Don’t Meddle With Murder – Three Johnny Castle Novelettes by C.S. Montanye

Book Details

Stolen jewels, double crosses and murder star in Don’t Meddle With Murder – Three Johnny Castle Novelettes.

This Will Kill You (1947)
When a New York reporter finds a body in a Broadway siren’s boudoir, he plays a strange game of hide-and-seek with both cops and robbers!
Chapter I – Date With the Girl Friend
Chapter II – Heel and Toe
Chapter III – Guys With Guns
Chapter IV – Rogues’ Gallery
Chapter V – Bad Ten Minutes
Chapter VI – Some Time Later

This Murder’s On Me (1948) – When Johnny and his heart-throb Libby witness the shooting of Mrs. Haviland, it puts them in line for death, with only one out—to solve the mystery and nab the killer!
Chapter I – Some Give, Some Get
Chapter II – Or Else
Chapter III – Nobody Answers
Chapter IV – Blue Orchid
Chapter V – Persistent Visitors
Chapter VI – Guns Go Off

Don’t Meddle With Murder (1946) – The sports-reporter sleuth keeps up with his reading—and smashes into fast action when he spots a clue to crime between the lines!
Chapter I – Cop’s Call
Chapter II – Tail
Chapter III – Libby Opens The Safe
Chapter IV – Johnny Rings A Bell
Chapter V – Round And Black

Carlton Stevens (C.S.) Montanye (1892-1948) was a hugely prolific writer of pulp fiction mysteries. He was published in a number of publications including Black Mask, Detective Story and Collier’s Weekly.

Don’t Meddle With Murder – Two Johnny Castle Novelettes contains 13 illustrations.

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1. Montanye-Dont-Meddle-With-Murder.epub

Excerpt: This Will Kill You

Chapter I

Date With the Girl Friend

IT WAS one of those rainy autumn nights when you seemed to be looking at the blurred lights of Broadway through an even half dozen Scotches and sodas. Getting a taxi was as easy as trying to get gracious language from a harried head waiter.

I snapped up the collar on my leak-proof slicker and headed for Dufrey’s on leather. That inhospitable lift-and-drain tuckaway was half down 45th Street, a pebble’s toss from the Imperial Theater. Why Libby Hart, the principal character in my dreams, had designated that as a meet-me-there-at-nine rendezvous was a bigger question than the Middle East.

But Mrs. Hart’s only girl child had laid it on the line and didn’t like arguments. So, when I checked out of the Orbit, that high class newspaper for which I concocted various sporting page pieces, there was nothing to do but duck the drops and keep the date.

Dufrey’s, dressed up to represent an Old World Sicilian grotto, was no place for a lady like Libby to be waiting for anybody.

Its customers were the flower of the underworld, a mob of not so nice smelling tiger lilies. I had reason to know that Brian Esthay, one of the town’s toughest muscle men, owned the major slice of Dufrey’s and made it his headquarters.

In the few times I’d been there the faces of the patrons had haunted my nightmares. I walked faster, trying to beat the gal friend to its doorstep.

But there wasn’t any need to hurry. Libby was a charter member of the Ladies Never On Time Association. When I went past the circular bar in the front room there was no sign of her. Nor in the Florentine Room in the rear. Or in the foyer, or emerging from the powder room.

I took a short beer to a table and sat down. Over to the left Brian Esthay was dining a couple of pals. Esthay, a big, benevolent mug with a face like a friendly St. Bernard, was laughing heartily at one of his own gags.

“Esthay was always laughing. Around the Main Stem he had a reputation for his constant good humor, wisecracks and witticisms, charity and unfailing memory for friends, near and far.

ONE of the “far” ones, I recalled, happened to be Dolf Callise, a dead-panned young gentleman who had acquired the unhappy habit of borrowing jewelry from wealthy people and forgetting to return it.

In fact, Callise seldom asked for the loans. He simply dropped in when the folks were out and helped himself.

