5 Detective Novels Magazine — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

DEATH TAKES thought of the Gaudel girl. Perhaps she needed him, after all. Perhaps she had come over to thank him for what he had done that afternoon and evening. Perhaps— He turned, and his long legs carried him into the small entry hall. He reached down and pulled the door open, a welcoming smile on his big face. But it wasn’t the girl. It was the Gau- dels. Harrigan’s smile died, and he started to close the door, but Morton Gaudel’s hand-sewed shoe was in the way. For NO HOLIDAY 77 and he had never in his thirty-one years seen a more perfect example. “You already have,” he said sourly. “IT had just finished talking to my boss when you cante.” Morton Gaudel’s smile was thin and satisfied. “That was just by way of warning,” he explained. “We really did not put the pressure on, you know. We just made a complaint.” Harrigan said nothing. He knew that these men had come to him for some purpose and he wanted to find out what DOWN THE HATCH! Sewickley, Pa., detectives who raided a cockfight SZ ee iy had to drop charges of illegal liquor sales because the - ZB 4 102-man audience drank up all the evidence. When EIN eT F the detectives appeared, the onlookers rushed to a makeshift bar and drank up all the whiskey and beer before the officers could halt the procedure. just an instant they stared at each other. They were almost of a size and could easily have worn each other’s clothes. But while there was a line of flabby fat around Gaudel’s middle, there was no corresponding bulge on Harrigan, whose stomach could have done service as a washboard. What covered Harrigan’s big bones was muscle. “Well,” he said, and his tone sounded anything but inviting. “We want to talk to you.” Morton Gaudel sounded nervous, and the pinch glasses which rode the high bridge of his aquiline nose threatened to drop from their perch. “I'll tell you that you won’t lose by giving us ten minutes.” Harrigan made up his mind fast. “What have I got to lose?” he queried and stood aside for them to enter. They came into the front room but they did not sit down. Morton Gaudel cleared his throat uneasily. “I suppose you realize that we’re in a position to cause you a great deal of trouble,” he said. Harrigan did not like stuffed shirts it was. Nor did they keep him waiting, for the older Gaudel at once took the of- fensive. “My son Edward hired your agency to locate my grandson. We think that you have located him and we would like to know where he is.” HE detective’s eyes were bleak, but his voice was toneless. “Keep talk- ing.” “We'll pay you five hundred for the in- formation,” Morton said, “and your agency need never know anything about it.” “No!” His two visitors exchanged a quick glance, and the son’s face hardened. “Now listen, Harrigan,” he bellowed, “T told you before that we are in a posi- tion to cause you a great deal of trouble and I meant exactly what I said. We don’t want to be forced to do that. I'll raise the offer to one thousand dollars, but that is our top figure.” Harrigan shook his head. “I’m almost sorry that I don’t know where the kid is COMmniclooo SS