15 Story Detective, April 1950 — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

66 They heard him come in. As soon as the door shut he said, “I got to talk to McBride, lady. Don’t make me horse around. This neighborhood is crawling with cops.” “McBride? Young man, I haven’t the faintest—” “Never mind,” Barry said. “Come on up here, Jerry.” The thin man came up the stairs. His eyes were bright and alert. He nodded at Laura and said, “Honey, you got to do more than go around the block three four times. Hi, McBride.” “What do you want?” “Can we talk alone?” “Laura can listen to anything you’ve got to say.” ERRY hesitated, licked his lips and said, “Okay. I’m a businessman in a small way. With Deever out of business, I’m out too. If the organization stays in one piece, I'll have to find me a new town. I like it here. And I got a couple of hunches about what happened to George. I want to use you as a front man. If I can give you enough to go on in and blow the whole works upside down, I got a chance of coming out all right when the business starts up again. Get it?” “Why don’t you go to the police your- self?” “T’m not tired of living. Not yet. Be- fore I give you the dope you've got to tell me that you won’t let on where it came from.” “Why should I do that?” “Because if you don’t you won’t get the dope. And if you don’t have the dope there’s a pretty fair chance that you get the sleighride for killing George.” “Can you prove I didn’t kill George?” “Not off hand, but I think I can fix it so the cops can prove that George never had that talk with you and Stackie Coults. If they can prove that, then it washes out your reason for killing George. And then, 15 Story Detective with a line on who’s mixed up in it, they maybe can find the real killer.” “TI promise. Shoot.” “Okay. The paper said Stackie said George talked to you and him at eight o'clock Saturday night in Stackie’s car, parked out on the cemetery road. George had some urgent business Saturday night. I picked him up in the car at five o'clock and we drove over to Banner City for a httle meeting. At eight o'clock George was in the bar of the Banner House over there, a hundred and twenty miles from where Stackie said you had the little talk. People saw him in the bar at that time. George was tired and when the meeting broke up at eleven, he registered in and caught some sleep. We drove back and got here at nine the next morning. The cops can check and prove it’s the truth. By the way, here’s your room key. We got the stuff in all right. It isn’t going to do much good now. I guess you can call the recorder a present from George. We got back ten minutes before George got as “You didn’t see who did it?” “T was in my room. I didn’t see who did it.” “You said something about a line on who killed George.” “T already told you, didn’t I? With that dope the cops can make Stackie say who hired him to lie. Whoever hired him set you up as the clay pigeon for George’s murder.” “Ts that enough?” “T got to know something about the law. I think in the eyes of the law it makes Stackie equally guilty along with the guy firing the shots. Stackie may be a rough kid on the football field, but he’ll come unglued at the edges if the cops play it right. Then, if he blows, I think the whole organization is going to fall apart. And Jerry lands on his feet. You see, all this has left Doc and me out of a job. I talked it over with him. Soon as we found GEomichboo S (E@)