Judd sagged as though the vital juices were seeping out of him. “She told me she would be my girl. Not many girls will even look at a guy who’s... crippled. Not girls like Bunnie, anyway. I never tried to own her or anything like that. All I wanted was just to come and see her once in a while. Bunnie didn’t want anybody else to know about us, but that was all right with me.
“Then she met that Foster guy someplace and talked him into moving here. He started paying her rent and giving her other money besides. I couldn’t match that. Bunnie cut me off without so much as a thank you. It kept eating at my mind. I wanted to hurt her back somehow. Then I saw her go to Foster’s apartment alone last night while he was at the bar. I got my knife and I came out here and I killed her. I slipped out and hid in the bushes just before Foster came in and found her.”
Tregorian stared at us with his mouth open. Rachel turned away and seemed to be crying. I took Judd, now docile as a child, back to his office and called the police. After they came and took him away I put in a call to Lillian and filled her in.
“I don’t know what will come of the stock shuffling business,” I said, “but maybe Gil can work something out with Prescott and Steams. Anyway, good luck. To both of you.”
“Dukane, I don’t know how to thank you. If we ever get our lives straightened out again, Gil and I, we’re going to want to see a lot more of you. Promise now, you hear?”
“Sure,” I said, knowing I would probably never see either of them again. “Good-by, Lillian.”
As I walked out of the Surf I saw that Rachel Coombs was waiting at my car. She had changed into a green pants suit that matched her eyes.
“I didn’t get that chance to talk to you,” she said when I reached the car.
“That’s right. What was it about?”
“About apartment hunting. I’ve had enough of the swingin’ singles atmosphere. I thought you might have some ideas about where I could look for another place. Maybe closer to your neighborhood?”
For a minute I looked down at her, then I grinned. “Yeah, I might have some ideas. Let’s have lunch and talk about it.”
Rachel smiled back and slid into the Chewy next to me. She smelled like spring flowers, and all of a sudden I felt a whole lot better.
The Spindle Clue [1]
by Albert Payson Terhune
Introduction by
Sam Moskowitz
Regarded by many as the greatest writer of dog stories who ever lived, the name of Albert Payson Terhune became a household word after his novel Lad: A Dog appeared in 1919. He loved dogs — particularly Collies — and bred them at his Pompton Lakes, N.J. home. Few men seemed to enjoy a finer insight into the psychology and motivation of dogs and his love for the animals created an immense following for his books — Bruce, Buff: A Collie, Further Adventures of Lad, His Dog, Black Ceasar’s Clan, The Heart of a Dog and many others which followed in annual procession.
Because of the association of his name with dogs, few are aware that he had been a successful novelist and fiction writer for twenty-three years before his dog stories captivated the reading public and was a worldly man capable of writing excellent western, war, love or detective stories. So capable was Terhune, that between 1906 and 1916, his income fluctuated between $12,000 and $30,000 a year, during an era when annual incomes for laborers for a six-day week were as low as $600 a year and, incredibly, $1,500 a year was definitely a good wage for the middle-class.
A novel of his titled “Dad” which ran in four installments in ALL-STORY CAVALIER WEEKLY, July 4th to 25th, 1914 was unusual inasmuch as two chapters in that novel of the human side of the Civil War were completely written by later Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis, who also received twenty-five percent of the check for his contribution.
Terhune may have come by his writing ability genetically, because his mother Mary Virginia Terhune was a novelist who achieved considerable fame under the name of Marion Harland. Terhune’s first book was Syria From the Saddle, written after his return to America from traveling abroad and published in 1896. Another trip to the Holy Land with his mother resulted in their collaborating on a novel Dr. Dale in 1900, which received a considerable amount of notice because it was done by a mother and son collaboration.
Terhune had worked on newspapers including THE NEW YORK WORLD. It was his job as a crime reporter to cover many of the murders that occurred and also to follow the fascinating detective work as police cracked many a difficult case. It seemed to him, from his vantage point, that a newspaper man, with all information funneling into his media, would be in a good position to play the part of detective. That is what we have in The Spindle Clue, a fine mystery murder with the newsman as the detective.
It first appeared in Frank A. Munsey’s scarcely remembered magazine THE QUAKER for May, 1889. THE QUAKER was a companion to the all-fiction magazine THE ARGOSY, printed half on pulp paper and half on coated stock. It had started out as THE PURITAN aimed at competition with the LADIES HOME COMPANION and THE WOMAN’S HOME JOURNAL.
But the publisher, Frank A. Munsey seemed to have a better instinct for what pleased men than what pleased women. THE QUAKER, when Terhune appeared in it, was a 192 page, pulp-sized magazine whose slogan was: “A magazine to entertain. It has no other mission.” For 10 cents it featured “Good easy reading for the people — no frills, no fine finishes, no hair splitting niceties, but action, action, always action.” This scarcely seemed in keeping with the title THE QUAKER. But as a harbinger of the kind of writer Terhune would someday be, the issue also featured a handsomely illustrated article titled: Dogs: Their Way and Friendships.
The Spindle Clue was one of a number of detective stories that Terhune wrote during the early years of his writing career, and he displayed a sure feel for the elements that go into a “Whodunit.”
The Spindle Clue
The paper had gone to press. It was 2:30 A.M., and all the staff except two “emergency men” and a copy reader and an office boy, had gone home.
One of the emergency reporters had stretched himself out on a long table, his head on a dictionary, and was sleeping as only a seasoned reporter could on so uncomfortable a bed.
Elkins, the other reporter, was shooting craps with the copy reader; and the office boy, after writing his own name with quaint flourishes seventy nine times on a sheet of copy paper, was nodding in his chair.
The lights burned drearily under their green shades, leaving much of the great city room in gloom. The roar of the city had died away, so that the clang of an occasional cable car or the rattle of a market truck on the Park Row pavements jarred noisily.
“Eight’s your point, Brewer,” said Elkins, as the copy reader again sent the dice rattling along the yellow table.
Brewer nodded. “Come eight!” he coaxed, after the absurd fashion of crap shooters. “Come an eight! Come a little eight! — Pshaw!”
He had thrown a seven, which gave both dice and shakes to Elkins.
The latter stopped to light another cigarette before picking up the dice.