Inside Job by Raoul Whitfield

Author:Raoul Whitfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480493018
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

Collins was slumped in his chair when Slade walked into the editorial rooms at three o’clock. He had a green shade over his eyes and he looked tired. Most of the staff had quit for the night, but the telegraph instruments were still pounding out words. Slade sat on the edge of the inner curve of the copy desk, and said:

“Hugh went home?”

Collins nodded. “He went over to the commissioner’s office, and got back here at two. He stayed around for a while, but his body was aching pretty badly. He finally got away. Then that police lieutenant came in and gave me a third degree.”

Slade said: “You?”

Collins swore, nodding. “He thought my story might have been the bunk. Someone told him I’d made a hot speech to Vaupaugh when he refused to give me a raise he’d promised six months ago. The lieutenant had found out that Hugh had made a speech for me, too. Hugh thought I should have the raise. The lieutenant had an idea I might have done for Vaupaugh and lied about how it happened, and he figured Hugh might have tried to stop the fight and got shoved down the stairs. He thought Hugh might be protecting me.” Slade grinned. “You denied it?”

Collins swore wearily. “I told him he was a crazy fool, and he said he thought he’d take me down to the station and hold me on suspicion. I said that would be fine—that Hugh would use scare-heads on it. That calmed him down a bit. He told me not to leave town and I said it was going to be tough having to cancel my trip to Japan. We didn’t get along so well, but he left about ten minutes ago.”

Slade looked at the Accuracy sign on the wall and whistled all that he could remember of “Your Baby’s My Baby Now.™ Collins took off his eye-shade and swore again.

“We won’t have to smell that damn’ perfume around here any more, that’s one thing,” he muttered. “Poor devil!”

He stood up and stretched. He called one of the two reporters on hand and said that if anything big broke on the Vaupaugh murder he wanted to be called.

“And I hope nothing breaks,” he breathed. He looked at Slade and said: “Staying up all night?” Tim Slade shook his head. “I’ve only got about one thing more to do,” he said quietly.

Collins looked at Slade narrowly. “O’Hafey came over and asked some questions about you,” he said. “He seemed pretty puzzled. Wanted to know whether you were very crazy or very shrewd. Said you’d told Miss Jones you’d have Vaupaugh’s murderer by dawn, and she agreed to have dinner with you if you did. He said he figured maybe you were trying to kid him, and if that was so he didn’t like the time you’d picked.”

Slade smiled a little. Collins said: “What did Hugh mean when he tossed over that slip of paper and said you were a louse for hounding someone?”

Slade continued to smile.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.