Evening star., 1936-03-15

lA
to be pretty careful about it.
He couldn't just go in and
shoot him, for Stacy was Grumpton's heir
and respected citizen. A man of property he
was too, thanks to his Uncle Grumpton or
had been, before his reverses. Now he needed
money - to save his business, to save his
face at the bank, and to keep himself out of
jail
So old Grumpton would have to 60. AS he
looked at it, it was Grumpton's own fault too.
For hadn't he gone to the old skinflint and
asked him for loan to tide him over? And
had he got it2 Not on your life! Instead,
Grumpton had asked him about the last two
loans he d made him. As if he could pay them
the way he was fixed now Even talked about
changing his will. Well, Stacy would fix that.
Only he'd have to be careful. When the police
found out about the will, and knew he was the
heir, they'd want to know where he was when
Grumpton was killed. The police! A lot of
dumb-bells. Well he'd fix that too.
1t would be simple enough, for smart man.
Grumpton had no family, and in spite of all
his money he lived alone with only one crank
of servant. He let that servant go every
Thursday at noon, and she hardly ever came
back till around eleven - went out to Jersey
to see some freaks of relations.
Stacy was the only relative Grumpton had.
The old man had seemed to think lot of him
once. But he'd changed lately. Seemed to
blame Stacy for every little thing Stacy did,
like the time he ran over that fellow walking
on the road. and that woman scrape where
they blackmailed him. Still Stacy could get
in to see the old man any time. And that was
good enough.
You have to have an alibi If that holds
you're o. X. Everybody says so. They can
think what they please but they can't hang
anything on you. You have your rights STILL
You can give them the laugh, and if you've
got some hundreds of thousands out OF the old
geeser's estate it's good laugh too Stacy
got busy.
This alibi had to be fool proof. None of
that business of guys swearing you were with
them at the time. They could be had of
course Stacy had plenty on plenty of guys
who would have to come across if he said so
But what then? They might be dumb enough
to break on cross examinati ton and get balled
up and spill the beans. No sir! He was too
smart for that No one in the world would
know about it but himself He knew way to
fix it, and if it didn't work he knew way out.
He wasn't afraid. Anything was better than
the hole he was in now. He was smart guy
Stacy owned two cars, the big one that he
used most of the time, because it showed
people that he was somebody, and the small
coupe that he kept in his two-stall garage
and used once in while because it was
cheaper to run.
On the Thursday night he selected, Stacy
drove the big car down town. He parked it
near movie theatre. And here was the CATCH
The police had been active about parking
regulations for the past few weeks The papers
were full of it. You might get away with
murder, but you couldn't get away with
parking near hydrant. You'd get ticket
tied to the door handle of your car, telling
you to report at Police Headquarters for
illegal parking. And lest you thought you
could duck it, the ticket said your number
had been taken and handed in
And here was the idea. The only places
left near the theatre where car could park
were where the fire hydrants stood Every