Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

Sheriff! Our man! The words burned themselves into Steep’s muddled brain. In a frenzy of fright he tore the window open and leaped out on the roof. For a moment he stood there staring down into the blackness, then he jumped. He landed with a breath-taking jar, scrambled to his feet and stood poised for flight.

The door opened again. A swath of yellow light cut the darkness of the yard. The sheriff and his men, followed by Shevlin, who carried a shotgun, came out.

With a high-pitched shriek of terror, Cyrus Steep sped into the woods.

Dank leaves bogged beneath his feet. Twigs snapped, bushes crashed and stones rattled. Gasping and tripping as he plunged onward, Cyrus heard the noises of the pursuit behind. He saw winking lights, caught fragments of rough talk and many threats. He came to a thickly wooded hill and climbed higher and higher.

Rapidly he felt the strength leaving his legs. He was gasping like a fish on the bank. He could not go much farther. He turned, a weazened little animal at bay, and waited.

From below he heard the snort of an automobile. He peered steadily through the wet leaves and saw men thrusting their long rifles into the bushes.

“I’m a goner,” he muttered in a husky voice. “They’ll get me now, sure.”

He drew the revolver from his hip pocket, fingered it nervously, raised it and lowered it again. From the black void beneath came a bellowing voice.

“Spread out, boys!” it said. “We ought to be close to him by now!”

Men were crashing through the bushes close at hand.

Writhing in his agony, Cyrus Steep lifted the weapon, stabbed its cold muzzle into his sweating forehead and pulled the trigger.

Two days later Sheriff Tebbetts sat in Old Man Shevlin’s kitchen, scraping the mud from his boots.

“Just saw a detective from the city,” he said presently. “Told me all about that Steep feller. Funny thing about him. Nobody at his bank knew he was gone, and they didn’t have any idea that he had taken any money. Never suspected it until we found him up there on the hill dead.”

Old Man Shevlin grunted, then said:

“And if you hadn’t happened to come up here looking for a second-rate chicken thief, he’d a stuck it out, I guess.”

“Yep. That was funny, too. When that bird got out of the jug down there in town I thought of you right away. I says to myself: ‘He’ll head for Shevlin’s, because he used to work there.’ So I rounded up a couple of the boys and we hustled right out. And we scared this banker so bad he run off up into the woods and shot himself.”

“And you never did get the durn chicken thief,” said Shevlin.

“No,” growled the sheriff. “That feller didn’t have no conscience.”

Cheaters by Lin Bonner

A Story of Fact

It cost the somondoco mines $62,000 to produce “A Spoonful of Emeralds,” Which sold for only $5,000, or at a loss of $57,000.

* * *

George graham rice, who on at least three occasions had found himself on the inside looking out — sentenced for breaches of the law — has every reason to heap curses upon the heads of a band of swindlers who were run to earth by the minions of Keyes Winter, deputy attorney general of the State of New York.

They not only made him an innocent party to their depredations, but they put him afoul of the Martin Anti-Stock Fraud Act; caused him to face two prosecutions on the charge of stock swindling and cost him a sum of money estimated variously at one hundred thousand to half a million dollars.

One of the most essential things to the stock selling business is a “list,” called a mailing list in polite language, but more generally referred to as a “sucker list.” Without such a list, the stock salesman, legitimate or otherwise, is helpless. He has nowhere to start.

Therefore, when a crew of high pressure operators, whose playground is the brightest part of Broadway, found themselves in immediate peril of being broke, they cast about for a scheme that would put them in funds in a hurry. Like the monarch who offered his kingdom for a horse, these birds of prey would have given anything, just then, for a “sucker list.”

But sucker lists are the chief asset of the stock game and they are most jealously guarded by their possessors; and this particular band of workers did not happen to possess one at the moment.

The gang included Jimmie “Red” Quinn, Billy Rankin, Billy Neeley and Eddie Harrison, all of more or less unsavory repute. “Slippery Dick” Guest was named by one of the gang as the brains of the outfit, but, as on many previous occasions, he escaped capture when the trap was finally sprung on them.

Jimmie Quinn is credited with the inspiration that gave the gang their start on what looked like a chance to get a million dollars in a hurry.

Fixing the Watchman