5 Detective Novels Magazine — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

120 and putting the knife in my coat lining, or maybe in my pocket where it had cut through and dropped into the lining. Karl Pogue—that didn’t make much sense, either. Pogue was crazy about his brother and certainly wouldn’t have killed him, unless he was simply a rav- ing maniac, and no raving maniac had sandbagged me and put me on the spot to take the rap for the crimes. That had been beautifully timed and worked out so well there wasn’t even any use trying to explain to Ed Magnus what had hap- pened. Not right now, anvway. I leaned back further in the seat and the back of my hand touched something round and metallic. I could tell by the feel and shape of it that it was a flash- light. An extra one, apparently, because the sheriff and his deputy each carried one. “Keep an eye on him, Overholt,” Mag- nus said. “I’m going back in for a while. Just thought of something.” He turned and left, not in any hurry, about it. Overholt stayed beside the car, his gun still in his hand. Five minutes passed and Magnus hadn’t come out. I began to worry seri- ously about those cords. There might be other stops and delays on the way to jail. My hands were nearly numb already, but I found I could get hold of the flash- light behind me and twist off the front cap. The round disk of glass had a rough edge and I got my fingers doubled up and started sawing at the cord with it. The cord parted just as Magnus came out of the house. My hands tingled as though they’d been asleep, from the blood coming back into them. Magnus had something in his hand as he walked toward the car. When he got close enough I could see it was a stump of candle. “In the basement,” he said to Over- holt. “Burning down toward some waste soaked with oil. In a few more minutes the whole piace would have been ablaze.” “Then that’s how Janson’s barn—”’ “Sure,” Magnus said. “He had an alibi for the time the barn burned, didn’t he? But he used something like this when he put the body there earlier. If I hadn’t thought to go back and look, that joint would’ve burned down.” He got in the front seat of the car and FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE pulled his pistol back out of the holster. “You drive, Tip. I'll sit facing him. We take no chances with a guy like this.” Vill @3 veruoir got in and started the car. “Stop at Karl Pogue’s place on the way,” Magnus said. “I got to tell him about Jeff.” The deputy drove slowly, as though the road was paved with eggs. He pulled to the side of it across from Pogue’s. “Watch him, Tip,” Magnus said, and got out, walking heavily toward the house. The dog started barking again. Over- holt, his own pistol in his hand, turned part way around in the seat and rested the gun on top of the seat back. Magnus hammered on the door and after a minute it was opened. Pogue was in his nightshirt. He had a shotgun in his hand as though he’d picked it up on his way to the door. He stuck it under his arm, aiming down, when he recog- nized Magnus. I could hear their voices, but not what they were saying. Magnus was doing the talking; Pogue answered in monosyllables. Then he stepped down from the doorway and started walking toward the car, along- side Magnus. I cou'd see him clearly as he stepped into moonlight. He was big, with thick black hair that was turning gray and a thick black mustache that wasn’t. He didn’t seem to realize that he was bare- foot and wore only a short nightshirt. Tlis face looked like a mask, and sud- denly I was afraid. Karl Pogue had just been told that Jeff was dead and that I had killed him. Karl Pogue had a shot- gun under his arm, and I saw now that his finger was inside the trigger-guard. And I remembered him as I’d known him; sullen, morose, unpredictable. Hat- ing everybody but Jeff. Perfectly ca- pable of letting that shotgun go off acci- dentally in my direction. Capable, for that matter of not bothering to claim or pretend that it was an accident. His face was still and rigid like that of a man walking in his sleep, and I thought I saw death in its stillness. They were twenty paces away. I didn’t GOMIIGIoOO CS