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| Into Clem's truck went a ton of gold and silver coin! Occasionally a motorcycle cop guarded them for a few miles. |
The pay car was built of solid steel- but no inventor has ever armored the human soul!
A TON of Temptation
by DONALD BARR CHIDSEY
Illustrations by Fred Mizen
THERE was about a ton of it, gold coin and silver coin, but mostly gold, in gray canvas bags. Loading it into one armored car was no easy task, but Clem Arthur and Wesley Hill didn't have to do this. All they had to do was stand there with their revolvers unholstered, according to the Tri-State's regulations, witnessing the job.
"Lot of jack, Wess."
Wesley Hill grunted.
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The pistol crashed-crashed again.
Clem knew, as he threw himself upon the gangster,
that Wess had been shot-shot at close quarters!
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They signed a series of complicated receipts, and then they locked themselves inside the car. Except in case of emergency, they were not supposed to get out of that car until they had reached the first of the seven Philadelphia banks for which this treasure was destined. Clem Arthur drove. Wess Hill, silent beside him, handled the cash and ticket at the Holland Tunnel. Afterward Wess shut his window. It was supposed to stay shut and locked, like Clem's, for the rest of the trip.
You had to be careful with half a million dollars in gold and silver these days. You never knew.
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| "This guy's no more out of the picture than I am," Andy told the fat man. He took a knife from his pocket. No sense taking any chances." |
"There's our bodyguards," Clem said, nodding at the mirror.
Wess Hill and Clem Arthur had delivered many millions of dollars in this car, and though they seldom were sent out of New York City, they knew that whenever they carried an exceptionally rich load the company sent detectives after them. They didn't know who these detectives were-weren't even supposed to know that they were there-and they didn't care, usually.
After all, in spite of the steel and shatterproof glass which enclosed these two men-it was mostly steel-and in spite of the fact that each was an expert driver, there might be an accident. And if there was an accident, and Clem and Wess were knocked out, the Tri-State didn't wish to have half a million cash in an unguarded car.
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| When Clem came to, the boss himself was grinning at him! continued on page 140 |
"What's the matter with you today, anyway?" "What do you mean, what's the matter?"
"You sick or something? You haven't said a word since we started. There's nothing wrong with the kid, is there?"
Wesley Hill answered slowly, harshly: "No. The kid's all right."
The voice was so strange that Clem glanced with real alarm at his companion. This wasn't like Wess Hill. On most trips you couldn't get Wess to shut up about that kid of his. A domestic scrap? Clem didn't think so. He knew Mrs. Hill and Wesley Junior, too. They constituted the happiest family of his acquaintance.
"There's nothing wrong at all," Wess said in a low, strained voice. "What's biting you, anyway? All you got to do is keep driving."
"Okay. I just wondered, that's all." They moved along at about thirty-five miles an hour. Pleasure cars and light trucks zizzed past them. They were somewhere near Princeton when Clem Arthur, glancing again at the mirror, observed a minor accident.
"Somebody scraped our bodyguards' ender back there. Funny thing to happen on a big highway like this. Maybe we'd better take it easy. Looks as though the roadster had to stop awhile."
Wess Hill leaned close to him. Wess had snicked his revolver from its holster, and he thrust this against Clem Arthur's ribs. He took Clem's revolver. "Don't slow up. Keep right on going."
Clem cried: "Hey, take that thing away! Maybe you think that's funny, Wess, but I don't!"
"No, I don't think it's funny. And you won't, either, if you don't do what I tell you to."
Quiet, jovial Wess Hill, Clem's friend for years, as good-natured and reliable a man as ever breathed! It just wasn't possible! For all the pressure of the gun's muzzle, Clem Arthur wasn't frightened: he was only dumfounded.
"Have you gone nuts? You can't do a thing like this!"
"Edge over to the middle. We're going to make a left turn as soon as we get past this second bend, but don't touch that signal jigger."
