Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

Leaving a deputy to search the island, the posse hurried Big Scar across the river. He was rushed to Duffel City by auto. Canada Red and Toledo Ed sat in separate cells. Their features grew sullen when Big Scar came lunging through the jail door.

“Ever see this tramp before?” queried the chief.

A brooding, sullen silence was their answer. Big Scar scowled toward his pals.

“They’re strangers to me,” he rumbled. “That runt there looks like a bo I knew down in th’ Lehigh Valley — but he ain’t. That bo had one eye an’ this one has two.”

“Bo!” the chief repeated. “Them ain’t hoboes — them be yeggs! We picked them up near th’ Widow Henderson’s after one of their number had locked th’ widow in a closet. Lucky for her the telephone was in that closet, an’ she phoned me.”

Big Scar winced; he had overlooked the telephone. The closet, near the front stairs, was a logical place for it.

The chief whispered to one of his deputies. He turned on Big Scar. “We’ll test you,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have to let you go — maybe we won’t. Let th’ dog out of th’ cell, Nate. See if it knows this fellow.”

Spot came out of a gloomy hole and shook himself. He looked toward Canada Red and Toledo Ed. He wagged his tail at them. The chief explained: “We found this animal caught in some chicken wire. It belongs to those two yeggs — it knows them. How about this fellow, mutt?”

Big Scar’s foot shifted slightly. “I never saw that dog before,” he protested. “It ain’t mine. I’m too poor to own a dog.”

Spot growled at Big Scar; its short, white hair bristled; it showed a gleaming row of teeth.

“Call it off, it ’ll bite me!” cried the yegg.

A disgruntled chief showed Big Scar the jail door. He aimed a parting shot in the yegg’s direction. “Make tracks from this town. You don’t look like a man who could steal six thousand — but those birds I got in there, do.”

Big Scar rounded the block; he came to the back of the jail. There was a small yard there. A flight of stone steps led up to an open door through which streamed a light that glowed into the early morning.

Spot, as chief witness, had the freedom of the yard. Big Scar leaned over the fence. He whistled peculiarly. Spot’s ears lifted. Again Big Scar whistled, this time louder.

Casually Spot glanced at the chief and jailors. He moved toward the door unnoticed. He bounded across the yard and cleared the fence.

“Good dog,” muttered Big Scar, mooching off. “Y’u denied yore own master when I signaled for y’u to do it, with me foot. We’ll mosey along where they ain’t no jails.

“Spot,” he added, outside of Duffel City, “I got to write a letter to that Widow Henderson.”

The dog looked up at Big Scar’s moving lips.

“I put that kale in a tomato can by th’ side of her house, Spot. I’ll write her where it is. If she’d been a he miser I’d of kept it.”

Spot barked once, joy fully.

“Shut up!” snarled Big Scar. “I ain’t lookin’ for sympathy.”

The Sergeant’s Gypsies by Arthur Evan James

“Highbrows ’ud call this a perfect day, but to us it ’ud be dangerous, for it made you feel like gettin’ drunk or fallin’ in love.”

I

Captain Martin of the Pennsylvania State Constabulary parked his feet upon his desk and chewed off the end of a long, black cigar. It was a minute before he spoke.

“Runyan, that new sheriff in the county above here, just phoned before you came in, sergeant.” he said. “It seems the freight station at Greenwood was robbed last night — safe picked — and they find themselves something like eight hundred dollars short.

“I didn’t get all the details because that green sheriff was so excited that he rambled from one thing to another. I’ve never met him, but judging from his conversation, he must be a beaut!”

“Don’t know him, either, captain!” I cut in. “But I hear he’s a card — as thick as they make ’em!”

“Anyhow, I managed to understand what he wanted,” the captain went on after he had lighted up his cigar. “He thinks the fellow that pulled the job is hooked up with a gang of gypsies, now camping at Cold Springs.”

“Why don’t he go and nail him then, instead of spieling to you?” I blabbed out.

The captain blew a big puff of smoke up in the air and kind of smiled. “A little technicality of the law seems to be troubling him, sergeant! You see. Cold Springs is not in his county — it’s out of his jurisdiction. And he can’t get hold of the other sheriff — he and his deputy are taking a prisoner to the penitentiary to-day. So he wants a member of the constabulary on hand to make things look right — to take the responsibility for the arrest in case he finds his man.

“He’s such a sticker for legal points that he asked me to be sure to have a man on the ground before he arrived, so that he can say he was merely helping the constabulary — not the constabulary helping him. I guess I’ll give you the job!”