Clues In The Dark and Other Stories by Norman A. Daniels

Book Details

Clues in the Dark and Other Stories – six stories of murder committed by mobsters, dirty cops, and bank robbers.

With Intent To Murder – Faster, faster, ex-merchant mariner Steve Emery roars ahead in a wild and desperate race with the grim death that pursues!
Chapter I – Death Rides Along
Chapter II – First Try for Murder
Chapter III – Hand With a Knife
Chapter IV – A Promise Kept

The Tottering Idol (1946) – Assistant District Attorney Jack Coyle ingeniously ferrets out a blackmail plot that has some baffling murder angles!

The Killer and His Dead (1948) – Two corpses lay side by side—and Detective Fleming had to find out which was the murderer and which the victim!

Too Much Hate (1943) – Inspector Malloy takes a beating or two at the hands of fur thieves—but that’s not enough to outfox him!

Clues in the Dark (1934) – All the pent-up hatred of seven unjust years in stir pounded in the blood of Terry Lane, He fought to conquer that festering evil, for a friend had placed him on his honor. But when Death’s grisly fingers plucked life from a man, Terry shuddered at the . . . Clues in the Dark

Suicide Cliff (1952) – Novelet of a Murderous Honeymoon. The killer who attacked insurance investigator Max Slade on that dismally dark street wore shoes – but no socks
Chapter I – Homicide Case
Chapter II – Beneficiaries of Death
Chapter III – Corpse in the Cave
Chapter IV – Story of Murder
Chapter V – Murder Has a Motive

Norman A. Daniels was the pen name of Norman Arthur Danberg, (1905–1995). Danburg typically wrote under the alias Norman A. Daniels, but he also published under the pen names John L. Benton, Frank Johnson, and house names including Will Garth, Kenneth Robeson, C. K. M. Scanlon, and G. Wayman Jones.

Clues In The Dark and Other Stories has 13 illustrations.

Files:

1. Daniels-CluesInTheDark.epub

Excerpt: Clues in the Dark

CAPTAIN GEORGE KELLY rose and cleared his throat as the big steel door clanged shut. Kelly had felt embarrassed in his twenty-odd years of police life, but never more so than at this moment.

He looked queerly at the well-built man who stood outside the big door now. Kelly strode forward, right hand outstretched.

“Sergeant Kelly,” the young man looked up with a pair of clear blue eyes. “God, it’s good to see you. I’ve never forgotten the kindness you showed me on my trip up here.”

“Nerts,” Kelly reddened. “That was nothing. I’m damned glad it’s me who’s bringing you back, lad. I brought you to this place and I’m taking you back—and I want you to know I’ve believed in you every minute.”

“If it were not for you, sergeant,” the young man wrung the out-stretched hand, “I’d have given up hope long ago. I’m going to repay you if I can, but as for the others—”

A hard look that Kelly had never seen in those smiling eyes before grew quickly. The grip on Kelly’s hand tightened unbelievably. Seven years of prison life hadn’t softened this man. Rather, it had hardened him physically. Kelly wondered if the same thing were true with his mind. Had the seven years behind those gray walls made of his brain a concrete thing set only on thoughts of revenge? It seemed so, and Terry Lane’s next words proved it.

“I’ve spent seven years in hell, sergeant, because of the thick-headedness of certain cops. There are a lot of others mixed up in this thing, too, and every one of ’em is going to pay. Right through the nose.”

Kelly didn’t want to hear that and he promptly changed the subject. “You’re still technically under arrest, Terry,” he said. “I’ve come after you and you’ll have to be my prisoner until the court says you’re free. Now will you be a good lad—or shall I handcuff you?”

Terry grinned. “Oh, no,” he said, “nothing like that. Any thoughts I have for revenge, I’ll not carry out until this is all over. You didn’t cuff me when you brought me here, sergeant. Do you think I’ll make a break now—on the verge of freedom?”

“Of course not,” Kelly laughed. “Well, unless you like this dump, we’ll move. Say, you don’t look so bad for being seven years in this joint. They treat you good?”

A certain grimness came over Terry’s mouth. He looked up at Kelly. “At first they didn’t. Somebody on the outside—some of the rats that sent me here—put in the works for me. I spent two years in solitary before the warden changed. I got a break then. That’s just one of the few things that happened to me because I knew too much.”

“Forget it, Terry,” Kelly said. “Let’s get going.”

The train carried them swiftly toward the great city. Terry sat as one in a new world. Seven years of monotony hadn’t broken him, but it did make him appreciate the things he had missed. His first train ride in seven years. His first glimpse of humanity not worried by the care and strife of prison life.

“I’m supposed to lock you up, Terry,” Kelly told him as the train began shaking to a halt. “I’m not gonna do it though. Not on your life! You and I are going to my hotel. I’ve got a nice room next to mine reserved for you. There’ll be better clothes there, too. The stuff you had when you were sent up is no good any more. I looked it up and say—it looks like the stuff men wore when women had bustles. It’s just a little walk to the hotel. Want a ride?”

“No, sir,” Terry shook his head vigorously. “If you’ve got the time, let’s walk—slow. There’s ten million things I want to see and then I want the story of how you worked me out of the pen. I don’t know very much. They tell you just a little up there.”

“Okay, we’ll talk as we walk. You can act like a rube at the same time. There’s lots of big new buildings here since you—ah—left.”

“And now I’m back. You took me to the pen and you came after me. If it hadn’t been for you, sergeant, I’d have rotted there for all any one cared. I’ll never forget it.”

“Aw hell,” Kelly replied, “I never did think you bumped those two dames. A lad like you couldn’t have done that job even though everything pointed toward you. One of the dames was related to you, wasn’t she?”

“Cousin,” Terry answered flatly. “A nice kid gone wrong with a lot of big shots. They framed me nice. There was the motive—the other dame, Kitty, hated me, and I didn’t like her. She was the one that led the kid into the whole mess. Sure I had threatened to kill her, I felt like it, too. Then I had to wake up in that room with the two of ’em strangled to death beside me—and me drunk as a loon. My fingerprints all over their throats. It was a pipe! Lucky I didn’t get the chair.”

“Yeah,” Kelly snapped off the end of a cigar. “They tried that, but it wouldn’t work. Circumstantial evidence sent you away, but they couldn’t fry you on that. What was back of it, lad?”

“Plenty. Crooked politicians, crooked police and lawyers. People I knew things about, and who hated me. Why, even the bosses of the paper I was on wouldn’t stand behind me. They were that scared of their own lily-white hides. But hell’s going to pop, sergeant—and damned soon!”

Excerpt From: Norman A. Daniels. “Clues In The Dark and Other Stories.”