The highway curved right, then left. This was rolling countryside, but the highway was like any city street for traffic. Cars whirred along constantly.
"If I didn't know you never touched the stuff, Wess, I'd think-"
"Shut up! Turn left across the other lane."
It was unbelievable! Under any other circumstances, Clem Arthur would have supposed the whole thing a joke, though a poor one. As it was, not the pistol in his friend's hand but the sound of his friend's voice made Clem realize that Wesley Hill was in earnest.
"Into that gas station. Swing around back of the nearest van."
The only cars at the gasoline station were two enormous moving vans. These were side by side, but the one drawn up at the inner row of pumps was some twenty feet in advance of its companion: its rear wheels were near the front wheels of the other van.
"Easy here," Wess Hill said. "Put her in second."
When Clem drove around behind the outside van, the armored car was out of sight of anybody on the highway. The whole back of the inside van had been lowered. It was no ordinary back. It was built of heavy timbers and cleated so that it formed a runway, a gangplank.
"Right on up."
"Wess, do you know what you're doing?"
"Up!" The gun dug into Clem's side. "If you don't drive up there, and do it right off, you're dead. I mean that, Clem."
Clem shifted gears. He rushed the engine. He kicked up underneath the dashboard in the hope of creating a temporary short and causing a few back- fires, which might attract attention; but he got nothing. He started up the in- cline.
All this had happened very quickly. Clem had not had a chance to look around, but his impression was that there was nobody else in sight; the gas station seemed deserted. Dozens of motorists might have seen an armored truck turn into a service station arid disappear behind a van, but of these dozens it was unlikely that even one would think there was anything extraordinary about this.
The lowered back of the van held firm under the strain. The car's tires gripped the cleats, and the car climbed slowly, tanklike, bellowing a protest in vain. Darkness enfolded it. The gangway went up, behind, with a creaking of rope, a clatter of chains-and the darkness was complete.
But Clem Arthur wasn't thinking of this. All Clem was thinking of in that black moment was the fact that his friend Wess Hill had gone mad. Even a whole ton of gold and silver, a ton of temptation, Clem was certain, would not be enough to make Wess Hill a crook. Wess had simply become insane. There could be no other explanation.
The truck started to move. It had been pointed north, toward New York. A spear of light from an electric torch sprang up at the window at Clem's elbow; the beam caught his face, blind- ing him.
He felt Wess Hill lean over him, un- lock the door at his side.
"Get out. These fellows promised they wouldn't hurt you."
"Wess, I don't want to sound like some sob song, but have you stopped to think about Elsie and Junior?"
"Never mind about Elsie and Junior! I know what I'm doing! Get out."
"You're certain to get caught. Man, you can't highjack an armored car! Don't you realize that--"
"Get out, before somebody starts shooting!"
Clem got out. There was room-a good eighteen inches between the outside of the armored car and the inside of the van. Clem stepped down, blinking in the bright light. He tried to see something beyond the light. The van was rumbling along steadily now, obviously on the highway: Clem could hear the high song of automobile engines, the unceasing whir of tires, on the left.
He started to say to the man who held the light, the man he couldn't even see: "If you guys think you can-" .
Something struck him just above the right ear. His head began to sing with the automobile engines. He yelled, tried to turn, ducking. There wasn't room.
A second blow missed his head, struck his right shoulder. Now he could see, dimly, the man who was attacking him. He saw this man raise a clubbed pistol. Clem grabbed the gun hand, lurched forward, butted the man. They fell together in the narrow space, Clem chopping hard, short rights to the man's face.
The flashlight, behind him now, sprang suddenly toward the ceiling. Clem knew what was going to happen. He was about to be hit by the flashlight itself. He knew this-but he couldn't wriggle away in time to escape the blow.
It didn't hurt. It felt like a. piece of cold steel pressed firmly against the top of his skull. He yelled something, or tried to yell.
