“Why not?” The demand from the stranger was sharp and incisive.
“Well,” Parkinson sought to soothe the man, “because magazines are not supposed to run contrary to public welfare.”
“In other words,” the visitor rasped, “you are not prepared to tell the truth. Is that so? You can go to hell!”
He arose. Parkinson flushed.
“If that is your attitude,” he said, “what have you to say to this?”
Barrow had arisen from his chair.
Parkinson flung Gulliver’s duplicate manuscript across the desk toward Regneva with a grim smile.
The suspect glanced hurriedly at the papers and thrust his cane toward the seated editor.
“Look out!” Barrow shouted, and as he called he swung hard. There was a crunching thud, a grunt from the lips of the cane swinger and he crashed to the floor.
Parkinson had fallen from his chair to avoid the thrust, and it was well he did, for before the visitor had fallen he had pressed a spring on the handle of his stick.
“Spung!” an eight-inch stiletto had darted from the end of the stick and the lethal weapon now lay slightly stuck in the desk.
“Charming little thing, isn’t it?” he asked of the score of office workers who had rushed to the scene. He pressed the spring and, by means of a string, the blade returned to its niche as speedily as it had appeared.
Regneva began to stir, and Barrow hastily procured sufficient rope to securely bind him.
“Why,” Parkinson asked the Citadel man, “didn’t you kill the dog when you had the chance.”
Barrow replied earnestly.
“I never use a gun,” he said.
He noted Parkinson’s amazement and smiled.
“Oh,” he observed, “I did have a gat, didn’t I? I had forgotten for the moment.”
He reached for the telephone and put in a call for Druggan.
“Hello, Bill,” he greeted the captain of detectives. “This is Barrow. I’ve got the mystery man and I need some help. Come on down.”
Druggan spluttered
“What the hell are you doing, Barrow,” he demanded, “kidding me?”
“Nope, I’m not,” Barrow reassured the captain. “You’d better bring some men with you, and maybe a strait-jacket.”
He hung up after directing Druggan to Parkinson’s office, and then turned his attention to the prisoner, who was writhing in an effort to free himself and screaming imprecations at those who looked on. A gag was speedily provided and the suspect silenced.
Barrow had gone to headquarters with the prisoner, and now he was in Captain Druggan’s office with the commissioner, the inspector and the captain.
The prisoner, heavily manacled and guarded by two husky detectives, sat before them. At a desk in the corner of the room and out of the prisoner’s line of vision sat a stenographer.
Barrow asked gently of Regneva:
“Why have you done these things?”
The prisoner glared back at him.
“They made me sick,” he observed. “Always talking about their smart detectives.”
He laughed hysterically.
“No such thing as a perfect crime,” he chuckled. “I guess I showed them.”
“Is that why you killed Gulliver?” Conalan interjected.
“Yes, that’s why I killed Gulliver,” mimicked the manacled man. “He was always writing about how great the cops were and that they couldn’t be fooled. Hell! He was the guy to start with, wasn’t he?”
It was the same with Tasney and Balcolm, the prisoner told them.
He had set out to prove that the perfect crime could be committed. The robberies were mere incidents, just to annoy the police further.
“So you killed three men for no reason other than that — to show up the police?”
The commissioner was amazed as the tale unfolded itself. He turned to the others when the prisoner snapped an affirmative.
“Of course, captain,” he directed Druggan, “this man is mad. You’ll see that he is given every care.”
Druggan nodded.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “He’s raised hell with my peace of mind for a long time, but there’s nothing else we can do.”
Barrow arose.
“Well,” he remarked to the police officers, “I guess I’ve no further interest in this fellow. We pay. That’s all there is to it. I think I’ll go home.”
As he reached the door he turned toward the prisoner
“You have a peculiar name for a man of your Nordic blood,” he said carelessly. “Where did you get it?”
“It’s my title,” the prisoner smirked. “Spell it backward.”
“ ‘Avenger,’ eh?” Barrow was amused at this further gesture of bravado. “And what did you mean by the words ‘There is’ that you left in the pockets of your victims? Do you mind telling us that?”
Proudly the prisoner drew himself erect.
“I meant, and I still maintain,” he declared emphatically, “that there is such a thing as a perfect crime.”
Barrow grinned annoyingly at the fettered man.
“From the looks of things,” he said quietly, “you made a mistake in those notes. You left out something.”
“Yeh,” sneered the mad man, “what?”
“The word ‘Not,’ ” smiled Barrow, and he stepped through the door, his ears ringing with the maledictions gushing from the mouth of his captive.
“This,” said the Citadel man, as he headed for the Citadel and Gresham, “is one coup that we don’t get credit for — at least not in real money. Parkinson deserves the reward the Sphere offered.”
Case No. 57883-D
by Leland Woods[7]
FOR NEARLY FOUR YEARS THIS RELENTLESS SEARCH HAD BEEN THE GREATEST MAN-HUNT IN THE HISTORY OF CRIME AND ITS DETECTION
Southern Pacific passenger train No. 13, southbound, pulled out of the station at Siskiyou, Oregon, on the night of October 11, 1923, slightly behind schedule. The air was crisp. A small wind blew down the mountains. Sleepy passengers aboard the train glanced disinterestedly at the lights of the little town and turned restlessly in their seats.
A short distance south of Siskiyou the railroad pierces the spur of the mountain. In the tunnel the engineman saw a danger signal He jammed on his air. The brakes squealed. The cars rumbled to a stop. A man in the smoking compartment complained that a tunnel was a mighty poor place to halt a train.
Voices outside attracted the attention of the passengers. A brakeman named Johnson hurried through the cars toward the front of the train to determine the cause of the delay. He swung down from a step. Figures were moving about the mail car. Johnson started toward them.
He was shot dead.
The mail car was locked from within. Again the figures moved on the track. Engineman Sid Bates, a veteran railroader leaned from his cab window to see the cause of the signal. He was murdered with a high power rifle, at close range. Marvin Seng, his young fireman, stepped across the cab to help him. A shot stopped him. He pitched forward, dead.
In the meantime, E. E. Dougherty, mail clerk, was alone in his locked car. No one knows what preparations he made to defend himself. At least he did not open the doors. The remaining members of the train crew, moving forward, were halted by shots. Passengers fled to the rear of the train.
The three figures on the tracks worked rapidly. Through the smoky murk of the tunnel they were seen about the end of the mail car. Suddenly they drew back. There was a moment of waiting.