Корнелл Вулрич - Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 50, No. 5, October 10, 1936

“Holy Mackerel!” exclaimed Jim. Bill said nothing but tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Of course,” said Rhoda, “you owe everything to Tim.”

“ Rats,” I exclaimed. “What could I have done without Dick and Clarice?”

“As a matter of fact,” stated Dick Barton, “it was Upton Reynolds, that white whiskered old codger across the table, who turned the trick. First he doped out the whole plot and the motives behind it and then he raised the country and rescued us from the trap we were in. If it hadn’t been for Upton, they would have murdered the lot of us, taken Jonathan back to Santa Barbara and carried on. You, Steve, would still be in durance vile.”

“Mr. Reynolds, of course, will represent legally the Steele interests,” said Steve. “And you will be our western legal representative, Dick.”

“You’ve fixed us up,” remarked Dick. “But what are your plans for Tim Cody?”

Steve gave me the old grin. “Tim is up against it. He is going to Detroit and enter the plant as a mechanic.”

Clarice jumped up. “What’s that?” she cried with blazing eyes. “Why — you ingrate — I wish we’d left you in that awful place in Palm Springs.”

Dick yanked her back into her chair. “ Sit down, you addlepate,” he snarled.

“Let go of me, you boot-licker. All of you — lapping up bones he tosses you like a lot of hound dogs—” she cried furiously.

“Clarice,” I cried sternly. She burst into tears.

“Don’t you see, Clarice,” said Steve, smiling, “Tim has to learn the business before I can promote him to be President of the Steele Motors Corporation — in two or three years now—” he stopped. The sun had come out on my sweetheart’s face. “Why, you... you darling!” she cried.

That’s the whole story as well as I can tell it. The Department of Justice at Washington had played its part by delving into the Steele Corporation’s affairs.

Steve came back the same swell guy he always was. And Clarice and I are married and living in Detroit and I come home covered with grime every night and we wash up, put on the soup and fish and go stepping.

I forgot to say that on our way east with Steve and Rhoda, we called on Paw and Maw Piper. They wouldn’t let us give them anything, but Steve paid their back taxes, bought all their stock at top prices, left a new Steele Six motor car in their barnyard and made them like it. And why wouldn’t he? If it wasn’t Maw’s gossiping about the upstart Donnegan family where would Steve have been? And we all wouldn’t have been sitting on top of the world.

This story began in Detective Fiction Weekly for September 5.

Conclusion of Six Part