5 Detective Novels Magazine — page 121: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

COMPLIMENTS OF A FIEND wait. I let the cord drop down off my wrists and closed my right hand around the flashlight. With Magnus coming back, Overholt was glancing toward him instead of my way and the revolver wasn’t aimed directly at me. I brought the flashlight around and hit his knuckles with it. He yelled and dropped the gun, and I was out of the ear almost before it hit the floor boards. I kept the car between me and Pogue as I ran into the patch of woods beside the road. 7 I kept hold of the flashlight; I knew I might need it later, if it still worked. I could see the first: trees and get through them, and then it was dark. I had to stop running to avoid bashing myself against a tree trunk, but I walked rapid- ly and turned at a sharp angle to parallel the road instead of going in straight. I came to the edge of the brook where it ran out of the culvert. There was a break in the trees. It was only a few feet across, but there was a fast current, I noticed, as it came churning out of the culvert. I jumped it, easily, but my heels land- ed on a short piece of board that was ly- ing on the other bank, and it was noisy. I heard Magnus’ voice call out to the others. And I could see the yellow of their flashlights. The current gave me an idea. I flicked the switch of the flashlight in my hand to see if it worked, and it did. I picked up the board I’d landed on; it was a half- rotten piece of one-by-six about two feet long. I put the lighted flashlight on it and put it down on the current of the brook. The current whirled it away. If I could see the light from their flash- es, they could see that, and maybe they’d follow it. They did. I heard them change direction to head diagonally downstream after it. I stepped out into the road again and ran toward town, running down in the ditch so my feet wouldn’t scuff gravel. After a hundred yards I was around a turn in the road and I slowed down to a walk. It was only a ten-minute walk into town from here and if they combed the woods that long, I’d make it. If I heard the car starting behind me, I could take cover until they passed. 121 UST OUTSIDE town I had to duck be- hind a hedge to let a car coming toward me go past. It was the meat- wagon from Harvey’s Funeral Parlor and I knew Doc Reynard would be sit- ting with the driver in the front seat. I reached town and no car had come from behind me. Looking as I must have looked, I and. ed for the alleys. I was half- -way down the first one when the sheriff’s car roared past the mouth of it. If I’d: been near enough, I might have yelled: out and given myself up. My only reason for escaping had been to avoid being shot by Pogue. And Pogue, dressed only in a light nightshirt, certainly wouldn’t have come to town with them. The first thing to do was to wash my hands and face. I ducked into a yard and found a side hydrant. I turned it on, just a trickle so as not to awake the people in the house, and washed as well as I could. I braved the street then, and looked myself over in a mirror in the window of a closed drug store. It wasn’t so good. There was blood on my shirt collar and a spot of it on my tie. My suit was torn from the run through the woods. My shoes were muddy and scuffed. ' But I could turn up my coat collar to hide the bloodstains and look no worse than a tramp. I was a little punch-drunk, a little sil- ly. There was a police dog on the side- walk before me, and I stopped and looked at it, and it looked at me. It growled a little, low in its throat. I could see the lithe, smooth strength of it, and its teeth. Teeth like those could do to a man’s throat exactly what. had been done to Dave Otis’ throat. It growled again, low. That, I knew now for sure, was the sound I'd heard from the cornfield. Not aman. A dog like this one. “Hello, boy,” I said quietly and the dog stopped growling. I stepped closer to it, without moving fast, and held out my hand. It sniffed my hand and then I patted its head and scratched it behind the ears. Its tail began to wag. I stood there with my hand on the dog’s neck, without moving, for maybe a ire minute. Something began to per- colate. MICLOO O GO S