Murder on the Soundstage and Other Stories by Robert Leslie Bellem

Book Details

Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, gets caught in the middle of some jealous lovers and some double crossed deals and barely makes it out alive. Jealous actors, big time producers, even some members of the production crews get caught up by the green eyed monster.

Pistol-Packing Premiere (1944) – Homicide is seldom advertised in advance. It just doesn’t make good publicity when a million-buck Western is having its premiere. And that’s why Dan Turner was here in the town of Purgatory — to see that “Hell-Town Man-Law” entered the world without benefit of bloodshed
Chapter II A Wanted Man
Chapter III Too Late
Chapter IV Cue For Chaos
Chapter V “It’s a Lie!”
Chapter VI No Possible Motive
Chapter VII The Face in the Flames
Chapter VIII The Trap Is Set
Chapter IX Too Bad!

Murderer’s Error (1942) – When a woman hits the top in Hollywood, she becomes the target for envy, jealousy, hate, and gossip. And that’s how it was with Beryl Bannock. When her secretary was killed, Dan realized that her enemies were playing for keeps and that his job of bodyguarding was not going to be all the fun that it promised to be.

Murder on the Sound Stage (1937) – One movie murder leads to another, and Dan Turner finds more danger than assistance from the girls in the case!
Chapter I. The Lady Comes Clean
Chapter II. Death in a Fog
Chapter III. Look for the Women
Chapter IV. A Fee for Service
Chapter V. Red Hair — Henna!
Chapter VI. Death Strikes Again
Chapter VII. The Cutie from Trenton
Chapter VIII. The Secret of Infra-Red
Chapter IX. Synthetic Movies
Chapter X. The Scene Is Set
Chapter XI. The End of the Round-Up
Chapter XII. The Flash in the Fog
Chapter XIII. Blonde Bait

Robert Leslie Bellem (1902-1968), the creator of legendary Hollywood private detective Dan Turner, was the definition of prolific, producing some 3000 short stories over a thirty year career. While his friends knew him as Leslie, his publishers were afraid he would be perceived as being female, and so he used his first name Robert to publish under. Not that it was likely that a woman would have written the Dan Turner stories. . .

Murder on the Soundstage and Other Stories contains 18 illustrations.

Files:

1. RLBellem-MurderOnTheSoundstage.epub

Excerpt: Murder on the Soundstage

Chapter I

The Lady Comes Clean

I  WALKED INTO Jeffery Fenwick’s unlighted dressing-bungalow on the Altamount lot, wondering why he had sent for me. It was around eight o’clock at night. I fumbled for a wall-switch.

From the darkness behind me, a hysterical feminine voice shrilled: “Start praying, Mr. Fenwick! I’m going to kill you for what you did to my sister!”

It startled the living hell out of me. I wasn’t expecting to find anybody in that bungalow. Jeffery Fenwick himself, the Altamount star, was over on Sound Stage “A.” They were shooting some retakes on his latest picture. A little while before, he had phoned me at my apartment, said he wanted to see me about something damned important. He had asked me to come to the studio, wait for him in his dressing-quarters until he was through doing his stuff before the cameras.

Now some goofy frill was getting ready to cool me off, thinking I was Fenwick!

She was rasping: “I’m going to shoot you and say you attacked me! I’ll tell the police you tore my dress off, and I had to kill you in self-defense!”

I heard the click of a roscoe’s hammer on the other side of the room. I said: “What the hell!” and dived side-wise, smacked the floor with my smeller. Then I yelled: “Hold everything, you fool! I’m not Fenwick — my name’s Dan Turner!”

As I spoke, a light came on. I heard a gasping: “Oh-h-h—my God! It’s true! You’re not—”

I scrambled to my pins. I blinked.

There was a blonde cutie standing over me. Her costume was what you might call informal. She was the niftiest wren I ever put the focus on.

She had torn her own dress down the front, half way to her waist. It hung in tatters from her bare white shoulders. What it revealed of her figure was gorgeous. I’ve seen plenty of undraped women, but this one had me hanging on the ropes! Through a ripped place in her skirt, I caught a quick gander at ivory skin, rosetted garters.

Her eyes were wide, staring. She was holding a tiny, pearl-handled gat in her mitt. It wavered uncertainly. Her trigger-finger looked itchy.

I leaped at her.

With my left, I twisted the little roscoe out of her hand. Then I splatted my right palm full across her cheek, knocked her staggering. I grabbed her, crushed her in my arms.

She squirmed, struggled, wailed. I could feel the warmth of her against my chest. My blood-pressure went up a notch. I tripped her. She went sprawling to the floor. I smashed her down with my two hundred pounds of weight.

I said: “Okay, baby. It’s the bastille for you!” I flashed my tin in front of her map.

She chocked, went pale. “You — you are a policeman—?”

“Private dick,” I clipped back. “And I’m going to toss your pretty little ears into the calaboose for safe-keeping. So you were going to bump Jeffery Fenwick, were you?”

She stared at me defiantly. “Yes!”

“What for?”

“Because he deserves to die — the rat! I’ll get him if it takes me a lifetime!”

I said: “Is that nice, baby? Murder’s a hanging rap in sunny California. Or didn’t you know that?”

SHE wriggled then, tried to get loose.

I got a definite slap out of her struggles, she being held in the hold I held her in! She was in her early twenties, at a guess. And she was a knockout.

“Let me go!” she moaned.

I said: “Not yet, sweetness. I want to have a little conference with you. How-come you’re gunning for Jeffery Fenwick? What’s the large idea?”

“He k-killed my sister!” she whimpered. All of a sudden her eyes puddled up. Her lower lip got tremulous.

I said: “Fenwick killed your sister?” Are you trying to tell me he’s a murderer?”

Excerpt From: Robert Leslie Bellem. “Murder on the Soundstage and Other Stories.”