Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927
- Автор: Valentine, Corley H. W.
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
As it stopped he advanced with as beguiling a look as he could summon.
The driver was protesting to Joe: “Vat, twenty-two cents for a gallon of gasoline? Then only give me two gallons.”
Too late, Harris recognized Looey Cohn and Miss Getz.
In the same instant the former cried out: “Oh, look, Rosie, the holdup what shot the policeman!” He made a frantic effort to climb over the lap of his companion.
“Get out quietly,” growled the Wolf, as he drew his automatic. “I could have made my get-away before if it hadn’t been for you.”
“Fill her up,” he ordered Joe, “an’ take a look at th’ oil. I’ll see that this bird pays you.”
Looey and his companion climbed out and stood white and shaky before him.
All the hatred of his prison years centered suddenly on the figure of the timid merchant.
“I oughta kill you,” snarled the Wolf. His rage choked him. He felt nauseated. There was little hope now but that he would be captured and identified. The futility of his plans crushed him.
“Aw, what’s the use,” he said brokenly.
He turned and pitched forward suddenly on his face.
With surprise he heard the report of Joe’s rifle; another saw him in the doorway.
“Sent him for oil,” he remembered.
An orange spurt of flame from Joe’s gun; another giant blow that paralyzed his left shoulder.
“This won’t do,” thought the Wolf thickly.
He flung his right arm over like a swimmer and fired. That was better. Joe had ducked for shelter.
The Wolf lay panting, fighting for breath. It came over him that he was done for, dying.
They would trace him back to Gleason; show his body to the express agent; take away the old man’s rabbits.
Suddenly a triumphant smile cracked his granite face.
Slowly, painfully, he aimed at the glass gasoline container of the pump.
He pulled the trigger and it shattered.
There were two more. He aimed again.
“Run, Looey, run,” he heard the girl scream behind him.
He fired. Again a hit.
“Why didn’t the damn stuff explode?”
A shape sprang from the station and raced beyond his vision. Joe was making his get-away. That was all right. Nobody to stop him now.
Gasoline was bubbling out of the pumps and trickling toward him.
He hitched forward, closer.
It was getting dark. He waited, gathering his strength for the last trigger pull.
It was somewhere there ahead. He couldn’t see.
Suddenly he felt a cold liquid on his arm; it crept along, touched his face.
Gasoline! The old man was safe with his rabbits.
Summoning his dying strength the Wolf fired.
His consciousness went out with the explosion that rocked the desert.
Defenders of the Law
by Mansfield Scott[4]
AN OCCULTIST PROPHESIED HIS DEATH AT THE WHEEL, SO HE DEFIED IT EVERYWHERE ELSE: AT EACH TURN HE FLIRTED WITH THE GRIM SPECTER
Although Harold Ward operated the Boston antivice society during his father’s illness successfully enough to cause crooks to attempt his life, on the death of the elder Ward, Harold was removed from the society and Sawtell, formerly the chief’s aid, took over control. During the early part of his regime he allowed a warrant to expire on the notorious Harrison gambling and dope house, to the disapproval of Detective Steele, ally of the society. Steele refused to disclose the identity of the person who obtained the inside information about the house; that person was his most elusive operative, Dizzy McArthur, so called for his reckless abandon, former college athlete and war aviator, who was in the game for adventure, and chafed under the temporary inactivity.
Chapter XXXII
A New “Ticket”
The investigator did not allow his operatives to approach him while in the corridors of the courthouse. Judge White was on the warrant bench. Appearing as complaining witness, and offering also the testimony of his two men, Steele asked the magistrate to grant a new search warrant for the premises at 142 Warrington Street. After examining the witnesses briefly. Judge Gray complied; and the warrant was given to Joseph McNulty, an aged police officer attached to the district attorney’s office.
McNulty was disliked by most of the police — not for personal reasons — for he was an affable and quick-witted man — but because of his close connection with the district attorney.
The officer adjusted his glasses and peered at the warrant. “What do you want me to do with this, Mr.—”
“Merely to keep it, for the present,” Steele replied. “And to say nothing about it to any one.”
“All right, sir; I can certainly do that,” said the other, laughing.
This was on Thursday forenoon. In the evening Steele sent an operative, Brown, to watch Harrison’s house; and he himself through Warrington Street twice about midnight. He saw two parties entering and one leaving. In the morning Brown reported that the dive had been running as usual.
The investigator went to the courthouse again, but did not find McNulty. He descended to a telephone booth and called Sawtell.
“This is Steele, speaking from the courthouse. I have a new search warrant for Harrison’s place.”
“Heavens!” exclaimed Sawtell. “What have you done that for, Mr. Steele? Just when I was trying to let them get into full swing! Don’t you see — they’ll be tipped off exactly as they were before!”
“Oh, do you think they will?”
“I know they will! A very foolish move, Mr. Steele.”
Anger was plain in the other’s voice. Steele hung up the receiver, smiling in faint amusement, and returned to his office, where he was required upon another case. When evening came he gave instructions for Thompson to watch the house on Warrington Street.
Sawtell’s prediction proved correct. All corners to Harrison’s that night were turned away at the door. Moreover, Thompson reported the presence of several exceedingly tough-looking men on a near-by corner for more than three hours. He said that these men had every appearance of gunmen.
For the third morning in succession, Steele went to the central court. He found McNulty in the district attorney’s office and spoke briefly with him. Leaving the building by the rear entrance, he met Special Officer Bennett, leader of the raiding squad.
Bennett gave him a peculiar glance. “How are you these days, Mr. Steele? Still doing work for the D. A.?”
“Occasionally. Just now I’m on that Harrison job.”
“Oh, yes, on Warrington Street. But that place isn’t running any more, I understand from the society.”
“I know it isn’t,” the investigator said. “It’s closed tight. That’s the way I hope to keep it. That was Mr. Ward’s wish. Sometimes. I believe, the unspoken threat of prosecution is more effective than prosecution itself.”
“I guess that’s right,” returned Bennett, smiling, and again looking at him oddly.
Steele did not hear from Sawtell during that day, which was Saturday. In the early evening he called Dizzy McArthur’s home.
“Is Mr. Kendall McArthur there?”
“Kendall McArthur speaking.”
“This is Steele.”
“Who?” demanded the inventor — and he broke the connection.
Steele hung up his receiver, and presently the bell rang.
4
This story began in FLYNN’S WEEKLY DETECTIVE FICTION for August 27