The first thing he was conscious of was the fact that he couldn't open his mouth. He seemed to be stifling, still out of breath but unable to pant. His head seemed filled with hot blood which pounded mercilessly at his temples.
When he raised his hands to learn what was the matter with his mouth, he found his wrists tied together. They weren't firmly tied. A hasty job, with four or five turns of strong cord. His mouth, his hands told him, was plastered with broad tape. It hurt like hell. His head hurt, too.
Clem moved his legs. They were not bound.
He estimated that he was about halfway down the truck, against the left wall. There was a slit of light near his head, and through this he was able to see a tiny strip of pavement. Car shadows flipped jerkily past.
Perhaps this wasn't such a wild stunt, after all. Clem was beginning to understand it. The blue roadster had been fouled just before the S-turn was to be reached, and the detectives had been delayed for a short time. When they hurried on, they would discover that the car they should be trailing was out of sight. They would make inquiries, of course, but it was not likely that they would learn much at first.
The service station had been well picked, for no other establishment was near it, and no house. The armored car had turned in, had been lost behind a huge moving van; and a moment later two moving vans had started toward New York. Who would be there to notice that the armored car was no longer in sight, and draw the natural conclusion? Nobody. The proprietor of the gas station presumably was a member of the gang, or in the gang's pay. Clem caught a glint of the flashlight from the other side of the van. He heard Wess Hill's voice, strained and low, desperate.
"You said you wouldn't hurt him! You said you-"
"Take it easy, guy! He's all right."
"Let me out of this-both of us! You said you would! And stop and phone to them to let Junior free. I did what I said, didn't I? I didn't tell the cops, and I made my friend drive into this thing, didn't I?"
"Plenty of time, buddy. Nobody going to get hurt. Your kid's safe. We'll stop and put in the call soon. Don't get all excited."
"Excited! If your son had been snatched by a gang of-"
"Pipe down, now, or you'll get some of what your boy friend got! We'll phone as soon as we get off the main highway."
All this Clem heard above the sound of automobiles outside, above the rumble of the truck. He was able at last to understand.
"Damn you! Damn you! You make that phone call or else-"
There was a scuffle of feet, a grunt, the thud-thud of blows. Somebody gasped: "Say, have you-" Then a terrific explosion.
At the sound of the struggle Clem Arthur had tried to rise to his feet. Now he lay still. It was the hardest thing he ever did, but he could be of no help to his friend now. Previously, it had seemed noisy in the truck; but it seemed silent after that explosion.
Somebody whispered: "Hey, what'd you want to do that for? You could have just slugged him, couldn't you?"
"Well, it had to be done sooner or later, anyway."
"I know; but you could at least stall him till we got to some quiet place. Suppose somebody heard that outside?"
"Backfire. Bet you fifty bucks nobody thought a thing of it."
And apparently nobody did. The busy unseen traffic hummed on, uninterested.
Somebody sidled around to Clem, played the flashlight's beam upon him for a moment. He kept his eyes closed. The man slipped away.
For more hours than he could count, Clem Arthur had played pinochle with Wesley Hill. He'd had dinner at the Hill apartment so many times! He had played with Junior. Why, the lice! It wasn't bad enough that they should go out to steal and kill: they had to pull a snatch job first; grab that swell kid from poor Elsie Hill, and torture Wess into being a crook! Wess Hill, as good a guy and as honest a guy as ever lived!
Clem didn't know how many men there were in the truck, in the gang. But if he'd been free, with any semblance of a fighting chance, he would gladly have tackled them all at once. The lice! The dirty lice!
But a corpse wasn't going to do Wess Hill any good, or Wesley Junior, or Elsie. And a corpse he'd be, Clem knew, if he showed resistance. For all his rage, he clung in agony to common sense. He didn't stir, and he made no sound. His time would come yet.
With his bound hands he could have worked the tape off his mouth. But what good would that do? If a shot was ignored on this busy highway, would a yell bring help? No. A yell would bring nothing but a second shot.