He had done that in the case of a Mrs. Randall Westcott. That wealthy dowager maintained a fourteen-room Park Avenue dude ranch. Mrs. W, through Callise’s visit, found herself minus a collection of jeweled trinkets insured for a mere sixty grand.

Callise promptly disappeared from the Rialto scene and I had reason to believe that big, amusing Brian Esthay was suspected by those in the know of having not only arranged Dolf Callise’s departure to an unknown address, but had profited by the Westcott glitter.

“I could feel him looking at me. I finished the beer and looked back. Esthay nodded and called out:

“Come on over and sit in with us, Castle. Why the lone wolf stuff?”

I said, “Waiting for my fiancée.”

“Bring her over when she shows up, if she does,” he replied. “Personally,” he guffawed, “I can’t imagine any dame meeting you.”

“You mean—here?” I said, and he laughed harder.

A radio made thin, twittery music. The drinkers at the bar clinked their glasses and fifteen minutes seemed like fifteen minutes. I stole a peek at Esthay’s pals. Not good— hard looking jobs with small amounts of chin and eyes sharp enough to shave with.

The kind that would break your arm without hesitation and then tell you to go and have it gift-wrapped.

“Hello, Johnny. I’m terribly sorry I’m late. This rain and everything delayed me. You understand, angel.”

Libby sat down before I could get up. “Don’t use the word angel in here. Too many people have been measured for wings. And why,” I inquired, “did you select a place like this in the first place?”

“Because,” she answered, giving me one of her widest smiles, “I have to meet a man here.”

“You’ve met him.”

“Not you, silly. Another man. Buddy.”

“Buddy?”

“Bohen. He’s a sunburned sailor. You see,” Libby explained, when a waiter finally nodded over and I said ‘old-fashioned,’ and didn’t mean his Tuxedo coat, “this Buddy Bohen works on a ship called the Star of Brazil. He’s just up from a cruise to South America and he’s going to give me a lot of material for an article I’m about to write for Happy Vacation, that periodical that tells you where to go in nice language.”

“A sunburned sailor.” I looked hard at her. “Where’d you dig him up? Or did you just tear the ship apart and there he was?”

“If you think what I’m thinking you’re thinking,” Libby said frostily, “you’re entirely wrong, cream-puff. I was introduced to Buddy by Joe Giff and I’ve known Joe since I was knee high to a bar stool.”

BRIAN ESTHAY caught my eye. He pointed at Libby with a bony forefinger. I shook my head. He went into a spasm of laughter and Libby raised her arched brows.

“What’s funny, Johnny? What’s the man laughing at?”

“The story about the dentist who made his patients pay through the teeth,” I said. “For your information that’s Brian Esthay. He’s one of Manhattan’s number one bad men.”

“He’s cute.” Libby looked over. “And those people with him.”

“Members of the human race, believe it or not,” I said.

“I don’t.”

The drinks arrived and we put some of the outside chill back where it belonged. Libby was at her loveliest. She looked sleek and polished. Her dark hair was highlighted to the brimless twenty-two dollars’ worth of hatless hat on her softly waved tresses. Her eyes, like misty stars, hid behind long lashes. Her mouth was the color of ripe strawberries and her skin held a golden glow.

In her simple little black dress she looked good enough to eat with a spoon. I was willing to back her as a sure winner in any beauty derby, against the field!

“Curious,” she said, looking at a clock over the bar door. “Buddy said he’d be here at eight-forty-five. If he doesn’t show up I’m to go to his apartment. That’s why I wanted you to meet me— to go with me.”

“Sunburned sailors with apartments, in a housing shortage. It doesn’t come out even.”

“This does,” said Libby. “It’s his sister’s place and she’s in Michigan.”

She went on to tell me more about the setup, but I wasn’t listening.

Excerpt From: C.S. Montanye. “Don’t Meddle With Murder.”