10-Story Detective, September 1941 — page 77: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Crimson Currency By Hal Quincy HAT night, ; when some- body blew up the vault in the Farmer’s Trust, fifty miles away, he seared the wits out ofeverybodyin Midvale. They fig- ured the Midvale Bank would be next. They said Marty McCloud was on a rampage and would be here within a week. I didn’t think so. The Farmer’s Trust job didn’t sound like Marty McCloud. He’d never “souped” a bank before. That wasn’t his style. I guess you’ve heard of Marty. Everybody has. For three years he’d been knocking off small town banks right through the Midwest. A couple of tellers were holding up tombstones because of Marty. They say he’s a vicious killer, but I don’t think so. I think they got him all wrong. Marty is a daytime worker. He fixes himself with a disguise, maybe a fake mustache and some powder on his hair, and he’ll wear a quiet black suit. Then he’ll march into the bank like a deacon, open an account and case the joint carefully, the cages, the exits, the streets running out of town. The next day he’d drive up to the bank in a stolen heap, walk inside with one of his boys, leaving the other idling the motor at the curb. Then he’d stick a gun into the teller’s face, hand him a sack and tell him to fill it. Simple? You bet. It took nerve but Five grand seemed like lot of hay to a twenty-five dollar a week bank clerk. But all the shekels in the world couldn’t change a jail cot into a gilded berth. %5 cE that’s one thing Marty McCloud had. He was cool as steel. Only sometimes somebody would get the notion of setting off the alarm and Marty’s boy would have to start pouring lead. That was the way Marty McCloud worked and I couldn’t see him chang- ing to nitroglycerin. At any rate, Mr. Crimmons, the president of the Midvale Bank, was so worried he had the rest of us on edge. That meant Chris Jaeger and myself. Chris Jaeger is a combination cashier and teller. I’m the bookkeeper. The Midvale Bank isn’t much, only a tiny stone building, but then the population of the town is less than five hundred. Cattle country it is, and most of the five hundred worked in the packing plant at the edge of town. So, of course, on payday there’s always a sizable amount of cash lying around. Well, one night I was alone in my room at Mrs. Callahan’s boarding house when there was a knock on the door. I put down my book and opened the door, and there was Chris Jaeger. His white teeth flashed in a broad smile and he sauntered into the room and sank into a chair. To say that I was surprised to see Chris would be an understatement. You see, Chris Jaeger didn’t belong in a small town like Midvale. He had too much on the ball. Picture the face of a movie star, a glib tongue, and a man- ner smooth and slick as butter. That’s Chris. He should have been a con man or a high pressure bond salesman on Wall Street. Conn NOOK (©