The strip of light in the floor gave him an idea. It was within reach of his hands. He started pulling buttons off his coat. They were sewed firmly on the whipcord, but he tore off three of them. Two he held in his right hand, one in his left. He had started to tug at a fourth when he felt the van turning.
It was turning right. Assuming that he had not been unconscious for more than a few moments, they now were probably headed for the neighborhood of Freehold. This was a rough guess, but Clem had been sure that the gang would not keep to the big highway very long. Be stuffed a button through the crack, then another, and the third.
He couldn't see where they fell. It was a wild chance, at best. Each button bore the insignia of the Tri-State Armored Transportation Company.
Clem tugged off a fourth button; a fifth. The van was trundling along a pavement not quite so smooth, and the sound of automobile engines was not so persistent as before. Occasionally a car passed. This would be, Clem guessed, some secondary highway. About fifteen minutes later, the truck made another right turn and began to move, more slowly, along a dirt road.
At the turn Clem Arthur had squeezed the fourth and fifth buttons through the crack.
Almost immediately they reached their destination.
One of the men went to the side door, opened it an inch or so, listened for a time. He returned, shaking his head.
"Motorcycles again. Out there on the macadam road. That's the fourth time they've been past here. Do you suppose they're just covering every road they can think of, trying to look busy?"
He sat on the running board of a black sedan. He was a tiny man, dark and hard, just now very nervous. The strain, in fact, was telling on all of them. They'd been hiding in this remote barn since eleven o'clock, and now it was almost six.
The fat man dealt himself another hand of solitaire, pretending to be untroubled. "Maybe it was just ordinary motorcycles, Andy. Don't know why they should be fanning this part of the country, particularly."
Somebody called to the man in the loft: "That cops, Herb?"
The man in the loft called back that it had been cops. Two troopers, going hell-bent toward U. S. Number One.
"Ain’t losing your nerve, are you, Andy?" the fat man asked.
"My nerve's all right!" the dark man retorted. "I just don't like all this waiting, that's all."
"Won't be much longer. We got to wait till it's dark." The fat man pushed the cards together, shuffled and dealt another hand. "Then we get rid of these two soldier-boys, and we take the cars out to the shore road and just go along as though nothing had happened. We want to wait for Ed to come back first, though."
"Anyway," Andy said, "I wish those cops would stop going back and forth with their damn motorcycles!"
Somebody from the shadows near the place where Clem Arthur was lying called: "There's that plane again!"
Heads were lifted. There were five men in the barn, counting Herb in the loft, but not counting Wess Hill and Clem. Wess had recovered consciousness, had tried to fight, but they'd kicked him and gagged him and tied his arms. Clem hadn't moved. He was not certain that they believed him unconscious, but he still thought silence his best policy.
"Yeah, airplanes, too," Andy muttered. "They got airplanes looking for us! Flying low!"
"What of it?" The fat man returned to his game. "That's not going to get them anywheres."
"Suppose somebody saw the trucks at that gas station."
"Nobody did. There wasn't anybody around, and you know it. The place hasn't even been open for more than a week. And as far as anybody seeing us turn in here is concerned, that's absolutely out. You were watching at the time, weren't you?"
The barn was very big and very old. What little light there was came through cracks in the walls, and this was growing dimmer as night crept in. The fat man was seated near one of the biggest cracks, at the front of the barn. In back was the moving van. The armored car was still inside the van, but empty. The coin had been transferred to three black cars near the high, rickety barn doors. Two of these were sedans, with black curtains drawn. The third was an undertaker's hearse containing a handsome coffin, filled just now with bags of silver and of gold.
That hearse Clem Arthur faced, and it was no pleasant sight. Clem was stiff, and his muscles shrieked at him, pleading for movement; but he continued his dead-play. After a long, silent struggle, he had slipped the cords off his sweaty wrists, over his sweaty hands. His mouth still was covered by tape.
