Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 7, 1922 — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

COMMQN KID GLOVES. certain that there was nobody near to ob- serve him. Satisfied, finally, that he was not under the close scrutiny ef some other human being, he reached quickly into one of the pockets of the car and took out a small wrench. He had placed that particular wrench there purposely, so that no time would be lost. A moment later he was lab- oring to disconnect the er, his laughter suddenly stilled and his counte- nance grim. The work done, Oakes Radell sprang back into the car, stowed away the wrench, then quickly let in the clutch. He drove ahead for a short distance to where the ravine widened, then turned and roared back to the main highway. Into it he swung the roadster, and rushed along the smooth road toward the city thirty miles more to the north. Oakes Radell, well-known as 2a man of big business, whose time was counted in terms of dollars and cents, was going to a great deal of trouble to purchase a pair of com- mon kid gloves. He was motoring eighty miles from the city he called home, and where his business was established, to another and much smaller city where the shops were not so good, but where he intended making the purchase. He had planned this thing well, spending many valuable hours over the plans. He had tdken care of all the minor details. It was the neglect of minor details that wrecked most men, he declared to himself, and he did not intend to be wrecked! AH his plans were perfect now, he thought. Any brainy man, Oakes Radell believed, who could force himself to set aside the heat of passionate anger and think and plan sensi- bly, could do what he contemplated doing and escape the consequences. He had decided to kill Harrison Hadler. He had to do it to save himself financially. He felt not the slightest ecompunctien about it. Harrison Hadler was in his way, a menace, and so Harrison Hadler had to be removed at once. That was the sum and substance of the situation, the actual situa- tion stripped of all superfluous facts. Oakes Radell was a huge man of forty- 309 five, a fighter in the business field, inclined now and then to the use of methods that were a bit unscrupulous. Harrison Hadler was a man of the same sort. They were bitter foes. They had clashed on the mar- ket repeatedly, each trying to cut the other’s financial throat. And now, because of a trick, Harrison*Hadler held Oakes Ra-. dell at his mercy—and Radell knew that Hadler would be inclined to show no mercy at all. But Harrison Hadler, for alt his business ability, had made one sad mistake in this affair. He had taken ne associate fully into his confidence. And so Oakes Radell happened. to know that, if Hadler could be put out of the way suddenly, his big deal would go to smash and many men would be saved fmanciaHly—among them Oakes Radell. With Harrison Hadler dead, his associates in the big deal would not know for some time which way to turn. In that moment of consternation, Oakes Radell ex- pected to stampede them, and not only save himself but also take a handsome profit. The deed he had planned was the culmin- ation of years of hate and evil wishes. Often before, he had half promised himself that he would slay Harrison Hadler one day. And now the time had come, and Oakes Radell expected to commit the crime and escape the consequences. He had read that there is no such thing as a perfect crime, one that cannot be de- tected. But he did not believe it. He knew, on the other hand, of crimes in- numerable where the guilty ones never had been discovered and punished. And he flattered himself that he had planned the thing well. He was going to be very bold about it. His plans were fool- proof, his arrangements had been checked over until, he told himself, there was no possibility of a mistake that would be fatal. And his luck was with him! He reached the outskirts of the smaller city, and instead of following the boulevard that would have taken him straight to the center of the retail district, he turned off into a side street and drove toward the poorer part of the town, toward a section where cheap shops and junky stores pre- dominated. Co DOOK 1e@