Brett Halliday - Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 27, No. 2 — September 1945)

“Why shouldn’t he play it open? With his protection he owns the town.”

“Sure. The chief of police, the sheriff and the D. A. are just hired help to him. Hinchman’s the boy who keeps them in line. He got the chief out of town as soon as the Ditson thing broke — he didn’t want a weak sister in his way. Even Westfall’s men don’t suspect Hinchman’s high man because the boss himself handles most of his payoffs.”

“I hope you aren’t just talking. You said something about being able to back this up.”

“Sure I can. I’ve seen Hinchman paid off a dozen times. Both he and Westfall took me for granted.”

“Is that all you’ve got — your word against theirs?”

“Hell, no! One day last summer I went fishing with Hinchman. He threw his coat over the back of the seat. Seven bank notes fell out on the car floor. They were on that many different banks and in that many different names. Hinchman didn’t notice them. I jotted down the data on the back of an envelope. I figured the information might come in handy some time.”

“For blackmailing Westfall into paying back your losses, maybe?”

“No. You must have been listening to Carl Bronson. According to him I’m a hopeless spendthrift gambling away my inheritance. Actually it’s almost intact. Westfall lets me win enough almost to break even. I just pay dues at the Silver Dollar. But I think maybe my bank account data might come in handy if Westfall decided to drop me and cash in real quick.”

“But you’ve got the goods on Hinchman, not Westfall.”

Brown looked me over. “You think Hinchman will take his rap alone? You think he hasn’t got enough on Westfall to take him with him? Break Hinchman, and you break the racket, too.”

“Well, the dope on the bank books combined with your testimony about the payoffs should do the trick if handled rightly — if you should live that long. A couple of Westfall’s boys, Parker and Souders, had some idea earlier in the evening. They went over Briarton Cliff. A sad accident.”

Brown eyed me thoughtfully. “So Stonie and Punch were going to sing? Westfall couldn’t have known that. They were on his list because they ran out with the booty to be handed back to Ditson.”

“I know. But you’ll get the same treatment if Westfall finds out you’ve been to see me. Is there any place you can hide out? Surely a young buck like you would have an address not in a telephone book.”

“I do. It’s a lodge in the hills out beyond Briarton Cliff. Nobody — no man, I mean, knows where it is.”

“Fine. Now, get out of here as fast as you can, only first draw me a diagram.”

Brown drew a crude one on a telephone pad and explained it.

Without a map it would take six squirrels and a finance company collector to find the lodge, it was that far back in the woods. I hoped Brown wasn’t kidding himself about its secrecy and that he wouldn’t be tailed. I don’t think I mentioned that he was a nice looking chap, not nearly the sad sister Carl Bronson had described him to be. Only I couldn’t forget that he might have dropped more dough at the Silver Dollar than he’d let on and that he seemed to know all about Westfall’s business. It was ghastly to think that in trying to rob Ditson he had killed his own sister!

The operator didn’t take long to get Keever. I gave it to him fast in a kind of double-talk we used, and he knew the case was hot.

“Hold everything till I get there,” he said. “I’ll round up a car full of detectives, and we’ll take the town over.”

“I guess you’ve never met Hinchman. It’ll take more dicks than you can bring in a train.”

“I’ll have a warrant for Hinchman before a shyster can say habeas corpus! Only chase out to Brown’s and keep him on ice. I can’t understand why you let him out of your sight. Are you drunk?”

“Definitely not. By the time you get here I’ll have not only Brown on ice but Ditson’s murderer as well.”

Keever didn’t believe me, but underestimating me is an old habit with him. I figured it would take him a good two hours to round up the five goons he’d hired on state pay to wear badges and pass themselves off as investigators, and get to Midtown. Far from taking over Midtown, those bums couldn’t have taken over an atoll if it had been defended by a cockroach.

I figured I had to work pretty fast. I took the elevator down and started across the lobby. A bulky form stopped me.

“Just a minute,” said Hinchman. “I was just coming to see you. Westfall told me about the Ditson girl having the thirty grand. I’m booking her for murder. She must have figured that pushing her old man out of a window was a sure way to keep him from losing the dough all over again.”

“O. K., only why do you have to see me first? Can’t you pinch a hundred and twelve pounds of pin-up without help from the A. G.’s office?”

“I came for that second thirty grand, Corbett. It’s evidence.”

“That’s why I’m keeping it in the hotel safe. The clerk looks honest.”

“I suppose I don’t.”

When we finally stopped arguing and got to the Broadhurst, Mary Ditson was gone and so was her thirty grand.

“I knew it!” said Hinchman. “She took a powder. She killed her old man — this proves it!”

“Maybe. Couldn’t be that Westfall dropped by and picked her up?”

“A snatch? Not Westfall. He’s strictly legit.”

“I suppose there’s nothing more legit than a little piece of murder. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about Parker and Souders going over the cliff.”

“Dozens of people have gone over it. They haven’t invented a guard rail strong enough to hold the drunks. Those two boys were soaked all the time.”

“They weren’t tonight before they had their ‘accident.’ They were cold sober when they told me they’d let me know about turning state’s evidence.”

Hinchman paled. Then he quickly recovered.

“They didn’t know nothing. But this Ditson girl does. If it ain’t too late to stop her lamming out of town, I’ll have her confession signed and sealed in a matter of hours.”

He had a fair chance at that, for the Broadhurst clerk said she’d only checked out ten minutes before. He ran out with my blessing, for the Ditson dame had pulled a honey, running out like that. I believed Hinchman about Westfall not having the guts for a snatch. Dealing with me was going to be tough enough, but dealing with the FBI would be even tougher. I’m a modest little devil at that.

A cab hauled me out to Carl Bronson’s. He was still up.

“I know there’s no use in my going to bed, Corbett. I can’t sleep for thinking of Sheila.” He buried his hands in his face.

“I want you to think some more. Whether I crack this case tonight depends on you. You’re the only eye-witness of Ditson’s leap that I know of. Now, get this — Ditson didn’t dive, he was pushed.”

Bronson’s brows lifted in incredulous amazement.

“But I tell you, I saw him! Nobody was there in the window with him! He was standing on the sill, and he stepped off!”

“You’re cockeyed. You think you saw him step off because you were psychologically unprepared to see anything else. Usually when somebody goes out the window of a building it’s under his own power. It’s rarely a case of murder. So your prejudiced brain projected an image instead of a picture of the real thing. You’ve got to shake up that image and let the parts fall back where they belong. Then maybe you’ll see somebody there in the window with Ditson or at least somebody’s hands and arms.”

Bronson eyed me speculatively. “If you know what you’re talking about — and I think you don’t — you’re really trying to tell me that psychoanalysis would clear my memory.”