A couple of yards away was Wesley Hill, bound hand and foot, and gagged. He hadn't stirred or groaned for more than an hour. His gray uniform was stained brownish-red at the left shoulder. Possibly he had fainted from pain. Or was he dead? Clem preferred not to think about it.
Clem had memorized the name of the undertaker and the address in Red Bank, from the plate on the side of the hearse. He had been able to study, though surreptitiously, the faces of at least four of the five gunmen.
He wasn't fooling himself. It just was not human if these rats permitted him to go on living, after what he had seen. He could not understand why he had been spared as long as this.
Andy looked over at him suddenly. Clem's eyes were partly open, and he did not make the mistake of squeezing them shut when Andy looked. It was dim enough where he lay, he hoped, to deceive the gangster.
But Andy got up, walked over to him. "You know," Andy said, "I've thought all along this guy was pulling an act on us. He's no more out of the picture than I am."
Somebody near the truck drawled: "If you ask me, both those guys have been breathing too damn long. What if we should have to get out of here in a hurry huh?"
"I don't want any more shooting," the fat man said, He picked up his cards, stuffed them into a pocket. "We got to wait till Ed brings that silencer. Anybody going by on the road up there could hear a shot. And it wouldn't sound like a backfire either, coming from here."
Andy hadn't taken his gaze from Clem's face. "There don't need to be any shooting," Andy said softly. "There's other ways, ain't there?"
He took a jackknife from his hip pocket. He pressed a button, and a long bright blade sprang into sight. He fingered it.
"No sense taking any chances," said Andy.
He leaned closer, holding the knife point up. Clem could see him from under lowered lids. It was act now-or be sliced.
Clem was lying on his left side, and his hands and wrists were hidden under a piece of burlap sacking, so that Andy couldn't see that the cord had been slipped. Everything depended upon surprise. . . But involuntarily, as that knife came closer, Clem's muscles twitched.
"Oh, so you were kidding us, huh?"
From the loft Herb whispered urgently:
"Somebody turning into this road! One guy! Walking!"
Andy straightened. He shifted the knife to his left hand, and with his right snaked out an automatic. He moved toward the front doors. The fat man had a gun in each hand. He went to the side door. The other two men started to open the doors of the black sedans, and one lugged a submachine gun from the driver's seat of the hearse.
Herb's whisper was tense, vibrant, very low: "He's coming right this way."
But a moment later he said, louder: "It's Ed! He's coming to the side door."
There were three knocks, then one knock, then four knocks. There was a low, peculiar whistle. The fat man put his guns away, and opened the door.
"What's the word?"
Clem Arthur couldn't see Ed, but he could hear his report.
"I left the other truck in Elizabeth, in some side street. Wiped the steering wheel off good first. Then I took a bus to New Brunswick, and I came here partly walking and partly picking up rides. Everything okay?"
"You telephone New York to let that Hill kid loose?"
"No. Should I have?"
"Sure you should! I told you that! We don't want to be hanging onto a snatched kid that might get us in a lot of trouble, do we? He's not a damn bit of good to us now, is he? Go back up to the highway and make the call from some stand or something, and then take your time getting to Red Bank. Don't come back. We'll be clearing out soon."
"The highway's lousy with cops. Just raining cops."
"Well, it won't rain here. Listen. You got that silencer with you?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Well, hand it over. We need it. Now, beat it and make that call."
The door was closed. The fat man turned toward the hearse; he handed Andy a Luger and a silencer attachment.
"This is better, huh?"
Andy took it, shrugged. "Allee-samee. Saves getting blood on you, that's all. Do we go?"
"We go." The fat man called up to Herb: "You get up to the end of the lane there, Herb, and make sure everything's jake. We'll come quiet, with no lights, until we hit the pavement. If anything looks funny, whistle. The last car'll pick you up."
