Лоуренс Трит - Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 6, April 16, 1938

“On you? You’re not threatened with jail — how is it tough on you?”

“To be the means of sending you to prison,” said Lamport steadily. “If there were some way out—”

Seely stared at the ash of his cigar. “Unless you give your testimony, there’s no case against me. But Tannick made you an offer and you turned him down.”

Lamport nodded. “I thought the two of us could talk it over together. If I don’t testify after I’ve been subpoenaed, I’m in for a lot of trouble.”

“I’ll pay for that trouble. Anything you want.”

Lamport leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling. “Suppose, instead of shooting a man — shooting me, to be exact — you’d done something else. Some other crime. Were driven to it by necessity, by circumstances you couldn’t control. Suppose you took money which you were handling in a capacity of trust.”

Seely sat up suddenly. “The C.P.A.’s been going over my books. He hinted at a shortage which he hadn’t checked yet. You mean you’ve been defrauding me?”

Lamport was staring at Seely now, staring with that sharp penetrating look. “I wouldn’t care to admit that. But if you found you could lodge a charge against me, and if instead of doing it you made good the money and dropped the charge, then it might be worth my while to keep away from Smyrna.” Lamport swallowed. “Pure coincidence that I have this means of defending myself.”

Seely said, “How much?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand. Say another two hundred and fifty to set me up.”

Seely broke into a broad grin. “For half a million you’ll drop the Smyrna charge? I’ll have the money in three days.”

“Cash,” said Lamport.

“Cash,” repeated Seely. “And now that we have it settled, how did the shooting really happen?”

Lamport shrugged. “If I told, my position would be considerably weakened.”

The door opened and little Flannagan walked in. “Got it on the dictagraph, Seely. It worked the way I told you. Here are the warrants against Lamport for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and extortion.”

Lamport leapt to his feet. “Say, what is this?”

“The showdown.” replied Flannagan. “The evidence was nothing to get. All I wanted was your admission of Seely’s innocence.”

Lamport stiffened. “That’s something you’ll never get!”

“ ‘If I told,’ ” quoted Flannagan, “ ‘my position would be considerably weakened.’ Wouldn’t convince the Smyrna woodsmen, but it’ll convince a New York jury, and that’s where the actions for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution will be brought. There won’t be a trial in Smyrna.”

Lamport shrugged.

“You have some evidence? Or are these purely obstructive tactics?”

“Judge for yourself. When Seely cleaned and loaded his gun, he dropped one of the bullets without realizing. Dropped it in the prunes and left an empty chamber in his gun. The laboratory can prove it because the cartridge case, despite the heat, still had a minute coating of sugar and syrup and prune particles.

“What happened was that when you poured the prunes into your pudding, you poured the bullet too. Whether you dropped it, whether you spilt the pot or it boiled over, I don’t know. But that bullet landed in the fire and the heat discharged the bullet. No gun ever fired it!”

“You’re crazy!” thundered Lamport.

“That’s what I thought at first, when I found a bullet without rifling marks and a cartridge case without any marks at all. It took too clever and quick-thinking a man to engineer. But after my interview with you the other day, I learnt not only how quick-thinking you were, but also how worried. There was no reason to try to frame me on an extortion charge, but you saw a chance to force me out of the picture and you grabbed it. The gambler mind taking a long chance. Same thing as at Smyrna.

“A bullet dropped in the fire and then exploded, wounding you. You saw a chance to get something on Seely. You needed that because you’d been embezzling his funds. You held off until now, though you had this in mind right from the beginning.”

Lamport laughed. “Sure I did!” His hand whipped from his coal and leveled the automatic. “But the only real evidence you have is that dictagraph and you’re getting the record for me right now and smashing it to bits!”

Flannagan narrowed his eves. “It in the next room.”

“Put your hands up and Hand next to each other. Now walk ahead slowly. You’re both covered.”

Flannagan had to lower his hand to turn the door knob. He was close to the door as he entered the next room. When he dived, his speed was double quick because the door was swinging one way and he was leaping the other.

He landed on his knees, whirling and snapping up his revolver in the same instant. The big automatic thundered and the door jerked and showed a splintered panel. Flannagan backed slowly to the corner and held his breath. If he’d judged Lamport right, Lamport wouldn’t leave without taking the last desperate gamble of shooting it out.

Flannagan waited. Seely was behind the big upholstered couch across the room. Flannagan saw the door move slightly and something emerge from it. He held his fire, his eyes darting from the object he hadn’t identified to the door hinge and then back again.

In the narrow opening between door and hinge a black muzzle slid upward. Flannagan compressed his lips and fired twice through the slit. There was a groan, the thud of a body toppling, the shattering sound of glass. Flannagan sprang forward to the door and peered cautiously around it.

Lamport was lying on the rug, his automatic a few feet from him. Near the door lay the broken vase which he had used as a decoy in the hope of drawing Flannagan’s attention.

Seely spoke shakily. “He’s dead?” he asked. Then he saw Lamport move. “Ambulance — police!” he babbled.

Flannagan walked over to the phone and dialed a number. “Hello, Miss Dean? Flannagan speaking. Get that publicity material about the Smyrna sheriff coming out for science and send it right out. All the papers. And one other thing — call the police and an ambulance to Seely’s house. I’d do it for myself except that I want a drink first. Not for me, stupid — for Seely. Imagine a big guy like that fainting, just from a little excitement.”

Fragile! Use No Hooks!—

And be careful how you handle this case of homicide, for it may explode in your face

Employed by a private detective agency, Stanley James Baxter is making good money until he meets Selma Elmore, debutante. He studies law nights and in a few years is admitted to the Bar. As a young lawyer his social standing is much improved but he is rapidly going broke for lack of clients when he has a peculiar caller, Joseph Callum.

Callum, it appears, is a racketeer in that he makes a practice of buying a small amount of stock in some corporation, acquiring legal rights as a minority stockholder, and then threatening a lawsuit. It is a form of legal blackmail, or at least so says Judge Horace Elmore, Selma’s father, who is attorney for the Randt Camera Company and to whom Baxter goes after talking with Callum. Elmore advises young Baxter to drop the case.

“I’ll think it over,” says Baxter.

Selma, he learns, is about to be married to John Harne, general manager of the Randt company.