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:
Brodie got over into Holland, still with a fair amount of money remaining and could have got work there and remained safe and in obscurity if he had not had the idea that he ought to write to the one person in the world for whom he had ever shown true affection, Anne Grant.
The Death Verdict
These two women of his had both borne him children; Anne Grant had one boy and two girls and Jean Watt had two boys; but it was always the first family to which Brodie really turned, Anne Grant — who, up to the time that Brodie fled the country never had the least idea that her “husband” was anything but a man who “traveled,” i. e., who sold goods on a set route, which kept him away from town for days at a time.
On the way to Holland Brodie had found some people on the boat who, after completing their business in Holland, were returning to Scotland, and to them he gave a letter addressed to Anne Grant. They already had their suspicions of him, for, slow and meager as were the reports of the press in those days, those reports did reach pretty far and these people knew of the man who had fled from Edinburgh.
So with a good deal of hesitation, they slipped the seals and took a look at what this friend of theirs, “Mr. Dixon,” had written to his woman friend. What they read was sufficient to send them to the authorities with the letter, when they reached Edinburgh.
That letter was certainly one of the most foolish ever written, for it practically confessed the guilt of Brodie, not only in the one instance, but for many years back.
They caught him at Amsterdam, extradited him, got him to London, accused him there, got the papers carrying him onward to Scotland, where he arrived just fifty-four hours after leaving London, which was some speed, for those days.
In the meantime Ainslee and Smith had made a desperate attempt to break jail and Brown had been taken on an old charge of murder. So when Brodie was clapped into the Tolbooth he had familiar company.
The trial began on the 27th of August and, according to the procedure for capital crimes at that time, went right on without an adjournment until it was finished, the jury being out for many hours before a verdict was arrived at.
The trial was brightened by some of the most lively scrimmages ever indulged in by the staid Scotch courts.
There were six judges. Lord Braxfield, Lord Justice Clark, Lord Hails, Lord Eskgrove, Lord Stonefield, and Lord Swinton. There were many distinguished counsel on both sides.
Two unknown young lawyers were present to look after the interests of Smith and one of these, Clerk, made such a record for himself that he is a permanent figure in Scottish tradition, although he was never heard of, very greatly, afterward.
He was one of the first lawyers to perceive that in “the technicality” the lawyer has a weapon of tricky weight and power and he made tremendous efforts to demand exceptions and to raise objections on every possible point where a technicality could be called into question.
He frizzled the tempers of the learned judges, stopped the proceedings again and again, browbeat the presiding judge and continually made his point, despite the way in which every one combined to sit on him. He did his client little good, but he put the name of Clerk into the history of the bar of Scotland.
Jean Watt testified for Brodie that he arrived at their joint home a little after eight and stayed all night. Her maid testified to the same and claimed that she knew the time by the chiming of a church clock.
The prosecution made her prove, by her own words, that she did not know where this church was and that it could not be heard at the house of her mistress.
A great deal of the implication contained in the testimony against Brodie was veiled. It could not be proved that he had been for many years the head of various bands of criminals, or that he had used the confidential position which his work gave him to make the impressions of keys and to ferret out the secrets of families and institutions, but witnesses all hinted at this veiled suspicion, and it was really this which was putting Brodie on trial.
The verdict was death. At that time the one crime of “breaking and entering” would have brought the sentence of death. That sentence was all the surer because of the practical certainty that Brodie had systematically bled the town, while masquerading as one of its prominent citizens.
Smith and Brodie were to be hanged.
Smith took it with a certain resignation and talked calmly and rather sadly with the various clergymen who sought to comfort him, but Brodie, sardonic, antagonistic, and bitter, denying constantly that he had ever been anything but a law abiding citizen, would have none of the spiritual comfort offered him, and he so vigorously fought for a reprieve that he almost got it, despite the great array of proof which had been rolled up against him.
He had a great deal to do to wind up his affairs, leaving as much of his property as possible to Anne Grant and her children, scrupulously making arrangements to pay his debts and to have his furniture, long in the family, sent to distant connections.
He was hanged, with Smith, and severely criticized the bungling arrangements of the hangman, whose technique, he declared, was painful for a real expert to look on.
The Splitting Edge
by Edward Parrish Ware
“NOW,” SAID CAL, HOLDING UP THE AX, “NOTE THAT THIS EDGE IS FOR CHOPPING, BUT THE OTHER, THE BLUNTER ONE, IS THE SPLITTING EDGE”
I
It was the mournful howling of a hound that attracted “Frogeye” Bates to the scene of the murder. Frogeye, a trapper on the St. Francis above Buck Island, was on his way down river to Marked Tree for supplies, and first heard the hound when he neared the mouth of Little Caney, which enters the St. Francis from the east at a point one mile north of the island’s head.
“Sounds lak he mought be tied up, or ketched in a trap,” the native speculated. “Splinter Hughes lives over thataway somewhars. Reckon I’ll go ashore an’ see whut ails th’ critter. Splinter mought be away, an’ one of his houn’s mought be ketched.”
To a native of the Arkansas Sunken Lands, as well as to most men who dwell in the wildernesses, a good dog is of great consequence; he is to be looked after and protected at all times, and woe to the person who abuses another’s canine property.
Frogeye Bates was in a hurry to reach Marked Tree; it had been many weeks since he had visited the place, and he hungered for the good things to be had only in the village. But he could not pass that hound so distressfully voicing woe. He headed in above the mouth of Little Caney, went ashore and started off in the direction of the sounds.
“By granny!” he exclaimed after a few moments. “Thishere path leads straight to’ards Splinter’s cabin. One of his houn’s, shore as I’m bawn!”
A hundred yards farther he had reason to conclude that Hughes was at home, for he came upon the old man’s dugout where it lay at anchor on the north shore of Little Caney. From that point the trail led directly to the cabin, a distance of two hundred yards through the timber. The hound, sensing a human presence, redoubled his howling.
When Bates entered the clearing before the cabin he saw the hound, gaunt and black, standing before the door, alert, his muzzle pointing in the direction of his approach. At sight of him, the dog thrust his muzzle skyward and howled with long-drawn misery.
Frogeye shivered. “Shut up that racket!” he called sharply. “Whut th’ hell’s th’ matter, anyhow? Wharat is yore master? Shut up, now, or I’ll lay a limb across yore back!”