Nat “The Bleeder” Perry

Created by Edith and Ejler Jacobson

“Well, we all need someone we can bleed on…”

A rather unique private eye here and certainly one of the more famous–or is it infamous?–of the defective detectives, NAT “THE BLEEDER PERRY was a hemophiliac, “to whom a single scratch might mean death.”

Yep. One cut and he’s a goner.

The story goes that young Nathanial was a fourteen year-old “thin-skinned orphan” when he was struck by a car, the victim of a hit-and-run driver. Realizing the kid was a hemophilliac and pretty much a goner unless he got help quickly, he was rushed to the hospital by Police Officer Harry O’Connor of the NYPD, a “stubborn, gritty, sawed-off little Irishman,” who had developed a soft spot for Nat. He rolled up his sleeves and gave three blood transfusions over four days, figuring that the kid couldn’t die if had cop’s blood in him.

Maybe not the most logical bit of reasoning, but it seems to have worked–Nat not only survived, but he dedicated his life to becoming a police officer. When the series made its debut in “The Rag Dog Killer” in the January 1939 issue of Dime Mystery, Nat is twenty-nine and working as a private eye in New York, much to the dismay of O’Connor, who worries an awful lot about his adopted son.

SHORT STORIES

• “The Rag Doll Killer” (January 1939, Dime Mystery)
• “Dead Man-Killer” (February 1939, Dime Mystery)
• “Funerals–C.O.D.” (April 1939, Dime Mystery)
• “They Die on Schedule” (July 1939, Dime Mystery)
• “Secret Street” (September 1947, Dime Detective)
• “Coffin for a Bathing Beauty” (September 1948, Dime Detective)
• Double Life of a Phoney” (October 1949, Dime Detective)

COLLECTIONS

• The Complete Cases of The Bleeder (2015) | Buy the book
  Introduction by Garyn G. Roberts Ph.D.

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• Defective Detectives
  Handicapped heroes.

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.