Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 36, No. 4, October 20, 1928

“Now you’re going to talk,” asserted O’Down, turning fiercely on Orrin once more when Swarts had finished his statement. “We’ve got you dead to rights and all we need to know is, who is this man you killed and why you done it.”

Orrin had been doubting whether it would profit him to say anything about the crazy encounter with the schoolboys to explain his presence in the house. On one point he was quite determined: he wouldn’t tell about the angel in knickers who had rescued him from his predicament.

He trembled with cold, for he was clad as he had emerged from the ballroom — without hat, overcoat or gloves. The other men wore heavy coats buttoned tight, breath making little clouds of steam in the chill air.

Swarts towered over him, an ugly blackjack displayed carelessly, and gritted: “And if he don’t, I’m going to bean him.”

Orrin made an involuntary attempt to gain his feet, having already seen an illustration of the meaning of the verb “to bean,” but collapsed into his seat as quickly, under the impulse of a flat-hand shove which the detective applied in the center of his white dress shirt.

The scholarly man whom the captain called chief came back at this critical moment. He laid an officer’s overcoat across Orrin’s knees with a brief impersonal nod, and going around to the other side of the desk grew up a chair and sat down beside the captain.

Orrin accepted the offer of the coat gratefully, but mutely, snuggled into the coat with a sigh of relief, while O’Down explained to the chief: “This is the fellow that did the killing; it was a hi-jacking job, just as I said. We were asking him some questions.”

The chief looked at Orrin a moment in silence.

“It might be best all around if you were to tell me just what happened,” he said. “What did you see? Take your time.”

Orrin knew that this was a man of another order, that his technique would be different from the browbeating methods of the subordinates. He decided to begin with his sensations when he stepped off the bus and felt the bag drawn over his head.

The policeman on guard at the door interrupted at that moment, calling in a stage whisper: “His nibs is just outside. He’s coming in — the prosecutor!”

There was a confused sound of footsteps and Judge Van Dyl entered, with three boys — a tall, thin one, a grotesquely dumpy one, and Master Orton Van Dyl — all very ill at ease. Crowding behind came the gentlemen of the press.

“Good evening, Mr. Prosecutor,” the chief said politely.

“Good evening, Fred,” Judge Van Dyl replied genially. “The interests of public health and safety lead us to keep irregular hours, eh?”

The reporters began pulling up chairs to the big desk and producing writing materials, grinning maliciously at the captain who scowled at them, but stood up and gave his seat by the chief to Judge Van Dyl.

“I am told,” went on the prosecutor, beaming into the assembled faces, “that our information proved trustworthy, netting us a truckload of adulterated product valued at five thousand dollars. Unfortunately one more murder has been added to the list of violences growing out of the evil traffic.

“I know you will pardon the interruption, chief, when I explain how I happened to look in. These two boys, schoolmates of my son — ‘Kidder’ and ‘Chub’ — called on me a few minutes ago to tell a strange story.

“They allege they have been making use of the Quire place, which they call the ‘haunted house,’ for the initiations of their high school secret society, having found the key of the garage in the lock one day recently. According to their confession, they abducted my son, Orton, this evening and imprisoned him in the empty swimming pool.

“Later, when they returned to free him, they found the police in possession of the house; and after spending some hours dodging around in the shrubbery, they came to me in tears.

“But the fact is, Orton knew nothing whatever of this, being safely at home where we have been giving a little birthday party.”

Judge Van Dyl sought a rhetoric effect by pausing to take a cigar from his case, requesting casually of Orton, who was backed against the wall with his schoolmates: “Your pocketknife, son.”

“You didn’t give it back to me the last time, father,” protested Orton.

“Tut! I returned it to you on the bus.”

“No, father, you didn’t — you could not. I wasn’t on the bus. There was a crowd, and I didn’t get on the bus before it started. I met a fellow I knew, and we went to the pictures and I just got home in time for dinner.”

“In that case,” concluded Judge Van Dyl, biting off the end of his cigar, “I gave your knife to some other passenger.”

Orrin thought suddenly of the burned match.

The reporters, who had always found the absent-minded prosecutor good copy, dependable at any time for a column or so, smiled and waited.

“Where are you telephoning from?” one whispered to his neighbor.

“All night drug store just around the corner.”

“Where did they take the hootch?”

“Hootch, you sap? It was bootleg cream and butter, run in from the Jersey side.”