Herb came down the ladder, scurried out the side door. The place was getting darker, and Clem could scarcely make out the figures of the men. He heard a self-starter, then another. Somebody started to open the doors.
"Sure, it's allee-same to me. You set, soldier-boy?"
Andy was fitting the friction coupling onto the Luger's muzzle. He held it at arm's length, pushing on the coupling.
"Maybe you'd like to have this done to music? Trouble is we-"
Wesley Hill rolled suddenly, kicked out with his bound feet. The feet struck Andy's knees. Andy, amazed, took one step back, swung the pistol toward Wess.
The silencer, not securely fastened, fell off. The Luger crashed, crashed again.
Clem Arthur was on his feet by the time the explosions came. But his long-cramped legs and arms wouldn't obey him promptly. He knew, as he threw himself upon Andy with a little sob, that Wess Hill had been shot -shot at close quarters, too close for anybody to miss.
He got a grip on the Luger, and swung his right fist into Andy's face. The blow spun Andy half around. Clem hit again, and Andy went limp.
The Luger clattered to the floor. Clem fell on it, grabbed it, dived underneath the truck as the fat man started shooting. The noise was terrific.
Safe for an instant, Clem wriggled quickly to the front of the van. He peered out from behind one of the front wheels. One man was swinging open the barn doors. The fat man was clambering into the driver's seat of the hearse, and swearing wildly all the time. The other man stood in the center of the floor, the sub-machine gun at his hip.
This man saw Clem almost as soon as Clem saw him. Almost as soon -not quite. The machine gun, swinging around, spattered three times as the Luger kicked furiously in Clem's hand. The man ran backward with fast little steps, as though trying to regain his balance, but when he struck the wall near Wess Hill he pitched forward upon his face; and thereafter, though he still clutched the gun, he was silent, motionless.
The doors were open now. The hearse started out-for the fat man had lost his head and wasn't going to wait for anybody. Clem snapped a shot after the hearse, hoping to puncture the tank. It did not stop the hearse, but it told the remaining gangster where Clem was.
It seemed to Clem that a bomb had been touched off by his side. He didn't lose consciousness for an instant, though he was sure he had been hit. Later, he was to learn that the "bomb" was a blowout. One of the gangster's bullets had struck the huge truck tire at Clem's very elbow. It knocked Clem flat on his back, ripped his uniform, pounded all hearing from his ears.
He tried to get to his knees-and struck his head. He squirmed a little, came from under the truck in time to see the gangster start out of the barn in one of the black sedans.
Clem staggered outside. The hearse was roaring toward the highway near by. But Herb came running from that direction, waving his arms, shouting something. The fat man, utterly panicstricken, paid him no attention. But the man behind the wheel of the sedan, thinking quickly, spun that wheel the other way, and the sedan started bumping deeper down the narrow dirt road.
Clem stood in the center of that road. He held himself erect with a terrible effort, keeping his right arm stiff in front of him. As well as he could, he aimed the Luger. He squeezed four times, and the gun kicked as though it were trying to knock him backward. It might have spared itself the trouble. After the fourth shot Clem saw nothing and knew nothing. The road swirled around and around; the road struck his knees, knocked him sideways; the road struck the side of his head.
The house doctor was young and conscientious. All right, he said. Five minutes, but no more. And they must do the talking, not the patient. They understood that, didn't they?
The boss said sure they understood it.
"How do you feel, boy? No, don't answer! I suppose you're just sort of numb, eh?"
Clem tried to nod. The boss was right. Clem felt nothing at all. The only parts of his body he really was aware of were his ears, which rang and rang.
"You're all right." The boss sat down. "All that's the matter is a broken shoulder blade and a hole in your right groin and plenty of bruises. Nothing serious.
"Here's what happened. Somebody crashed into the car of the detectives who were trailing you, and when they went on after you they couldn't find you. So they went to a gas station and started telephoning in all directions.
