Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927

He chose a Wednesday evening chicken supper down at the Landing church, where he knew beyond the vestige of a doubt every woman for miles around would be in attendance.

“Cal’late I got a lot o’ you ladies right — oh, sort o’ right down ’n me f’r a spell, didn’ I?” he asked genially as they started to remove the dishes.

“Awful sorry, I were, but I couldn’t help it. A ne’ssary evil, y’ might call it, ’n order t’ do ult’mate good. Do ult’mate good f’r one o’ what some fellers still designates ’s the gentler sex, too, at that!”

Mr. Bemis paused, for a moment, paused and beamed at his audience and winked one eye slowly. It drew a laugh, this did — drew it, mostly, from precisely those from whom he desired it most. The ladies.

“Yep,” he went on, “I reckon I might ’a’ seemed a mite hard ’n Myra Borden, but I knowed it were the on’y thing t’ do so’s t’ git her t’ up ’n’ c’nfess ’n’ furnish the rest o’ the ev’dence I needed t’ go with m’ own b’liefs.

“Be f’r her ult’mate good, like I said, though I guess she must ’a’ suffered some w’en I were a takin’ them pictures, ’n’ a askin’ fool questions, ’n’ a mentionin’ that kerosene ’n’ — aw, ’n’ three-four more things ’r so. Reckon — reckon she’s purty nigh more conten’ed now ’an she has been ’n years, hey?”

“Thanks to you she is, Whitcher,” came in Mrs. Eli Price strongly, with the decisive tone she used when addressing a meeting of the Ladies Aid Society.

“Thanks… thanks!”

The, sheriff of Noel’s Landing received and acknowledged the compliment with becoming blushes.

“Yep, it seemed the on’y thing t’ do,” he continued, “ ’specially after I’d made me ’nquiries, the day o’ the fire, ’n’ went ’n’ discovered me the life he’d led her down t’ Hallowell.

“Yep, I sure figgered that poor woman ’ud crack under the strain, sort o’, like y’ might put it, w’en she realized that her Gus were a facin’ jail at last. I—”

“But how did you know — we mean how did you first come to suspect anything about him setting the fire himself?”

It was not a male who asked this question; it was, instead, a rather excited young girl — a girl who wouldn’t reach the voting age, possibly, for another couple of years.

Whitcher Bemis allowed his thumb and index finger to go to his great lip, and he pulled it out and let it go back softly. He spoke with a certain tender reminiscence:

“One o’ y’r gentler sex, agin, comes t’ be sort o’ responsible. Had a grammy once, I did, w’en I were a little shaver. She had one o’ these here axioms — one o’ them proverbs — she usta keep a sayin’ ’n’ a sayin’ t’ me: ‘W’itcher,’ she say, ‘allus remember t’ give a minute regard t’ detail with a’ apparent absence o’ zeal!’ ”

He hesitated for the mere fraction of a second, coughing slightly, brushing a hand across his eyes.

“Ain’t never went ’n’ f’rgot them words, I ain’t, ’n’ w’en I see a couple o’ bits o’ excelsior ’n the path leadin’ fr’m Borden’s house t’ his barn, that mornin’ o’ the fire, suthin’ come t’ me that ’ud been puzzlin’ me a heap — suthin’ I’d stored me up ’n w’ot I term m’ card cat’logue brain.

“It was that one day ’bout a week back, y’ see, I’d meeted Borden ’n the road, ’n’ they was a strong smell o’ kerosene comin’ from his truck. Glanced ’nside w’en he went past, I did, ’n’ see two five-gallon cans o’ the stuff. Well, I thinks, w’ot ’n all sin does a man that burns wood f’r cookin’ ’n’ gasoline f’r lightin’ his lamps want with ten gallons o’ kerosene?”

Bemis, again, hesitated for a mere flash of a second in order to allow an admiring gasp to go through the crowd — and then he went on with a hearty chuckle:

“Yessir, I sure got t’ han’ it t’ the ladies, ain’t I every way? Judas Priest, yep, ’f it hadn’ been f’r m’ grammy, ’n’ thinkin’ o’ that proverb, I’d never ’a’ foun’ me out a thing ’bout there bein’ not a drop o’ kerosene ’n the house right after the fire!”

Briefly, the applause that came made it a darn good bet that Ned Hutchins wouldn’t get a single female vote from Noel’s Landing, at least, when election came around.