The Night Was Made for Murder is the fifth (of 9) Steve Craig private-eye thrillers published by Herbert Jenkins Ltd. This appeared in 1957.
The blurb on the jacket reads:
“Elliot Bord was murdered on the very day that Steve Craig was hired to protect him. Normally Craig could shrug off a slight case of murder more easily than he could forget a predatory blonde, but this was different. He had failed in his duty to a client, and failure rankled. His pride chipped, he determined to find the killer. Abetted by his violet-eyed secretary, he began to gather up a tangle of loose ends and straight-way ran into trouble. He discovered, for instance, that Bord’s madcap daughter and been involved in a hushed-up accident that had scarred her former husband for life. Sure, the husband had a grudge–maybe, several. But so had the man whom Bord had fired for suspected dope dealings. And what about Nolan, the handsome hoodlum who rented a room at the peculiar House of Li Kwang?”
Naturally, these blurbs are partially accurate and definitely sexily enticing. I sure has hell would have purchased the book.
The novel opens with Steve Craig suffering from a toothache and his reluctance to visit the dentist. His secretary Kitty Callaway schedules an immediate appointment for Mr. Tough Guy and forces him out the door. Feels like padding, but on the other hand, it shows a human side to us, the readers. Private Eyes are real people, not just supermen.
Then again, maybe our author had recently suffered a dental experience and decided to incorporate this into his novel. Once the preliminary humorous painful dental pages lapse, we are introduced to the main course.
The phone rings, Kitty answers, and puts the call through to Craig. Answering, he takes a call from Phil Wyatt, a lawyer. He has a rich client requesting “a reputable private investigator; someone smart enough to handle a tricky situation.” Craig accepts the invite to Wyatt’s firm; he’s introduced to Nancy Bord, wife of Elliot Bord, magnate of the wealthy Bord Aircraft Corporation. Her husband has received via mail vague death threats. The first was an illustrated postcard, featuring a cemetery; on the reverse, the words: “Your new address. It won’t be long.” The second card featured the same sort of artwork, and: “Every day is one day nearer. Why not book a cosy berth?” A third simply states: “One day.”
It seems a job for the police; Mr. Bord dismisses the cards, but Mrs. Bord sees little humor in these postal pieces. She invites Craig to the mansion under the guise of an insurance man so he may obtain a closer look at the surroundings. Craig accepts.
Returning to his home on Abermarle Avenue, Craig pockets his .38 Smith & Wesson and enlists the aid of his muscled help Pat Mulligan to watch for intruders.
However, the plot sours after Nancy Bord introduces Craig to her husband but uses his real name. Mr. Bord acknowledges he knows Craig’s actual identity, recognizing it from the newspapers and recently investigated a case of fraud. Mr. Bord is aware of the reason for Craig’s presence but plays along with his wife’s wild whim. He even casually goes so far as to invite Craig to remain for dinner. Mix into this affair daddy Bord’s super-sexy daughter, who is at odds with her stepmother, Nancy, and the environment becomes super-charged.
Two additional people make an appearance. Plastic surgeon and family friend Dr. Torrenz is eventually followed by secretary Peter Clay handling some business affairs. He leaves quickly, to return home to his wife, leaving Craig alone with Mr. and Mrs. Bord, Julia, and the doctor, along with the house staff.
Later, a gunshot is heard outside. Craig instructs Torrenz to keep everyone in the house while he runs ahead with a flashlight. Nobody follows his instructions. Torrenz abandons the home to keep Julia company and assist her with lighting the ground’s distant trees. They then jump in her Jaguar to provide additional light.
Craig is part way across the grounds when Julia and Torrenz catch up in her Jaguar. He steps aboard and Julia speeds towards the trees. Stopping, Craig drops off, runs ahead, meets Patrick Mulligan. The intruder escaped; Mulligan relates the intruder was spotted outside the home with a drawn gun; he dived for the man, but the intruder eluded him. Craig sends Julia and Torrenz to the mansion, handing the latter his gun for protection.
Mulligan continues the search while Craig returns to the home on foot, and runs into butler with a double-barreled shotgun, standing guard with Tony, the houseboy. The trio enter the mansion, only to hear a distant scream within. Running ahead, Craig discovers Nancy Bord locked in the library. Craig batters the door down, rescues Nancy, and learns Elliot has a gun and stepped outside. In her attempt to stop him, he locked her inside the library. Craig is worried. The man he was hired to protect is no longer safe inside; he’s somewhere outside.
Finally, a shot is heard from the front of the house. Mulligan whistle-signals Craig, and he and Julia (who is accompanying him at that moment) rush forward. Picking up speed, Craig outdistances Julia and finds Bord on the ground, and Mulligan beside him. Before Julia can finish her approach, Craig instructs Mulligan intercept and return her to the house, without saying a word to her of what was found.
Bord is what was indeed found, on the ground, alive and breathing, but bloodied about the skull from a massive chunk of stone. Elliot Bord is rapidly bleeding to death.
Next chapter, we are introduced to Lieutenant Tallboys, a young man employed in the homicide department, with a Napoleon complex, partnered with Sergeant Sam Spencer, both of Captain Jake Jacobi’s police department. Tallboys is arrogant and smug and demeaning towards Craig and his inabilities to keep the client alive. Bord died at Roosevelt Hospital. Tallboys grills Mulligan and Craig for all relevant details while sneering at their failure.
