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

“And so,” went on Judge Van Dyl, taking up the thread of his story, “I thought I would run over to see if we could be of any assistance.”

He suddenly recognized Orrin wrapped in the policeman’s overcoat.

“Bless my soul!” he cried in amazement.

Captain O’Down seized the opportunity to come back to business.

“This is the fella that done the murder, Mr. Prosecutor. He made his getaway in the bootleg truck, but he left his hat and we traced it and caught him. We always catch ’em. The chief was asking him some questions.”

“Poppycock!” the judge exploded. “This is Mr. Orrin Quire, grandson of Henry Quire III; he is the heir to the Quire estate and owns this house. You arrested him because you found a hat of his here in his own house? By George, captain, I can’t tell you — Poppycock! I wish I could think of a stronger word.”

The reporters leaned forward eagerly. Here was a story! A man arrested because his hat was in his own house. But they didn’t know half of it, Orrin thought to himself.

His own house! That was why he had the feeling he was looking at something familiar when he saw the old pile from the street — but now he was thinking of something else.

Here was a murder to be solved — and a murder in his house.

Orrin jumped suddenly to his feet.

“Will you pardon my interrupting?” he cried. “I’ve an idea.”

He knew some things as an eyewitness that the others could not know; he had appreciated the unsuccessful effort to stampede Mike. The attempts of the police to get admissions by threat amused him at the same time that they suggested better methods. “If I might be permitted a word with the man Ginsberg and the watchman, sir” — the chief nodded to him almost imperceptibly — “I think I can untangle this mystery.”

“Certainly, my dear boy,” the prosecutor said cordially: “Whatever we can do in the interests of justice!”

Orrin opened the door. “Send in Mike Laffy and Honest Gus!”

Ginsberg came in first, to be motioned by Orrin with scant courtesy to the chair he had just vacated in the light of the brightest lantern. Next came Laffy; immediately behind him an officer with another prisoner, a small person in a huge raccoon coat.

“Here’s a jane we caught snooping around in the bushes,” the policeman said. It was Lorraine.

Orrin sprang between her and her father, hiding her from his view.

Orrin groped behind him. She slipped her hand into his, whispering: “The butler told me you were arrested. I just had to come!”

Without answering her, Orrin began to talk quickly to Mike Laffy. The others in the room watched. He talked so low they could not hear. He seemed to threaten, to cajole; he darted glances which said clearly Ginsberg was the object of their barter.

Honest Gus had dropped his oily, good-humored pose. The newspaper men forgot their boredom and craned forward, interpreting the unheard bargaining and losing nothing of its effect on Ginsberg; the prosecutor’s lips moved, translating what he saw into soundless words.

Suddenly Honest Gus stood up.

“It’s a lie! It’s all a lie!” he screamed. “I didn’t raise my hand. Mike bashed him with the butt of his gun. I saw it and I can swear to it!”

Mike Laffy’s answer was almost a scream. “You’re a liar! I only did what you told me to! You said he double crossed us and he knew about the other guy we bumped off!”

“I’ll talk,” gasped Gus; “let me talk! I’ll tell everything just as it happened — for the State.”

Swarts already had the handcuffs on Laffy. Officers who had come in on the run at the first sound of uproar, were holding Ginsberg, explaining, promising and choking for breath.

When Ginsberg had exhausted himself and collapsed, moaning, Mike Laffy, whose surly temperament had more quickly recovered, turned on the shattered fat man.

“You yella cur,” he sneered, “I always thought you was there with the brains. I didn’t think you was fool enough to fall for that movie stuff. Why, I wasn’t telling the boy nothin’ — nothin’ at all!”

He scowled at the corner where Orrin had stood. But Aunt Cassie’s boy and Lorraine had slipped out.

Hours later the chief’s car stopped in front of the prosecutor’s house. The guests had all gone.

“A good night’s work,” said Judge Van Dyl, with undimmed enthusiasm. “The boy certainly handled his little demonstration in applied psychology!”

“Too well,” returned the chief, in his thoughtful, quiet way. “He knew the whole story before they confessed. I am convinced that he was there. You would need him for a witness if it were not for the eagerness of the two crooks to tell on each other.”

The prosecutor entering his roomy front veranda was startled to see a young girl bundled in his favorite winter coat and a young man in a policeman’s blue coat sitting together in the hammock. He had to cough twice before they heard him.

When Justice Was Blinded by Joseph Gollomb

A True Story