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

“He means the police call box,” Horace Elmore said. “He pulls it every hour on that hour.”

Stan didn’t look up at the judge. “If that happened a couple of hours ago, how does it happen that the police didn’t come here? You must have missed the next hour.”

“I dunno,” Bedlow said. “Maybe they pulled the box then.”

“Don’t you know?”

“My head hurts. They hit me. How could I know? I was knocked out cold.”

Stan said, “You were out cold for two hours?”

“I must have been.”

“Yeah. They hit you from behind, but your forehead hurts.”

Bedlow looked frightened. “My whole head hurts. I’m sick. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Stan laughed a little, not pleasantly.

“Your whole head hurts. You were knocked out for a couple of hours. It’s mighty queer they hit you that hard, and didn’t even raise a bump on your skull!”

Bedlow was trembling, his eyes blurred and confused. “It hurts inside, ” he protested.

“Look at your wrists,” Stan said. “They didn’t tie you up very tight, did they?”

Bedlow blubbered unhappily. He had reason to. A police siren wailed down the street.

Stan got up hastily. “Come on, Judge. I’m going to get to the bottom of this beautiful hocus-pocus. We’ll have a talk with Selma.”

Elmore blinked.

“Selma!” he exclaimed. “But she couldn’t know anything about it.”

“That,” said Stan, “is what you think.”

This story began in Detective Fiction Weekly for April 2