Martha Nixon was between him and Voisin. Voisin was down on his hands and knees, close to the gun on the floor. The gun was Payton’s weapon, the one that Tracy had kicked away when Payton had been disarmed earlier. Julie was crouched at the wall, a foot or two from where Voisin was kneeling,

  Richard Druse lay in the center of the room. Blood smeared his coat sleeve just above the elbow.

  No one moved as the bright oval of the flash jerked from face to face. Fitz had a gun in his hand as well as the lieutenant. He sprang forward and shoved the loose socket of the lamp cord back into the wall. The room lost its horrible ghostly glimmer.

  “I—I think the bullet broke my arm,” Druse gasped from the floor.

  The Connecticut cop darted forward as Voisin rose to his feet.

  “I didn’t do it!” Voisin yelled. “I didn’t kick the cord loose. I didn’t fire that gun. Somebody shoved me in the darkness and knocked me down. Then the gun went off. It was dropped alongside me.” His face was like chalk as he glared at Julie. “You did it, damn your soul!”

  “She was standing right next to him,” Cass Payton growled.

  “Why not let Druse answer my original question?” Tracy said. “Who was the woman who came to see you this morning at your home?”

  “Martha Nixon,” Druse gasped. “I—I see what you mean now! I didn’t show her or anyone else Linda’s note. But Martha could easily have
read it while I was out of the room. She said she had come to get some shrubs I had promised her. I had to go outdoors to get them. Is she—”

  “Linda’s murderess? Of course,” Tracy said quietly.

  An involuntary groan escaped Payton.

  Martha Nixon’s voice was low, but clearly modulated. “Is this a joke of some sort?” The skin on “her cheekbones looked curiously tight.

  “A triple-barreled joke,” Tracy said. “Look out that rear window, Metaxas! There’s a car out there. See if you can recognize it.”

  The Greek hackman obeyed. He gulped audibly. “It looks like the job that almost ran me off the road, doing ninety, by Gawd, if it was doin’ a minute!”

  Payton recoiled from Martha Nixon. She didn’t seem to notice. She stood as erect and regal as a queen. Her haughty glance at Tracy seemed to say: “We are displeased!”

  “I told you the joke was triple-barreled,” Tracy said. “Here’s the third shot.”

  It came from his pocket with grisly slowness—a pair of half-burned silk stockings. As Tracy held them up, the smears of dried blood made ugly brown splotches on the delicate threadwork. A strong smell of fresh sawdust was perceptible.

  “The blood came from that motorcycle cop you killed on the way home. The odor is furniture oil, from the bottle you upset in a pantry closet when you hid there to wait for Linda to drink your poison.”

  Martha Nixon’s mouth opened. But she didn’t utter a sound.

  “You have one bad fault,” Tracy said. “You’re good on planning, lousy on execution. You had to do things tonight in too much of a hurry. The metal shield in your bedroom fireplace was put back too hastily. It was a botch job, like the spilled cedar oil. And you ought to have been smart enough to realize that silk doesn’t burn like cellophane. It requires patient—”

  Fitzgerald and the Connecticut cop were watching her like hawks. But Martha’s sudden pantherish leap eluded their clutch. She didn’t run toward the broken window. Her swerve carried her toward a heavy bronze candlestick on a side table.

  She swung it murderously at Tracy’s ducking skull. Had it landed squarely, it would have smashed his brains. As it was, the blow, skidding down his shoulder and arm, made a horrible click like a dry stick snapping.

  Tracy pushed himself up from the floor with his good arm. The other hung grotesquely. He bit his lips into a twisted grin.

  “Looks like we’re even,” he told Druse faintly.

  Fitz and the lieutenant had steel cuffs on Martha. Her final attempt to kill Tracy had drained her of fury. She submitted almost docilely.

  “Why did you poison Linda?” Tracy asked her.

  There was silence in the room. Then, suddenly, she laughed. It sounded like the raw scrape of a file.

