Evening star. [volume], July 21, 1940, Page 5, Image 75

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Borough Hall, across the street. She found
the booths. On one hung a sign: Out of Order.
The other bulged with Bill Reardon.
She hoped he would hurry. She had only ten
minutes to make the postscript lift with her
few bits of news. Bill had an alarming stack
of notes and talked endlessly. By the time he
hung up, the edition deadline had passed.
“Too bad you had to wait.” he said, “but
I picked up a lot of stuff. Where’ve you been
the last half-hour?” He listened to her expla
nation about giving the boys a lift. “You're
wasted as a reporter,” he snorted. “You ought
to get a job as a relief expedition.”
She entered the booth, called the Express.
Her rewrite man grumbled, "You better get
on your toes, kid. This Reardon sent in nearly
a column. He covers a story like poison gas.
Dan wanted to hold up his stuff so he’d miss
the edition, but the louse dictated the story
and made Dan send it up in takes.”
"I'm glad he did! I don’t want to beat him
unfairly.”
“Anything you say, Holly. What’ve you
got?” He took a few notes and then shouted,
"You haven't got anything! It’s lucky that
Dan slipped me a carbon of Reardon’s yam.
I’ll rewrite it.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. I’ll get my
own story.”
She hung up and decided to find the parade.
Outside the Hall, Bill was talking to an elderly
man. Bill was saying, “Sorry. Can’t wait. Got
to cover this parade.”
“But I’ve got a big story for you!” the man
said. “You’ll want to put my name right up
in the headline and — ”
"Try her,” Bill grunted, pointing at Holly
and walking away.
Holly saw that the man had a silver badge,
polished as brightly as his blue serge trousers.
The badge announced: Chief of Police, and
the shiny trousers added that he wasn’t a very
successful one. The few words she had over
heard told her everything. She was forever
meeting people like the Chief of Police. They
yearned for publicity. They were sort of
pathetic and sometimes she managed to get
little stories in the paper for them. But this
time she couldn’t waste a moment.
He asked, "You a city reporter?”
“Yes, but I have to hurry — ”
Now don’t run away like all of them. I
been Chief of Police here going on twenty
five years and the city papers never writ me
up. Of course nothing ever happens here.”
“Not — not anything?”
“Nope. But just wait. In twenty minutes
all the papers will be after me. They’ll all
want to know how John A. Jepson — don’t
forget the A. — captured them three armed
criminals. And it’s going to happen right
where I’m standing!”
“Really,” she gasped, “I — ”
“I know,” he muttered. “You don’t believe
me. Even the county detectives and state
police don’t believe me any more when I tip
them off to something big. But this time —
come in my office and let me tell you about
it.” He led the way into Borough Hall, took
a seat where he could watch the street through
a window, and said, “To begin with, we got to
go back to 1917.” 9
“That far?”
"We-ell, make it 1922. That was the time
I heard the Edwards boy boasting to another
young fellow that he was going to get a couple
thousand dollars and run away. I knew the
only- place he could get it was from his old
man’s safe at night. You know, I was sure
that crime was going t6 happen, but I sat
beside that safe a month and nothing hap
pened. The boy settled down right after
that and started taking an interest in his job,
"Why kid the girl by acting polite?" he said. "She knows I’m your hatchet man. Why don’t you fire her now?”
so I knew there wasn’t much hope of getting
a big crime.”
He droned on. There was the time Luke
Jewett threatened to shoot his wife. Mr.
Jepson went in the Jewett kitchen and said
he’d wait until it happened, but Luke kinda
changed his mind and went off with another
woman. Mrs. Jewett married again and is
getting along nicely.
"So you see, I don’t get any breaks no
matter how much I’m on the job. But this
time I’m not taking any chances. I’m staying
right here out of sight, and I got two men with
rifles across the street on the second floor.
Now you take down their names.”
She sighed. Nearly twenty minutes had
passed. She could hear the music of the
Jasonville Volunteer Fire Company Band com
ing nearer. The parade was almost over, any
way. She wrote down the names.
“You forgot to tell me what this crime is
going to be," she hinted.
“Oh, yes. Kidnapping.”
“But Mr. Jepson, who — ”
“Gloria Townsend, that’s who. They’re
going to snatch her right off the steps of
Borough Hall.”
Holly nearly wept. She had hoped to get at
least a little story. She didn’t know what the
current ransom quotations might be for a girl
who had been featured in a couple of B pic
tures, but twenty dollars seemed high.
“They couldn’t kidnap her in the middle
of a parade,” she said.
“It’s the only way they could! She’s in the
leading car. When she gets out on the steps
here, she's nearly alone for a minute with
everyone else jammed behind her car. They
could do it easy.”
“Who do you mean, they?”
“This part may take a little believing,”
he admitted. “Yesterday a strange young
fellow was around town asking all about the
parade and Gloria and the stores being closed.
I kinda watched him and he went in the post
office. He read the Wanted notices. Then he
saw me and hurried out and hanged if I
didn’t find one of the Wanted notices gone.
Now why would he take that if it wasn’t so
people wouldn’t recognize him?”
“Where do the three criminals come in?”
“That Wanted notice. All 1 can remember
about it is there were three fellows listed on it.
I got a man checking up on — look!”
A black sedan was parking at the opposite
curb. Two men, hat brims pulled down, got
out and lounged against a fender. A third
stayed behind the wheel.
Mr. Jepson’s revolver got stuck in the tom
lining of his hip pocket. He wrestled with it,
pleading, “Come out, now, hang it.”
Suddenly Holly was wildly excited. “Are
you going to arrest them now?” she gasped.
“Can’t. Might be the wrong fellows — Ah,
there she comes,” as the revolver pulled free.
The Volunteer Fire Company Band swung
into sight and its ranks separated to let a
shiny car pull up to the Borough Hall steps._
The two loungers crossed the street and
waited for the Townsend girl to get out. One
held his hand in a coat pocket. Mr. Jepson’s
revolver sat up in his hand and came to a
steady, hunting-dog point. Across the street
sunlight flickered on two rifle barrels in an
open window.
“Miss Townsend,” one of the strangers
called.
The girl turned. The young man’s hand
came from his pocket, clutching a notebook
and he asked, “How about an autograph?”
She laughed and signed the notebook for him
and a scrap of paper for the other youth. Then
the two movie fans watched admiringly as
Gloria Townsend swept into Borough Hall.
Mr. Jepson sneaked his revolver back into
the pocket. “I kept you from covering your
story,” he muttered.
Holly smiled. “All right, this was a mis
take. But all these years you've been prevent
ing crime by being on the job. Too much on
the job, to do your reputation any good.
That's a story. And I’m going to get it in.”
“Honest?” he said, blinking.
"Honest.” She went into the hallway and
found Bill entering the booth. She called,
“You should have talked to Mr. Jepson. He’s
the nicest — ”
“Have you been listening to that muzzle
loader all this time?”
“I got a story from him.”
“About Gloria Townsend?”
“Well, no — the way things turned out.”
He gave a shrug that jarred his phone
booth. Then he reached out to the door of the
other booth and removed the Out of Order
(Continued on page 10)