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— Colonel Esmond Stone

Clay avoided the reporters, which was not difficult. He got his car, pulled Awful into the seat beside him. Silently they drove from the field. At the entrance they stopped. It was Una. She squeezed into the front seat beside them.

She said, “No one will know anything about Muriel Van Eden. You’re quite a man, Clay Holt.”

“Yes.” Clay yawned. “If I were half a man, I would have killed him. I don’t understand the play. The only luck we could hope for... well, that Stone doesn’t make it. And that’s tough on Stone. The Major will be back.”

“So you don’t know, then?”

“Don’t know what?”

“That the Major offered Esmond Stone thousands of dollars for certain aviation information.”

“And didn’t get it?”

“No.” Una moved back in the seat. “The Major didn’t get it. The Colonel laughed at his threats. He has never laughed since. His wife and child died in his summer cabin at Maine...”

“And the plane doesn’t have enough gas? Won’t go five hundred miles an hour and—”

Una lowered her head, gravely said: “Yes. The plane will go five hundred miles an hour in a power dive from a great height. First one wing will rip off, then another. Then the fuselage—”

“God, how terrible!” Agatha Cummings gasped.

“Terrible?” There was a question in Una’s voice and then a sudden viciousness. “Colonel Stone will talk to the Major, I suppose, and maybe he’ll laugh again. But he’ll talk to him — talk about his wife and child until the gas gives out. No, you don’t have to worry, Clay. Major Hoff isn’t coming back, isn’t ever coming back.”

Bare Facts

by H. Randolph Peacock

A shamus — a runaway girl — and a nudist camp!

* * *

Mr. Lester Barnes,

Clam Shell Hotel,

Laguna Beach, Calif.

Dear Les:

The worst has happened! Remember me telling you about old man Youngblood? He’s the rich old banker who loaned me the five hundred bucks I needed to start my agency three years ago. I told him at that time if he ever needed a detective for anything that he could call on me and that I would do the job free-gratis.

Well, he telephoned from San Diego today and wants me to come down there

right away for something that he wouldn’t discuss over the phone, but you know I’m all tied up here in court on the Jenson case. I can’t get away for ten days, so I’m asking you to postpone your honeymoon for a few days and drive down there to see what he wants.

San Diego is only another seventy miles from where you two are. Tell Mary how it is. She’ll probably be as sore as a strip-tease dancer with a stuck zipper because I’m interrupting your honeymoon, especially since you were only hitched yesterday, but if it wasn’t for the dough Youngblood loaned me you wouldn’t be working now. We can’t let him down. We may need some more dough sometime.

Give Mary my love and get going for San Diego right away. You’ll find Youngblood at his bank. I told him you would handle the case and would be on the job sooner than soon. That should be soon enough. Which is why I’m sending this airmail.

You can pick up with your honeymoon where you leave off after the job is done.

Regretfully,

Jim.

P. S. How do you kids like married life?

Jim Handmore,

Red Star Detective Agency,

San Francisco, Calif.

Dear Jim:

If I’d read your letter before I opened it, I’d have tom it up. How do we like married life? That’s a laugh. Give us a chance! Mary says that Youngblood has his nerve wanting me to come down there. Didn’t you tell him that we just got married?

We were just going to take a swim in the ocean when your letter came, but after Mary read it I got all the water I wanted in the tears Mary cried down my back. She’s all right now, though, and is going to stay here at the Clam Shell while I make a hurried trip to San Diego.

I’d take her with me, but I paid the hotel bill here for two weeks in advance and the hotel won’t kick back with the dough. Some joint, huh? I figure that I can take care of Youngblood in a day or two, at the most. So then I can come back here and really make up to Mary for lost time.

Your faithful employee,

Les.

P. S. I’ll write you from San Diego and let you know what it’s all about.

Dear Jim:

I am writing you from San Diego now as you can probably tell by the fact that I’m using some of Youngblood’s bank stationery. Youngblood is an old crab. Why did you have to borrow money from him in the first place? I told him about Mary waiting for me at Laguna Beach, and he didn’t even hear me.

His daughter, Priscilla, has him sweating under his collar so bad that he doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going. If I had my way about it, he’d be coming and I’d be going back to Mary, but Priscilla wants to marry some sailor on one of the battleships anchored down here in the harbor.

From what I can find out, this gob is an officer or something. At least he’s got a rank in the Navy, but old Crab-face won’t have anything to do with him. Crab-face says the guy’s got a rank all right, but that it smells like rotten barnacles off the bottom of his boat.

I haven’t seen the gob, so how can I tell? Anyway, my job is to drive Priscilla to her aunt’s place in San Francisco. Crab-face is sending her there to get her away from her Barnacle Bill, and he isn’t trusting her to go alone. He’s afraid she’ll elope with Barnacles and maybe raise a family of rowboats.

He says he’s going to break up the romance if he has to do it with an act of Congress getting Barnacles thrown in irons!

I can’t see why he’s so up in arms about it though, because I’ve known some pretty darn decent Navy men. I’m not arguing with Crab-face, though, to let love take its course. I want to get it over with and get back to Mary. Maybe I’ll stop in and see her on my drive to ’Frisco.

If you can’t read this letter, blame it on these damn bank pens. They’re worse than the ones you find in a post-office. I could do better with a paint brush.

Hurriedly,

Les.

P. S. Priscilla just came into the bank with her mother. I guess they aren’t letting the kid out of their sight. She’s some looker too! Priscilla, I mean. Not her mother. I don’t think I’ll stop in to see Mary like I said. You know how jealous she is. If she gets a look at Priscilla, the war would be on. I don’t even think we’d better let Mary know what my job is. I’ll write her and tell her I have to deliver some bonds or something, but I hope this Priscilla dame doesn’t give me any trouble on the trip. She’s got fire in her eyes — and how!

Dearest darling wife:

Gee, Mary, it seems like I’ve been gone from you for a whole year. I can’t wait until I get back to Laguna. Youngblood wants me to take some bonds to San Francisco. He doesn’t want to send them by mail because he is afraid that something might happen to them.

I wanted to fly up, but he wants me to drive it in my car because I have to stop at a ranch near San Bernardino and pick up a mortgage from some guy.

I won’t be able to come back by way of Laguna either because this ranch is near the desert and to come by Laguna would be way out of my way. Not that I wouldn’t drive a thousand miles out of the way to see you, kitten, but I want to get to San Francisco and back to you as soon as possible.