Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

“The murderer cleaned up on the bonds and jewelry. The only things that weren’t taken were some stocks that were valueless, some promissory notes, and a packet of letters.”

Clint leaned forward, flipped his cigarette into the cuspidor, took a pencil from his pocket, opened a leather bound notebook.

“The valueless stocks?” he asked.

The Governor thumbed through the pages of the transcript.

“American Carbonator, Incorporated,” he said. “They were old stocks. A clever promoter had organized the company fifteen years before and victimized several of the town’s prominent men. Sam Pixley knew the stocks weren’t any good, but he’d paid money for them, so he kept them in with his valued possessions.

“The body was found the next morning. That afternoon Jane Thurmond paid off her mortgage in cash. The cashier at the bank identified one fifty-dollar note that had been torn and pasted with adhesive tissue. He had paid that note to Pixley in cashing a check for him less than a week before the murder.

“Remember, Clint, this is a small community we’re talking about. Everybody knows everybody else. Everybody’s business is everybody’s business.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Clint, “Sam Pixley put the torn bank note into circulation.”

The Governor shook his head.

“Pixley never put money into circulation. He took it out of circulation, and kept it out. He’d lost money in a bank failure once. After that he cashed his checks and hid the cash.”

Clint nodded.

“That all the evidence?” he asked.

“Good Lord, no! Jane Thurmond was interrogated. She admitted she’d not earned the money. Finally she said she found it, all wrapped up in a bundle and dropped on her doorstep. The mortgage was eleven hundred and fifty dollars. She said there was exactly eleven hundred and fifty dollars in the package that was dropped on her doorstep. Not a very likely story.”

Clint regarded the executive through half closed eyes.

“Go on,” he said.

“That started an investigation. Jane Thurmond was taken to the scene of the crime, accused of murder. She denied her guilt, but was somewhat rambling as to her statements of where she’d been the night of the crime. One thing she was certain of, she hadn’t been near Pixley’s place.

“That was proved to be false. Two witnesses had seen her, one going, one coming. But she had left before the crime was committed. That’s one point in her favor. Pixley must have been killed shortly after midnight. Jane Thurmond was seen leaving the place about ten thirty. It’s the theory of the prosecution that she returned and committed the crime.

“There’s a witness by the name of Ezra Hickory who says he saw Jane Thurmond leave her house shortly before midnight. He doesn’t know where she went or what she did, but he swears she was carrying a club, something that looked like an ax handle.

“Subsequently they found the bloodstained ax handle. It was hidden in the barn on Sam Pixley’s property. It fitted an ax head that was found in Jane Thurmond’s woodshed.”

Clint held his pencil poised over his notebook.

“Didn’t Mrs. Thurmond finally admit she’d been to Sam Pixley’s house?”

“Yes. She eventually admitted it. She said some one had telephoned her that Sam Pixley had said he’d be willing to take over the mortgage. She went over to see. Sam said nothing doing. The woman left. That’s her story.”

“Any finger-prints?” asked Clint.

“Not a finger-print, not on the ax handle, not on the box, nowhere in the place. There were some old fingerprints on the ax handle. They belonged to Mrs. Thurmond. That’s settled. It’s her ax handle. She finally admitted that, but claims she doesn’t know how it got there.”

“That all?”

“That’s all.”

“And what do you want me to do?”

“Clint, I want you to go down there, Middlevale, Middlevale County, and get the real inside facts on that crime. You can do it. If that woman dies I want to feel certain she’s guilty.”

Clint’s half closed eyes held something of a mocking glitter.

“There’s enough evidence there to convict a dozen defendants. You shouldn’t feel any doubt in your mind.”

The Governor groaned.

“I didn’t, not until you gave that little dissertation on circumstantial evidence, and how facts lied. Then I began to feel uneasy. You were so cocksure, so coldly final, and you’re nearly always right.”

Clint smiled enigmatically.

“If I do this, I shall want two things,” he said.

“Name them.”

“I shall want to go to the State’s prison and pick out a good burglar. I shall pick one who is eligible for parole. I’ll want him to be paroled in my charge. In addition to that I shall want a tube of radium from the State hospital. With those two things I’ll undertake the job.”

The Governor regarded him with closely knitted brows.

“You seem to want peculiar things, and you don’t seem to hesitate any in thinking what they are.”

“Those are my terms,” Clint said.