To Joseph Thompson Shaw...

I first heard Personville called “Poisonville” by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a “shoit.” I didn’t think anything of what he had done to th...

The Morning Herald gave two pages to Donald Willsson and his death. His picture showed a pleasant intelligent face with curly hair, smiling eyes and mouth, a cleft chin and a striped necktie. The stor...

At the First National Bank I got hold of an assistant cashier named Albury, a nice-looking blond youngster of twenty-five or so. “I certified the check for Willsson,” he said after I had explained wha...

My destination was a gray frame cottage. When I rang the bell the door was opened by a thin man with a tired face that had no color in it except a red spot the size of a half-dollar high on each cheek...

It was close to two-thirty in the morning when I reached the hotel. With my key the night clerk gave me a memorandum that asked me to call Poplar 605. I knew the number. It was Elihu Willsson’s. “When...

Our ride ended under a line of trees in a dark street not far from the center of town. We got out of the car and walked down to the corner. A burly man in a gray overcoat, with a gray hat pulled down ...

It was half-past five. I walked around a few blocks until I came to an unlighted electric sign that said “Hotel Crawford,” climbed a flight of steps to the second floor office, registered, left a call...

I spent most of the afternoon writing my three days’ reports on the Donald Willsson operation. Then I sat around, burned Fatimas, and thought about the Elihu Willsson operation until dinner time. I we...

I woke next morning with an idea in my skull. Personville had only some forty thousand inhabitants. It shouldn’t be hard to spread news. Ten o’clock found me out spreading it. I did my spreading in po...

Half an hour later, when I left the building, Dinah Brand was sitting at the wheel of a pale blue little Marmon, talking to Max Thaler, who stood in the road. The girl’s square chin was tilted up. Her...

We had another drink. She put her glass down, licked her lips, and said: “If stirring things up is your system, I’ve got a swell spoon for you. Did you ever hear of Noonan’s brother Tim, the one who c...

I went out to hunt for MacSwain. Neither city directory nor telephone book told me anything. I did the pool rooms, cigar stores, speakeasies, looking around first, then asking cautious questions. That...

I had my vest unbuttoned when the telephone bell rang. It was Dinah Brand, complaining that she had been trying to get me since ten o’clock. “Have you done anything on what I told you?” she asked. “I’...

The news of Whisper’s capture spread quickly. When Noonan, the coppers he had brought along, and I took the gambler and the now-conscious Jerry into the City Hall there were at least a hundred people ...

Mickey Linehan used the telephone to wake me a little after noon. “We’re here,” he told me. “Where’s the reception committee?” “Probably stopped to get a rope. Check your bags and come up to the hotel...

There was a mob around the First National Bank. We pushed through it to the door, where we found sour-faced McGraw. “Was six of them, masked,” he reported to the chief as we went inside. “They hit it ...

She took me into her living room, backed away from me, revolved, and asked me how I liked the new dress. I said I liked it. She explained that the color was rose beige and that the dinguses on the sid...

The shack’s supply of canned goods didn’t include anything that tempted us for breakfast. We made the meal of coffee cooked in very stale water from a galvanized pail. A mile of walking brought us to ...

All the other delegates to the peace conference were on hand when Noonan and I arrived at Willsson’s home at the appointed time, nine o’clock that night. Everybody nodded to us, but the greetings didn...

Dick Foley in his hired car was at the next corner. I had him drive me over to within a block of Dinah Brand’s house, and walked the rest of the way. “You look tired,” she said when I had followed her...

I dreamed I was sitting on a bench, in Baltimore, facing the tumbling fountain in Harlem Park, beside a woman who wore a veil. I had come there with her. She was somebody I knew well. But I had sudden...

Downtown, I went first to police headquarters. McGraw was holding down the chief’s desk. His blond-lashed eyes looked suspiciously at me, and the lines in his leathery face were even deeper and sourer...

I was half dressed the next morning when Dick Foley came in. He reported, in his word-saving manner, that Bill Quint had checked out of the Miners’ Hotel at noon the previous day, leaving no forwardin...

I went around to the Shannon Hotel, registered my alias, paid my day’s rent, and was taken to room 321. An hour passed before the phone rang. Dick Foley said he was coming up to see me. He arrived wit...

At half-past one Reno turned from answering a phone call to say: “Let’s take a ride.” He went upstairs. When he came down he carried a black valise. Most of the men had gone out the kitchen door by th...

I had to push my client’s doorbell a lot before I got any play on it. Finally the door was opened by the tall sunburned chauffeur. He was dressed in undershirt and pants, and had a billiard cue in one...

We rode down the street, jerking our eyes around, hunting for buildings that looked like deserted warehouses. It was light enough by now to see well. Presently I spotted a big square rusty-red buildin...