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

“You wrote to your mother a few weeks ago, didn’t you?” he asked gently.

“Yes,” moaned Maisie. “I s’pose the cops got the letter.”

The sheriff nodded, but his blue eyes narrowed.

“When did Joe die?” he said quietly.

“Three days ago,” sobbed Maisie.

“Have a doctor?”

“N-no. He went too quick.”

“Why didn’t you take his body back to Chicago?”

“I... I didn’t have money enough.”

“Why didn’t you call the coroner?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“Bury him yourself?”

“Yes. All alone.”

The sheriff shook his head thoughtfully.

“It’s too bad,” he said. “They didn’t want Joe in Chicago.”

Like a flash Maisie Carrol jumped lip and, gripping the sheriff’s arm, glared at him wildly.

“They didn’t want him!” he cried.

“Pete Mongone didn’t die,” explained Sheriff McKenzie. “He—”

But the cabaret girl did not wait for the sheriff to finish his sentence. She leaped across the newly-made grave and waved her arms toward the pine grove.

“Joe!” she screamed exultantly. “Joe! It’s all O.K.!”

A dry twig crackled in the pine grove, an overhanging bough was brushed aside and a thin youth, clad in shabby gray trousers, a red sweater and brown cap walked into the clearing back of the cabin.

He plodded slowly over the rocky earth, halting every few feet as a paroxysm of coughing racked his slender body, then he stepped over the fresh grave inscribed “Joe Carrol,” and, removing his cap, faced Sheriff McKenzie.

“You Joe Carrol?” asked the sheriff.

“Yes, sir,” replied the boy, coughing and covering his mouth.

The sheriff’s eyes were a steely blue as he handed the youth a paper. Joe Carrol glanced at it and his face turned a ghastly yellow.

“A warrant!” he groaned.

The sheriff nodded.

“Assault with intent to kill Pete Mongone,” he replied coolly. “The sheriff of Cook County asked me to serve it on you.”

Joe hung his head, and Maisie Carrol threw her arms around his neck.

“I thought the grave business would work, Joe!” she cried frantically. “Honest. I did! I thought if a bull did come my little song and dance would give you time to make a getaway, but the sheriff double crossed me. I’ll go hack with you, Joe!”

Joe Carrol coughed, and a spasm of pain shot across his white face.

“I’ll go with yon,” he said to the sheriff.

But Sheriff McKenzie smiled grimly as he took the warrant from Joe’s fingers.

“You won’t go with me, son,” he said gently. “I said the sheriff of Cook County asked me to serve this warrant on you. I didn’t say I’d serve it. The law says there’s a difference between talking and doing.”

He mused silently for a moment, then took out his fountain pen, unscrewed the cap and glanced down at the empty grave. His blue eyes twinkled.

“You’ve been dead and buried, son,” he chuckled, “so I suppose I ought to make my return on this warrant ‘Dead’ but—”

He scrawled “Not Found” on the back of the warrant and held it up.

“That means I couldn’t find you, Joe,” he explained, “when the tenth assistant deputy sheriff of Cook County reads that he’ll pigeonhole the warrant and forget all about it in a week.”

The sheriff grinned.

“Shucks,” he went on, “assault to kill ain’t no more serious in Chicago than drinking a cup of weak tea.”

Joe and Maisie Carrol stared dumbly at Sheriff Bob McKenzie for a few seconds, then, their eyes wet and their faces bright, they lunged at him with open arms.

But the sheriff quickly edged around the side of the cabin and made for the bridge across the creek.

“I got to get back to town to draw a venire!” he called over his shoulder: “If you want anything tell the storekeeper and he’ll give it to you. I’ll be back in a few days to see you.”

Safe on the other side of the creek, he lighted a cigar and gazed back at the boy and girl who stood watching him, their arms around each other.

“This climate’ll fix you up, son!” he shouted, “but don’t let your wife bury you again. If I let mine do that she’d never dig me out.”

International Crooks I Have Known by Captain Charles H.Moss

But for a detective’s intervention, the underworld’s “Slyest, Slimiest Crook” would have sent an old man to a pauper’s grave.

* * *

Just after midnight, I found him lying in a heap before the door. It was bitterly cold; snow was falling, and behind me the sea lashed itself to a fury under the scourge of the northeast wind.

That is my introduction to a human story I was later to unravel and which, to-day, I remember in every detail.

James MacDougall was a man of some sixty-live years of age, tall and of some presence. He wore a gray heard and, when I met him, was living in a well furnished flat in a block of mansions at Hove. Temporarily, I was living in the same block.

When I found him he was as one dead, and even as I dragged him into the hall and up the stairs. I feared that I had found him too late. His keys were hanging from the end of a chain in his trousers pocket.