"murderwithoutacorpse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daniels Norman A)

The body was gone!

How could a man, hit by two or three bullets that brought him down violently, get up and
walk away? Nobody had appeared to pick him up. Conway was positive of that.

There wasn't much time to waste wondering. Fire apparatus roared up and two radio cars
answered the same alarm. Conway sent one of the cars to the precinct for help from the homicide
division. Then he went to aid the firemen.

By the lavish use of chemicals, the fire was soon extinguished; but Conway gulped and
turned away when he got a look at the corpse. There wasn't much left of it, nor of the car,
either.

All this didn't look so well--for a patrolman to tell about a man falling in the gutter,
riddled with bullets, and then have no corpse there to prove it. By the way things looked,
Conway might have just taken a pot shot at the driver of the car.

But maybe there was blood on the sidewalk, or bullet marks in the building walls. Conway
went back to where the stranger had fallen.

He gave a grunt of satisfaction. There was a stain on the sidewalk, just where the man had
collapsed. It glistened slightly in the rays of the street lamp. Conway bent down, frowned and
touched his fingertip to the stuff. It wasn't blood. The tip of his finger turned a violent blue.
This was some kind of ink, or dye, and it had been spread rather lavishly over the cement.

Then Conway was busy. Homicide men arrived. He told them the whole story, recognized the
doubt in their eyes, then stepped back while they compared notes.

Sergeant Malloy said: "This copper is cracked. If a guy dropped like he said he did, we'd
have another corpse. Did you men see any signs of bullet marks?"

"None! And if they missed the guy, we'd have found them. If they didn't, the guy would
still be there. Looks fishy to me. The medical examiner just told me a slug went right through
the dead man's head. Can't tell the caliber."

Another pair of detectives joined the circle. One held out a partly burned wallet.

"This is going to make trouble, sarge. That car belonged to young Weldon Somers. Remember?
There's been an alarm out to look for it. The kid disappeared a couple of days ago, and his
folks are worried. This wallet contains pretty badly charred pieces of paper, an insurance card,
driver's ticket and some name cards. Everything is made out to Weldon Somers. There were gold
cuff links on the body, with initials that match Somers'."

Sergeant Malloy carefully tucked the evidence into his pocket. Then he spoke with the heavy
tones of authority.

"Get Patrolman Conway. I'm not satisfied with his story. That guy is afflicted with a mania
for sharpshooting--the best shot on the force. Maybe he was doing a little target practice,
knocked off this Somers and then cooked up the whole story. It sounds phony to me."