Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

“You can see that the case is complete against you,” Oakes proceeded, almost coaxingly. “But I might add that if you don’t confess to the killing you will place some one else, a lady, in a dangerous position.”

For the first time the lines on the waiter’s face changed. Presently he spoke, reluctantly:

“A lady? Who?”

“Clara Fanning. Miss Fanning left the Broken Lantern just before Lanyon was shot. She has no alibi—”

“Clara had nothing to do with it,” Hayden broke in hastily.

“I might as well tell you the facts, sir,” he went on, after a pause. “There’s not much to it. I’ve been fond — too fond — of Clara for some time.”

“Yeah,” Oakes put in. “I noticed that picture of Clara in your watch this morning.”

“But she did not encourage me. I was too old, although no older than that snake, Lanyon. For a few weeks Clara was deceived by Lanyon. She was living in a fool’s paradise. Then he deserted her for the other girl. It hurt her terribly. I hated him for it. I often wished I could kill him, planned to do it.

“Then, last night, the chance came, when Clara had to leave work because of illness. And Clara’s illness itself enraged me all the more, sir, because I was sure he was the cause of it.

“Everything seemed to fit in so beautifully. The truck was out by the kitchen door. The driver was down in the cellar. Nobody in the kitchen would notice me going out and in, except Tom, and he was back in the storeroom.

“When that second message came from Myrtle to Lanyon, I destroyed it and wrote another one; it was so easy. You seem to have learned it all, sir. I went out by way of the kitchen, shot him, loaded his body on the truck, which I knew would leave soon. It took a bare five minutes, and nobody noticed my absence.

“And,” he added, “I’m not the least bit sorry.”

Oakes put his hand on Hayden’s shoulder.

“Say, this Lanyon killing gave me a client this morning — young Larry Deronda. Now I’ve lost my client, and I need another one. How about it?”

Hayden looked at him hopelessly.

“But I have no money, sir.”

Oakes laughed.

“Money! My dear man! The very last thing I ever expect of a client is money!”

The Blind Fury by Sinclair Gluck

This story began in Detective Fiction Weekly for May 31

In the cellar of the mystery house Hal fights a madman and his murderous slave.

What Has Gone Before

Benjamin Hearn, Charles Murray, his partner in a company constructing a clam, and their attorney, Howard Evans, have each received a mysterious card bearing a double cross. They know that it is a threat from an old enemy.

That night Howard Evans’s house is burned to the ground; Evans is murdered. Hal Evans, his son, Mrs. Evans, and Dan Bottis, a loyal chauffeur of the dead man, go to the Hotel Belmore, where Captain of Detectives McCoy interviews Hal.

Hal tells the captain about the strange card, but when he wants to show it to him, discovers that it has disappeared.

McCoy enlists the aid of his friend, Christopher Morgan.

While Hal is away from the hotel, his mother vanishes. Morgan learns that Mrs. Evans went away with a man, and took the jewels that she had deposited at the hotel safe. Apparently she had been lured by a forged note purporting to have come from Hal.

On the heels of this comes news of two fresh disasters. The dam has been blown up. And Hearn is found murdered.

Hearn is throttled by the unknown.

Dorothy Hearn, his daughter, is robbed of her jewelry by a man with huge hands and a luminous death’s head face.

McHenry, foreman at the dam, comes to New York with his wife and takes a room across from Hal Evans’s.

Morgan learns from the police record that a former partner of Hearn and Murray, named Wallace, had been swindled by the pair shortly after the latter’s marriage to a chorus girl. The girl had later divorced Wallace, married a Levantine named Papaniotis, and subsequently had left him.

Murray is shot in Hal’s hotel room by the man with the luminous face, and Hal is attacked.

Hal is kidnaped by the avenger, who turns out to be the man Wallace, now “McHenry.” Chained to a stone wall, Hal is forced to listen to a terrible tale of misfortune which Wallace, half mad, pours into his ears. Wallace thinks that Hal’s father had been instrumental in his downfall, and is going to exact vengeance from Hal.

Dorothy Hearn also falls into Wallace’s hands.

Chapter XXIII All But One

Some time later, Hal came to his senses, stimulated by a vague feeling of urgency that he could not define. The muscles of his shoulders and back had stiffened and felt horribly sore when he tried to move.

Suddenly, in the darkness, he became aware of a hand on his arm and a voice in his ear.

“Hal!” came the whisper again.

The fog that lay over his senses lifted and cleared.

“Dan! How did you get here? Have you brought the police?”

“Police nothing. There wasn’t time.”