A Cutting Clue By Joe Archibald; Secret Agent X February 1936 Read online

  Secret Agent X, February, 1936

  A Cutting Clue

  By Joe Archibald

  HE little up-State mill town was in a

  specimen was thereafter stamped on his brain furor when Big Ed Horrigan drove his

  as if stenciled.

  T mud-bespattered roadster into the main Now he walked up to the man who had street. The small movie house had disgorged drawn his eye. It was a small, hatchet-faced its hundred or more customers and all of them individual with a sagging lower lip. His were running toward the mill that squatted features bore an unhealthy tint.

  close to a bridge at the end of the street. Men

  “Hello, Lippy,” Horrigan grinned.

  were shouting. Groups gathered and their “When did you git out?”

  voices blended in a raucous olio as Horrigan

  “Coupla weeks ago,” the ex-con

  got out of his car. He had driven far that day, replied. “Look here, flatfoot, just because this one hundred and fifty miles from the lake happened an’ I happen to be here, you can’t—

  where he had been on a fishing jaunt. It was

  ”

  late and Big Ed was very tired, but the Wordlessly the detective shoved Lippy

  weariness seemed to fall away from his broad to the fringe of the crowd. Then he spoke.

  shoulders like a discarded cloak as he shot a

  “It’s funny, though, Lippy. When you find a question at a white-faced native.

  weasel close to a dead hen, it makes you a

  “Mill safe was cracked,” the man mite suspicious. What’re you doin’ in this replied. “Somebody killed the watchman.”

  town?”

  “Yeah?” Horrigan’s comment was

  “I got to be some place, ain’t I?” Lippy short. He hurried down the street. At the mill Crowe snarled. “I was on my way west. I he singled out three of the local police. thought I’d git off here an’ git some dough Hurriedly he identified himself and was together to take me further.”

  immediately shown into the office where the

  “Did you get enough, Lippy?”

  dead man lay. A cursory hunt revealed Horrigan smirked. “Come on, where were you nothing that would even suggest a clue.

  while this guy was bein’ bumped off?”

  “Tomorrow’s payday,” someone said.

  “Where everybody else was in this

  “They kept about four thousand in the safe.”

  hick joint—at the movies, Horrigan.”

  “Yeah?” mumbled the detective,

  “Oh, yeah? Where you stayin’,

  jamming a big black cigar between his teeth.

  Lippy?”

  “A lot of cheese to some rats, four thousand.”

  “At the hotel. Ya want to know my old

  He shrugged his shoulders and went out into man’s name an’ where I went to school?”

  the gaping crowd.

  sneered the crook. “Ya ain’t tackin’ this job onto me. I just got out. Why would I take a HORRIGAN was halfway through when he

  chance? I’m goin’ straight. I stopped off to git stopped dead still. One face drew his prying a job here.”

  eyes. That face seemed to blanch momentarily

  “Come on, Lippy,” grinned Horrigan.

  as the detective’s eyes held. It was said of Big

  “Let’s walk around a bit. How was the

  Ed Horrigan that once he had studied a face in movie?”

  a lineup, that particular physiognomic

  “It was a riot,” the ex-convict assured

  Secret Agent X

  2

  him. “I been waitin’ to see that pitcher. Heard guess ya have to be tough sometimes. Well about it in the can. That guy Gable was a pip.

  s’long, Horrigan.”

  No wonder they give the pitcher a prize ratin’

  .... Hah, when he was hitch-hikin’ an’ this BIG ED waved a big hand briefly. Brows

  dame, Claudette Colbert .... D’ya see it, knitted, he watched Lippy Crowe until the Horrigan?”

  crook disappeared in the hotel up the street.

  “Who ain’t?” retorted the detective, Horrigan walked up the street himself, then, still grinning. “Go on, Lippy, tell me more.”

  and went into an alley leading to the rear of

  “It’s the last part that’s the payoff,”

  the small hostelry. He looked up at the Lippy Crowe went on. “They git in that windows. No fire escapes there. He came out roadside cabin an’ the hick that runs it hands of the alley and went into the hotel. Several Gable a bugle. Gabriel’s horn knockin’ the men lolled in chairs discussing the murder and wall down. Ya see before they got spliced they robbery. Horrigan went to the desk.

  kep’ a blanket up between the cots. It sure was To the clerk he said: “See a guy just

  a panic, Horrigan.”

  come in and go upstairs? A little guy in a blue

  “Y-yeah,” drawled the detective. “I suit with white stripes in it?”

  saw the picture. Lippy, step in the doorway

  “Yeah. Took his key. Name’s

  here a minute.”

  Brownell.”

  “Huh?”

  “Lippy would do that,” Horrigan

  “You heard me.” Horrigan said grimly.

  muttered.

  “I’m lookin’ you over.”

  “Hah?” the clerk leaned forward.

  “Yeah? Go ahead, flatfoot. Never give

  “Oh, nothin’,” and Big Ed sauntered

  a guy a chance, do ya? Once a crook—”

  away. Near the door he stopped short. A

  “Ya see I know you, Lippy.” Big Ed

  conversation nearby interested him.

  smirked. He emptied the crook’s pockets,

  “That’s the trouble,” a man was

  found nothing incriminating. There was one saying. He looked like a salesman. “You’ve little piece of pasteboard in Lippy’s vest got to see the good pictures before they get to pocket, however, that drew a second glance the sticks. They cut hell out of ’em when they from the detective.

  get to towns like this. Afraid of the

  “Nothin’ to pin on you,” he growled,

  mossbacks. The morals of the community—”

  “but it’s damn’ funny you bein’ here, Lippy.

