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BROWN FROM THE SUN
March 28, 1938. 11:00 AM
The Hero
One hand stuck out from under the wreckage. It didn't move.
Ted Trueheart had been sitting under a piano in a radio studio and the
piano had dropped. It hung 50 feet in the air when it tried to fly.
C. Tanner Brown, owner of the Sun Detective Agency, looked from the
ruined piano and the remains beneath it to the people lined up against
the wall. They acted a bit shaken, but none showed any grief.
The Continental Insurance Company insured the Ace international
Studios where the Ted Trueheart Adventure Hour was produced every
Thursday. C. Tanner Brown worked on a retainer for Continental. The
death had occurred at 10:15 that morning. The police detective on the
case was Capt. Allan Bates, a spare slow-talking man with an excellent
record, no wife and six kids.
"His name was Wilbur Quakely, from New Jersey. The piano was suspended
from a pulley by a rope attached to this wall behind a screen. The
screen hid the culprit completely." Bates led Brown behind the screen.
They bent over to examine the cleat that had held the rope and the short
piece of rope which still dangled from it. The end was cut neatly. "We
can't find anyone who saw the crime, and we can't eliminate anyone. The
place is a madhouse at that time. You ever listen to the Trueheart
Hour?"
"Every week."
"That's him. All five feet two inches and one hundred twenty pounds of
him. His voice sounded like a Marine Drill sergeant and he had the body
of the 'before' picture in a body-building ad. He took the name
Trueheart two years ago when the series started. Have you met the guy
that plays Little Tommy, his sidekick?"
"I just got here."
"You're in for a shock. Let's talk to the wife first."
Both men rose when she came in. Bates actually reached up and pushed
his jaw closed. June Quakely stood 6'3" tall in her heels. She had the
figure of a calendar model and the dignity of a diplomat. Still in her
early thirties, her face was unlined and relaxed. She was not the
picture of a disheartened widow.
"I'm going to tell you about it from the start. You'll find out sooner
or later, anyway. I married Wilbur because he could get me in the
movies. He said he could anyway. The little shrimp. The closest he
ever got to the movies was the first row in the audience. I love Hank
Greenburg and I'm going to marry him."
Brown said, "Tell me about your husband. What kind of man was he?"
Mrs. Quakely crossed legs that began somewhere south of San Diego and said
quietly, "He had what I call
short-man problems. I meet a lot of those. For some reason, some short
men think they're inferior simply because they don't have a lot of
height. They try to make up for it by dating a tall woman. Wilbur was
like that. And he liked his importance on the job. He pushed
everybody around and yelled and ordered. I was sick of him."
Bates said, "Thank you, ma'am. That will do it." She rose in one
motion like a dancer and left the room.
The room got dark. A man filled the doorway the way a hand fills a
glove. As Tanner got up, he noticed that the visitor's shoulders and
head came within an inch of the sides and top of the entrance. The man
must have been six feet eight and 280 pounds. The mountain sat down.
"I'm Hank Greenburg. I didn't kill him. I love June Quakely. I'm
going to marry her. If you don't like it, there's not much I can do
about it." The voice came out like gravel falling down a chute.
Tanner said, "You're the voice of Little Tommy?"
A smile as long as a shoe creased Hank's face, and his voice lost
twenty years and rose an octave. "Sure, sir. By golly, this is just
one of the voices I use."
Bates said, "You have an excellent motive, Mr. Greenburg. Tell us
about your relationship with the dead man."
"My motive isn't that good. Quakely spent far more than he made. June
won't bring any inheritance to me. He knew she was going to get a
divorce. As for me and Wilbur, I had as little relationship with him as
possible. He was a petty tyrant with everyone. It had gone on for two
years; and, frankly, the only victims he could find were the new people
on the staff. The rest of us had learned to ignore or avoid him. It is
a shame. No one's going to mourn him."
Tanner said, "Thank you, Mr. Greenburg. When you see Mrs. Quakely,
tell her that neither of you are under any suspicion." Bates agreed.
Where was the clue that removed the loving couple from the eye of the
police?
Can you solve the mystery? Think about it for a moment then page down for
the answer. If you enjoy 'Brown from the Sun', look at my book, "Dead Box"
with the same characters at www.lockedroom.com
Answer:
The murderer was short. He cut the rope close to the clamp which
held it. Bates and Brown had to bend over to look at the cleat around
which the rope was wound, showing that the cleat was low, most are about
waist level.
Anyone working with a hand tool will do the work at a little less than
chest height if given a choice. They won't stoop or bend if they don't
have to. Both Mrs. Quakely and Hank Greenburg were extraordinarily
tall. Since the screen hid the murderer completely, he would have used
the knife where it was most comfortable.
A loan shark, ironically the same height as Trueheart, had ended his life,
because he wouldn't
pay his debts and threatened to call the cops.
If you have praise or curses, questions or comments, send them to me at
dlmarsh1044@yahoo.com
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