Saturday, August 29, 2015

"I Mean to Find Her Murderer!"

"Murder for Fun."
By Norman H. White, Jr. (?-?).
Short story (12 pages).
Found in Argosy Weekly, September 19, 1931.
Online HERE.
"It was begun for amusement, that fashionable game of 'Murder,' but it was to have a more startling outcome than even Dapper Dick Carleton, the district attorney, anticipated . . ."
To paraphrase Hamlet, the play's the thing wherein we'll catch the conscience of . . . in this case, the murderer of "La Booth."

Snippets:
No one knew how Richard Carleton, or "Dapper Dick" as he was known to every one, from the big flat-foot who had the slaughter house beat to redheaded Captain McGinnis of headquarters, had ever found time both to make his brilliant record as district attorney and to keep up his contact with the circle of society which was his birthright.  . . .
. . . "Gloria Booth was a colorful, unconventional, passionate creature," he said softly. "Laws meant nothing to her—she lived and loved—and three weeks ago to-night she was murdered. I mean to find her murderer!" He raised his dark sardonic eyes slowly from his glass and searched the faces of the well-groom-ed men sitting about the room almost challengingly.  . . .
. . . "There is the fatal ace of spades," he said with a smile, holding up the card which for centuries has been the grim omen of death.  . . .
. . . "I now think I am ready to denounce the murderer of the beautiful young lady whose body lies near the piano."  . . .
. . . His thin face, a mask of demoniac fury, peered through the narrow aperture of mahogany.  . . .
. . . His voice rose to a shriek. He steadied his shaking right hand with his left and took careful aim . . .
Resources:
- Our author, Norman H. White, Jr., seems to have been active producing crime fiction, usually for Dime Detective and DFW, only in the early '30s; see The FictionMags listing for him HERE.
- As with a previous author (HERE), we can't for the moment say whether White produced any other "Dapper Dick" Carleton adventures.

Category: McMillan & Wife without the wife

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