  “You’re right. That part where the

  There’s four thousand bucks missing and a blanket drops down—they cut it out. An’ they guy ready for the undertaker. It sounds like left out that scene where they were in the you.”

  cabin the first time— y’know where Gable

  “I told ya I was here after a job,” the starts undressing. They killed the good parts.”

  crook repeated. “Now ya’ve queered that, if

  “I saw it in New York,” the salesman

  they heard ya talkin’ to me. Damn ya, went on. “It was a riot there.”

  Horrigan!”

  Horrigan crossed the lobby fast. “What

  “Now, Lippy,” Big Ed purred, “you

  room is this Brownell in?” he asked the desk got me all wrong. I’m through with you. I just clerk.

  wanted to make sure. It’s my business. Just

  “Thirty.”

  like a plumber if he spots a leak in a pipe. He Horrigan went upstairs to the second

  has to see if it can be fixed. Beat it now, floor. A light gleamed under the door of Room Lippy.”

  30. He knocked.

  “Gee, t’anks,” grinned the other. “I

  “Who is it?” a voice cracked.

  A Cutting Clue

  3

  “Open up, Lippy,” Big Ed replied.

  carpeted stairs to the second floor. He spotted

  “Okay. Just a sec.”

  Room 71 and rapped on the door.

  The door swung open. Lippy Crowe

  “Yeah—wait a minute,” the occupant

  eyed Horrigan warily as the dick passed in.

  rasped. “That you, Gimp?”

  “Thought I’d stay over, too,” the “Uh—huh!”

  detective began. “But I don’t like this shack.

  The door opened. Lippy Crowe

  Looks as if it might crawl away in the night.

  stepped back fast, reached for a gun. Ed Got a drink? I need one. I’m drivin’ through.”

  Horrigan’s fist drove him clear across the

  “Sure,” Lippy said. “Here y’are, room. He grabbed up Lippy’s gun and grinned Horrigan. An’ it ain’t cut like the stuff I used down at the prostrate man. His eyes shifted to to handle for Carrone a couple of years back.”

  the suitcase on the table. It was open. Inside Big Ed saw that the crook was were three bundles of bills.

  unquestionably ready for bed. Lippy looked

  “Ya damn—” the crook choked

  tired and seemed to have been under a strain.

  wrathfully. “Ya got—”

  “Thanks,” he said and went out.

  “Sure,” Big Ed said easily. “Ya told

  “Maybe I’ll see you again.”

  me a lie, Lippy. You weren’t at that movie.

  “Yeah,” and Lippy grinned The scenes you told me about weren’t in it.

  expansively.

  They were cut out, Lippy. So you did
see that picture before. You spotted that mill town, LATE the next afternoon a big man with a found out what pictures was playin’ there. It cigar stub jutting out from one corner of his would be a swell alibi. In case you needed one mouth leaned against a post in the railroad you could tell everything that Gable and terminal at Utica. Big Ed Horrigan had been Colbert did. Ha, that was a slip. But I had to closely watching a stream of humanity for two get you right, Lippy. I figured you had that hours. Finally he spotted a little man garbed in dough hidden. You could leave town without a blue suit with white pin stripes. He carried a it if I stuck around and you’d go back some battered suitcase.

  day.”

  “Well, well,” grinned the detective.

  “Lousy flatfoot!” raved Lippy Crowe.

  “It’s Lippy.”

  “How did ya know I was comin’ here?”

  He watched the crook get into a cab

  “When I looked over your pockets last

  outside, then he hurried to another one that night in that town, I spotted a little bit of was pulling up to occupy the vacated space.

  pasteboard, a return ticket to Utica. It’s

  “Follow that bus an’ don’t lose it,” he cheaper buyin’ ’em that way. But it cost you ordered the driver. “Police business. When plenty, Lippy. Well, stick out your paws for you see it stop, you stop.”

  the bracelets. It’s a murder rap this time.”

  Lippy Crowe stepped from the cab in

  “Listen Horrigan,” the murderer

  front of a decrepit looking hotel on the south pleaded, grovelling now, “it wasn’t murder.”

  side of the city. He paid his fare, then hustled The old guy grabbed me an’ we fought for his into the doubtful sanctuary.

  gat. It went off. Listen, Horrigan, I’m tellin’

  Five minutes later Big Ed Horrigan

  ya—”

  sauntered into the hotel.

  “Yeah. Ya told me about the picture—

  “What room did the guy take who just

  too. Don’t ever go to pictures that’ve been went upstairs?” he asked the frowsy clerk.

  cut,” grinned Big Ed Horrigan as he led the

  “Seventy-one.”

  prisoner out, “like that booze you used to The metropolitan dick ran up the dirty

  peddle a couple of years back.”

  Secret Agent X, February, 1936

 

 

  Monte Herridge, A Cutting Clue By Joe Archibald; Secret Agent X, February, 1936

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