Wanted by the D Read online

  Popular Detective, August, 1937

  NDER ordinary circumstances Carter

  securities, pads of bank notes, all of large Morris did not resemble the popular denomination, more money in loose piles.

  U conception of a crook. Known on the “Sixty thousand in cash!” Morris Street as the head of Morris and Company, mumbled as he worked. “An even hundred reputable brokers, his shock of white hair, his thousand in securities! I can cash them hard lips and firm chin were generally anywhere. Get this matter straight and I’ll construed to be the trademarks of an honest grab the first boat for Europe. One’s sailing dealer in bonds and stocks.

  tomorrow. That’ll give me time.” He rubbed a But just now, crouched over the desk hand across his face.

  in his ornate Westchester home, Carter Morris

  “God!” he whispered. “I’ve got to get did not in the least look the part of a away before they find out about that Texas oil respectable Wall Street broker. His white hair deal. Hundred and sixty thousand! That’ll was ruffled, there was a dampness on his keep me for a time. It’ll blow over. Sure it forehead not brought about by the June will! It’ll blow over.”

  weather.

  He was trying to bolster up the courage Morris worked feverishly with the he had felt slipping away during the last hectic papers on the desk. There were bundles of week, during which time he worked over the

  Wanted by the D. A.

  2

  books of his company, endeavoring to falsify and stumbled back into the room. As he the accounts, stave off the pending reached the desk, the sound of a car rolling investigation he knew would shortly take across the gravel drive brought him back to place. Hadn’t two of his investors demanded the window in a single leap. It was a big car. It an accounting of their money placed in his contained four men.

  keeping on that Texas deal?

  Four letters on the side door sent

  Morris cursed bitterly. Thirty years on Morris lurching against the window edge, the Street thrown over by one stupid move.

  grasping the wood for support. The four letters Like many others on the Street, Morris and were U.S.D.A. Morris’ face lost its color.

  Company had been hit hard. Carter Morris had

  “The district attorney’s men!” he

  seen a chance to make a cleanup, recover whispered, the sound coming from between some of his losses. It was on the shady side of shaking lips.

  the ledger but he had taken it—and lost out.

  He whirled to the desk, tossed the bag Even now the D.A. was after those in containing the cash and securities into a lower on the Texas deal—and he was one of the drawer, locked it. His eyes roved wildly principal fish.

  around the room. The front doorbell chimed.

  Morris worked feverishly for another The broker lurched again to the

  ten minutes, stuffed the money and securities window and what he saw there sent his knees into a bag, locked it, thrust the key into his weak. One man from the car stood near the pocket, rose and crossed to the window.

  bottom of the steps. A second wandered Visions of newspaper headlines around towards the rear of the house out of his flashed before his eyes. He saw them as if sight, a third bent over a rosebush, apparently they were reality and not figments of his examining the beauty of the flowers. The fevered brain:

  fourth was not in sight.

  Wade, Morris’ butler, knocked on the CARTER MORRIS, FINANCIER

  door of the study, entered. If he noted Morris’

  AND FLOWER FANCIER

  terror-stricken condition he made no sign.

  ARRESTED BY D. A.’s OFFICE

  “A gentleman to see you, sir,” his dry

  ----

  voice said. “Says it’s important.”

  Reported Moving Spirit Behind

  Morris choked before he replied. “Tell Huge Texas Oil Swindle

  him to wait! I’ll see him in a moment.”

  ----

  Wade withdrew. Morris pounded the

  MILLIONS LOST BY INVESTORS

  desk with clenched fists.

  “Caught!” He mouthed the word.

  Morris’ breath choked him, sweat made his No use trying to get away. The man

  hands and face clammy. In an effort to divert who had gone around to the back would block his mind from the subject, he swept the lawns that exit. There was no other way out of the and gardens with a swift glance. Everywhere house except the front and back doors. The was a riot of color. Hundreds of rosebushes windows! No, they’d spot him for sure, one of clustered around the lawn. Roses he had them. Bluff it out! He didn’t have the nerve.

  trained and watched, treated and experimented He

  glared

  wildly around the room. A

  with. Roses of every color under the sun, short barking laugh bubbled from his lips.

  cross-strains he had grown by himself. Roses There was one way out—

  he loved—his hobby.

  Morris tore his gaze from their beauty

  “MR. MORRIS will see you in a moment,

  Popular Detective 3

  sir,” said Wade to the man at the door.

  in his right hand.

  “Sure! Just wanted to—”

  “Mr. Morris!” cried Wade.

  The words were cut short by a

  The other man whistled. “Whew! this crackling shot from the study. Both men looks like a case for the coroner. My business plunged into the room. Wade jerked back with will have to wait. I’m from the Department of a cry.

  Agriculture. We wanted a few roots of that Carter Morris sat at his desk, his head Blue Giant rose he developed recently.

  on the blotter. A thin trickle of blood seeped Wanted them for the President’s garden at the from a hole in his right temple, staining the White House. But I guess that’ll have to blotter; smoke floated from the gun clenched wait—now.”

 

 

  Monte Herridge, Wanted by the D

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