  “What the hell? You’ll find out the minute you search the house and locate my records. My graft was blackmail. Polite; no howls from carefully selected victims. I made plenty, but I wanted more. I had a chance to marry Payton. Linda didn’t like me and took time enough to get the goods on me. She promised to keep quiet if I let her father alone. Last week Mr. Payton proposed. From that moment I was on the lookout for a chance at Linda.”

  Tracy amplified for the benefit of the Connecticut lieutenant. Having read the ambiguously worded note that morning at Druse’s home, Martha saw an opportunity to involve Linda and young Druse in a fake suicide pact. She got in after Linda’s maid left, probably with a key she’d swiped from Linda some time. Probably while Linda was bathing and changing to a dinner gown, she poisoned the glasses. Then she waited in the pantry closet to make sure that Linda would drink the stuff. But Druse was late, and Linda’s presence cut off Martha’s escape.

  There she was, with the minutes flying—and her chance to have an alibi dinner with Cass Payton at her Connecticut home dwindling fast! By the time Linda finally took the fatal drink, Martha was so jittery she didn’t notice she had kicked over the bottle of furniture oil. She washed out Druse’s glass to fit the new situation. She jammed the lighted candle in the dead girl’s fists. But she forget to shut the service door tight when she fled. That was how Voisin was able to get in.

  “Just why did you go there at all?” Tracy asked the Frenchman curiously.

  “Linda phoned me and told me our marriage was off. She said she wanted to make a clean break with the past and marry young Druse. I was afraid Linda might persuade Payton to contest the dowry legally. So I hurried over after I had calmed down, in order to try and reason with Linda. I don’t know why I sneaked in so secretly. It—it was a sort of premonition of danger.”

  “And that’s that,” Tracy said in a tight, painful voice. “Except that I almost sealed my own doom when I was stupid enough to tell Martha I suspected murder on that ride into town with her and Payton. After she left Payton at the Waldorf, she managed to get hold of a Ford—maybe she stole it—and she trailed me to Voisin’s. Only Martha’s murderous eagerness, and probably the kick of the gun, lifted her hail of bullets a mite too high.”

  He kept his eyes steadily on the Connecticut officer.

  “The whole case was solved by the detective skill of Inspector Fitzgerald. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, sure. Besides, it’s extradition.”

  “How about my two hundred bucks?” the Greek taxi driver yelled.

  Tracy reassured him.

  “Looks as if everybody collects but you,” the lieutenant said.

  “That’s what you think!”

  Jerry Tracy reeled over to the telephone. He crackled, “Hello! Long distance. … Gimme the Daily Planet!”

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Party from Detroit, the first Jerry Tracy story and Tinsley’s first appearance in Black Mask is from the October 1932 issue, and is copyright © 1932 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1960 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  South Wind from the November 1932 issue is copyright © 1932 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1960 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  Park Avenue Item from the December 1932 issue is copyright © 1932 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1960 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  Beyond All Light from the January 1933 issue is copyright © 1933 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1961 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  Ball and Chain from the February 1933 issue is copyright © 1933 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1961 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  Help Wanted from the March 1933 issue is copyright © 1933 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1961 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Public
ations Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  He Asked for It from the May 1933 issue is copyright © 1933 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1961 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  Somebody Stole My Pal from the July 1933 issue is copyright © 1933 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1961 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  Smoke from the June 1934 issue is copyright © 1934 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1962 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  Keep On Asking from the May 1935 issue is copyright © 1935 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1963 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  Murderer’s Guest from the July 1935 issue is copyright © 1935 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1963 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  Behind the Column from the August 1935 issue is copyright © 1935 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1963 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.

  Ticketed for Death from the September 1935 issue is copyright © 1935 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1963 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch as successor-in-interest to Popular Publications Inc., Proprietor of Black Mask Magazine, and conservator of all copyrights, text and art.