INTRODUCTION
The titles flagged with a bullet were provided from various people's copies of the original Script magazines to the Burroughs Fan community (collected notably by Bill Hillman's ERBzine and The Burroughs Bibliophiles) and are included in this volume.
The Terrace Drive Murder
The Lightship Murder
Who Murdered Mr. Thomas?
The Red Necktie
Bank Murder
The Dupuyster Case
Murder at Midnight
The Gang Murder
The Dark Lake Murder
-Ed
THE LIGHTSHIP MURDER
When Muldoon asked me to go along with them I didn't know what I was in for. My longest sea voyage has been west from the Statue of Liberty to Catalina Island. I am not much of a sailor. The launch that the Coast Guard furnished us seemed to me wholly inadequate beyond the breakwater, but we were headed far out for the lightship that marks a dangerous reef twenty miles off shore.
However, the sea was calm; and there were only the long oily swells to remind one of the latent might of the great ocean -- an aftermath of the storm that had raged but a day or two before. It was all rather restful, and I was soon enjoying it to the full.
In addition to the crew of the launch and Muldoon and myself, there were United States Marshal Olson and two of his deputies. The Marshal, a warm friend and admirer of Inspector Muldoon, had invited him to come along and help solve what appeared to be something of a mystery; and Muldoon had, as he often does, asked me to go with him.
The Marshal knew practically nothing about the case except that the lightship tender, making her BI-monthly visit to the lightship, had wirelessed that morning, that she had found Daniel MacTeevor, the keeper of the lightship, murdered and could get no information from any of the others on board.
The tender was still standing by ass we climbed over the rail of the murder ship; and it was the captain of the tender, there with tow of his men, who greeted us. Otherwise, the deck was deserted.
'I've got 'em down below in the main cabin,' he said, following brief introductions. 'They're a glum lot; I can't get a thing out of 'em that makes sense.'
'That's what I brought my old friend, Inspector Muldoon, along for,' remarked Olson. 'He'll get the truth out of 'em without their knowing it.'
'The truth ain't in 'em,' growled the captain of the tender. 'Where do you want to start, Inspector?'
'Let's have a look at the body,' replied Muldoon. 'Where is it?'
'He's still in his cabin. Come with me.'
We followed Captain Black down a companionway and entered a cabin in which were two bunks. On one of them was stretched a figure covered with a piece of tarpaulin.
Captain Black jerked a thumb toward it. 'There it is,' he said.
Olson and I followed Muldoon to the side of the bunk and watched as he pulled down the tarpaulin. I do not know why I have such a morbid desire to see such gruesome things. I am always sorry afterward, and ashamed; but the fact remains that the corpse of a murdered person holds me in its grisly power as surely as the wedding guest was held by the glittering eye of the ancient mariner.
And this sight was hideously gruesome. MacTeevor's throat had been cut from ear to ear and so deeply that his head was almost severed from his body. From the seamed and weather-beaten face his dead eyes stared horribly, his shaved upper lip was drawn back from his teeth in a snarl, the fringe of white beard beneath his lower jaw was matted with blood.
Muldoon drew the tarpaulin back in place. 'I would like to question those who were on board at the time of the murder,' he said.
'They are all in the main cabin,' said Black, leading the way from the scene of the murder.
There were four people in the cabin that we entered a moment later. They were a sullen, dour-looking lot. They glowered at us from beneath scowling brows, but none of them spoke. Muldoon stood surveying them for a moment; then he turned toward the man sitting nearest him.
'What is your name?' he demanded.
'Bill MacTeevor,' came sullenly after a moment's hesitation.