With Bord dead, Steve Craig is angered by his own efforts to keep the man alive, and realizes he is overlooking a relevant clue. While at Jacobi’s office, we are introduced to Karen Bryant, wife to Randolph Bryant, who was not only Julia’s romantic interest, but the only man Elliot Bord approved of to marry his daughter. Karen’s husband was brought in on trespassing charges and possible murder, as the one likely suspect with hatred for Bord.
In the recent past, Randolph got banged up in an accident and destroyed his face. This removed him from Julia’s affections, and Dr. Torrenz the plastic surgeon put him back together. While recuperating at the hospital, he grew fond of his nurse, Karen. They eventually marry, despite her reluctance; she is one-quarter black. Craig assures her she doesn’t look black, but she realizes Randolph may be put off should she give birth to a “piccaninny.”
(NOTE: At this point, I can see most readers of this blog cringing. Don’t. The author is not racist. Rather, like his last novel, Bevis Winter is carefully discussing sensitive topics.)
Pumping Karen for information leads to the revelation that she overheard one of her husband’s phone conversations. This leads to the producer of the Chinese detective series The Exploits of Lao Fang, costarring Cantonese lovely Anna Kwang, daughter of the famous Willow Restaurant.
Steve Craig is seeing all manner of criminal possibilities, but nothing concrete. He eventually receives a call from Randolph Bryant, released from jail after tests prove his gun was never fired. He wants to meet later that night. That suits Craig fine.
Meanwhile, he meets with Bord’s secretary for more personal information on the Bord family. Craig learns that Bryant quit the firm over the firing of navigator Frank Chase, after their plane was raided by the F.B.I. and narcotics found aboard. Not favorable to any possible negative publicity, Chase was canned. Now Craig sees a fresh motive in Chase and must locate this man.
Taking a late-night ride to meet with Randolph Bryant, Craig is nonplussed to find nobody home. Walking about the premises yields nothing, and then a car approaches and Karen Bryant arrives. She’s frightened when Craig steps out from the dark recesses. She is mystified that her husband is not home; he was looking forward to talking with Craig regarding the case. Worried, Craig moves indoors ahead of her, and smelling cordite, investigates. Randolph is found dead, a gun firmly in his hand, a hole in his head.
Hearing Karen’s slow approach, Craig shuts the bathroom door and does not permit her to see the cruel scene. Phoning the police department, Craig asks Jacobi to personally make an appearance, as opposed to Lt. Tallboys. Looks like suicide, but both are experienced and know better. Tallboys would see it as suicide, an open-and-closed case, and write Bryant off as Bord’s killer.
Fearing for Karen’s safety, Craig calls in Kitty Callaway. Karen collects some personal belongings and moves in with Kitty.
Next morning, Nancy Bord makes an appearance. She’s disturbed to find Craig still on the case, and angrily orders him off. He refuses. She threatens to talk with lawyer Phil Wyatt. He shrugs her off. Wyatt does eventually phone, and Craig informs him the same, much to Wyatt’s stuttering shock and dismay.
By now you may be tiring, so let’s fast-forward.
Craig takes a drive along some cliffs and is nearly run off the road by a brute behind the wheel. Memorizing the license plate, we learn it is registered to a man named Nolan, who earlier attempted to bribe Craig off the case with thousands of dollars. Who is Nolan working for? Why are they afraid of Craig remaining on the case?
What is really behind the Willow Restaurant? Something smells fishy, but then we learn Nolan is renting a room upstairs! What is the connection? How does this tie up with Bryant and Bord?
Everything is cleared up when a letter is found and brought to Craig’s attention. It was written by Randolph Bryant’s former air navigation partner, Frank Chase, who Craig had failed to locate. Turns out he is dead but authored a confessional letter to Randolph. Surprisingly, Chase actually is guilty of having smuggled narcotics aboard! He’s been part of a drug-ring for a number of years, having been blackmailed into the operations.
The letter is an exposé of his entire life and illegal activities. We learn that Nancy Bord was previously married to a lifer, who may or may not be dead! If alive, her marriage to Bord is null and void. Apparently the courts have continuously postponed his death sentence. I won’t ruin all the other details, but Craig tracks down Nolan at a disreputable hotel. Craig breaks into Nolan’s room and discovers that he and Nancy are planning to depart the country with the Bord funds and start life afresh. Raiding their luggage, he finds passports, cash, and plane tickets, etc. Scooping up these key items, Craig departs….
…and goes to the Bord mansion to force a confession out of Nancy, and, to reveal the one clue that had been nagging at him since the beginning. Nancy had claimed she had been locked in the library by Elliot. That would mean the key would either be in the lock on the outside or Elliot pocketed the key. It was not found on his body. She lied. She was the one that brained her husband with the rock. She collapses under the weight of the evidence, but Nolan makes a surprise entrance, gun drawn and pointed in Craig’s guts.
Instructing Nancy to get moving, they plan their getaway but must murder Craig first. Only Craig has other ideas, and disrupts their future, explaining it will be difficult to leave without passports, tickets, and ready cash. They are gobsmacked; Nolan instructs Nancy to search Craig’s car for these items. Vanishing outside, Craig makes his last play at survival and wrestles Nolan for the gun. Nolan takes a slug to the chest; Nancy runs back in and faints upon seeing Nolan bleeding to death.
Like the previous Steve Craig thriller, this one is fast-paced, full of colorful characters, a damn fun romp; yeah, it’s entertaining as all hell.