5 Detective Novels Magazine — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

50 not like the humid blanket of the houses. Then it happened, just as he had ex- pected it would. The door opened, and the man in gray stepped inside. For a moment after the man had closed the door carefully, Phil wondered if there might not be some mistake. The man was too mild looking. His smile was friendly. He wore rimless glasses that made him look like a life insurance sales- man or a college professor and not at all like the thug who lay dead in the field. His voice, when he spoke, was inoffen- sive, as if he were asking to borrow a match. He said, “What did you do with the money? I saw you take it. I lost sight of you.when you went around the build- ing with it.” HIL continued to lean on the shovel, but he shifted his weight ever so slightly onto the balls of his feet. It was odd, the thoughts a person got in mo- ments of crises. Phil was remembering something he hadn’t thought of in twen- ty years, something that went back to another crisis, when his father had died, and Phil was telling the high school principal he was leaving school to go to work. Over the principal’s desk was a framed motto by Theodore Roosevelt. It said: “I know you can, and I think you will.” 7 I know you can, and I think you will, Phil’s fingers tightened on the shovel, and suddenly all that had been bother- ing him came into acute focus. He’d been growling more and more hot-tem- pered and touchy of late because he was losing confidence in himself. First, it had been the leg, and then the failures in business. He was resentful, afraid to face the fact that he might no longer be competent. Well, now if ever, was the time to draw the line—or quit de- . luding himself. His weight was firmly on the balls of his feet now. He gripped the shovel, tensing to leap in with it. Then the FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE door opened again. Pat had thrown her cloth coat over her shoulders and was clutching it about her-as she stepped across the threshold into the boiler room. She tossed that soft lock of her hair to one side, and her large dark eyes were full of innocent unaware- ness. “What’s the trouble, Phil? Wouldn’t the truck start? I saw you coming back. .. Oh, hello,” she said with a pleas- ant smile to the man in gray, seeing him for the first time. “Step inside, please, and close that door, Miss,” he said. He was still mild, but he had taken a gun out of his pock- ‘et. “I mean business, and I have no time to waste.” His eyes hardened behind his spectacles and they seemed like par- ticularly small eyes because the lenses were thick. “Where is the money?” he demanded. “My partner became panicky after we tangled with a cop and I had to shoot him—like I shot the cop. I’d hate to have to kill anybody else.” Phil heard Pat’s gasp. He looked at the gun, and the shovel was suddenly useless. But if he could delay long enough, maybe the police would pick up the trail through the woods and find the dead man in the field. Then they might follow on past the greenhouses and— Phil paced the words slowly. “It wouldn’t do you any good to kill me, Mister,” he said. “If you did, you’d never find your money.” “You think so?” A smile hesitated at the corners of the man’s mouth as he reflected. Then he stepped over to Pat.. His hand swung in a swift, open-handed blow to her face. Crying out, she fell. His gun covering Phil, the man dragged her up. He twisted her arm violently behind her. His breath was coming quickly now and his eyes seemed to be concentrating into pinpoints. “I can get pretty ugly, you see,” he said. “If you don’t talk, I can kill her—and still have you.” Those pinpoint eyes were relentless, and suddenly Phil knew the answer, the MICLOO (CO) cS