"Within fifteen minutes we had six cars filled with private dicks tearing through the Holland Tunnel; the alarm was going out over both teletype circuits; the tunnel police and all the ferry and bridge spotters were notified; Newark was sending it out over their radio, and I guess just about every trooper in the state was on the job. A little while after that we had two private planes busy. And the troopers had another plane.
"Trouble is, we were all looking for an armored car. It was a little after eleven when the alarm came, but it was almost one by the time we pieced out what had happened. The Hoboken cops located a driver at the Lackawanna Ferry who had been going past that gas station near Princeton, and he'd seen the two trucks and seen you and Wess turn in.
"The reason he remembered it was because he'd stopped at that place himself a few days before and found it closed up. When he saw you and the moving vans he thought the place must be open again. Well, we went there and it wasn't. It's still closed. The owner went into bankruptcy last week.
"So then we started looking for the moving vans. We found one of them abandoned in Elizabeth, but that didn't help much. The reason we began to concentrate around Freehold was because of the button you dropped at the edge of the super-highway, where that other road turns off. There's a traffic light there, and a guy who sells ice cream to the people in the cars that are held up when it's red-he'd seen it fall out.
"He'd picked it up, and looked at it, and chucked it away again. But a little after three, when one of the insurance detectives got to asking this guy questions, he remembered that; and they looked for it and found it again. We figured it might have been meant for a tip. It was, wasn't it?"
Clem nodded. He was worried about Wess Hill, and wished he could talk. But the boss rattled on.
"So that gave us a general notion of where to search. We had troopers buzzing back and forth on motorcycles, and meanwhile we were going through every building that looked as if it was big enough to hide a truck that size in. At that, they'd have got away if it hadn't been for the shooting. A couple of troopers happened to be driving past when that started. It would've been another half-hour before we'd have got that far."
The boss paused. He glanced back at the three men who had come with him.
"You boys could step out in the hall a minute, Couldn't you?" the boss asked. And when they were gone, the boss leaned close to Clem. "What I really want to know is this: If everything was shut up according to regulations, how come you had to drive up into that van?"
Clem had been prepared for the question. He wet his lips. "I-I left the window open-my side. A guy jumped on the running board with a gun-and Wess and I never had a-"
The boss smiled and shook his head. "It's a nice lie, Arthur, but-no, no!"
"No, I mean that! Honestly! Wess never had a chance!"
"Sh-sh! Don't get all worked up. As far as I'm concerned, you can stick to that story-only make it Wess' window instead of yours. But it happens Wess wasn't quite dead when we got to that barn. He lived long enough to tell me about it. Nobody else-just me."
Clem looked at the ceiling. He was thinking of Elsie Hill and the kid. Wess' insurance, the company insurance on his life, wouldn't be paid, now that the company knew the truth.
"Wess Hill was a good man," the boss said quietly, "and any father would go off his nut under those circumstances. The kid's safe, by the way. They picked him up near his home a few hours ago.
"But listen: A minor violation like leaving the window open for a moment wouldn't be enough to nullify Wess Hill's insurance. It-it isn't right, Arthur. And you can use your own judgment. But I know Elsie Hill, too, and I like her the same way you do, and maybe-"
Clem gasped: "A man jumped up on the running board with a gun."
"Why not?" said the boss. "The company can afford it. And you or I would have done the same thing Wess did."
The house doctor was back, fussing.
"All right. I'll go." The boss got up. He fished a shiny brass button from his pocket. "So here's the thing I was just telling you about," he said, loud enough for the men in the hall to hear. "If you ask me, you ought to have it mounted in platinum, too! Well, I'll be seeing you, Arthur. I'll tell these newspaper reporters out here what you said, "?huh
"That's right. A man jumped-jumped on-running board."
"Come, come, Mr. Arthur! I can't have you straining yourself!" "Okay," Clem said softly.
And he sighed and closed his eyes and went back to sleep, smiling.
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