Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

50 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION own twenties. And since you don’t draw any money from the local bank or in salary—you'd just better not have any local twenty dollar bills marked by Tony.” ‘“‘Whose side are you on?’’ he asked, still puzzled. “{ used to sing baritone, remem- ber?’ I said. He looked at me and _ grinned. Suddenly he reached out his hand. ‘Police, I like you,” he said. At that moment Doc Roydan came barging in like he was owner of the place. He pretty much goes anywhere in Benton. “Look what we found at Tony’s,” he said. ““Look—” ‘T know,” I sighed. ““You’ve found a clue—a pen or pencil or both.” I turned to Arnold Vivian. ‘“‘Vivian, I’d better run you in. At least until we can investigate further. It will look better.” | ‘““Why certainly,” said Arnold pleas- antly. “No trouble at all, Mr. Horner. Glad to come along.” > And he came along and we left Doc standing there waving a pencil help- lessly in the air. By noontime they held the hearing before Judge Tuttle. I’m sorry we’ve got a judge named Tuttle because whenever people from the City hear his name they shake their heads, but his name happens to be Tuttle. He’s not a bad chap, was a good football player before he got brainwritten. I had heard some of the talk against Vivian around town, so I forced the hearing right away, figuring that Vivian could be cleared and then leave town if he had any sense. He figured the same, that it wasn’t healthy to hang around a place that needed new talent so bad, and promised to move on right after the hearing. He left it up to me. A lot of curious people wandered in, since it was noon hour, and the hear- ing began with Tony telling his story and then Doc telling his side and cleverly getting in a lot of stuff about everybody in town being adjusted and no strangers except Arnold being around. Naturally Tuttle struck all that from the record, but naturally he remembered it. I told my piece about Arnold being far away from the place of the theft and sound asleep. I tried to get in a few hints of my own about how Doc and other people in town wanted young guys like Arnold awful bad, but I was blocked because they don’t listen to me like they do to Doc. There was quite a tussle about the pen and pencil. I hadn’t seen it at the scene of the crime, but Doc and Tony swore it was there and made a big point about my not making a real investigation. “Are you claiming that I shirked my duty?” I shot at Doc. “All I say,” said Doc, “is that you've had a lot more experience with giving parking tickets than robberies, Henry.” There was a chuckle at that, be- cause everybody does a double-think | on those parking tickets. They know I got to do a job, but they hate those tickets. The pen and pencil were ad- mitted into the evidence. Arnold shot me a worried look. Then suddenly we were talking about marked twenty dollar bills. I knew I had ’em stopped there, because I’d rushed right from Tony’s to Mrs. Barton’s and taken a look around and then hustled Arnold to jail. If they tried to plant the supposedly stolen money in his room, they’d better look out because with my testimony that there wasn’t any, it was too raw to get away with. And I knew there hadn’t been any twenty dollar bills passed around at the poker game because I was there and a ten was the biggest bill on the table at any time, so I COMmichooksco im