The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1939-05-04

4 WOO1A1l h1IOW. SOI ID UIOOu.
He brooded as he ate his break.
fast, to the intense annoyance O.
Bertha, who finally couldn't stanc
it any longer.
whats the matter with those
waff1es?" she asked tartly.
"What waf-oh?" Asey looked
down. "That waffle? Bertha, it..
one of the finest ever put into my
mouth. I want another"
"Was Slade drunk last night:
Aunt Sara said so. He made ar
awful racket, didn't he?"
Certainly did. You won't talk
about it to"
ooh no. Aunt Sara told me moi
Asey ate another waffle, and still
another, and still the problem oil
j. Arthur Brinley and the fire
at SHADES studio and the message
left there all puzzled him.
To begin with, the fire hadn't
been a very convincing fire; il
hadn't been a very efficient fire, il
Slade found evidence of prepare.
ton for it. And it hadn't been q
very sensible method of soaring
Slade out of town. Anyone who
knew the man ought to know that
opposition aroused him and he
throve on it. Intimidation was the
last weapon to force anyone like
Mike Slade. The note was silly
just plain silly. 1t wasn't possible
that even a chump like Brinley
could think for moment that
Slade would be moved by that,
He amended his thought: it would
move Slade and arouse him to &C.
ton, but it wouldn't move him out
of town.
Magician's Trick
THE whole business was the
l. work of fool.
Whoa" he said suddenly. ooh,
didn't mean you, Bertha. I-well,
another cup of coffee, then"
1t wasn't the work of fool. He
had been the fool. working at it
the wrong way.
The fire hadn't been set with
the purpose of exciting Slade, or
frightening him. The note might
be genuine, but it didn't mean a
thing.
Slade wasn't the point at all.
The point was the murder of Mary
Randall.
Fires drew crowds. People went
to fires. 1t was as simple as all that.
The whole crowd at the midway
everyone IN tOWn-eVervone had
gone to the fire. He recalled Zeb's
comment about the children who
had been following him and his
trophies, something about their
difficult decision, whether to get
plumber, or see a fire. And the
children, along with everyone else,
had gone to the fire.
Now the road to Shades studio
ran parallel to the road leading to
He'll Hollow for mile or so, and
then it branched off, like two
fingers spread apart. But there
were no hard-surfaced roads con-
Meeting the two after they left
town.
There was the rutted lane which
he himself had taken, but no car
could possibly get through that
swamp. There were other old
wagon lanes, but none of them
were paSSable as far as cars were
concerned. Now the fire would
draw crowds from the midway,
and particularly, he thought, it
would draw the men w e O n
counted on, the special constables
and special f1remen. 1t would draw
people from the outer beach and
the cottages there, people who
might otherwise be passing by
the hollow.
1t was not a serious fire because
1t was not supposed to be seri-
Gus fire. 1t had been planned so
that by the time it was over, every
one would say, ooh, the fireworks,
it's time for the first fireworks to
go on" and everyone would swarm
back to town, leaving the MUIR
derer to take a short cut across
to the hollow, even as Asey had,
and to shoot under the cover of the
fireworks noise. All in all, it was
an excellent bit of thinking. It had
rounded up a swarm of people not
only from the midway but from all
over town, and landed them all
eventually at the ball park-ex-
cept for the men who were still
watching the fire, and those were
the men who would have noticed
anything out of order. And they
were collected in one place, away
from the hollow.
Magician's trick, that was 1t.
While everyone was watching the
right hand. two eggs and a rab-
bit came out of the left.
And everyone except Slade
called the fire the work of tourists,
and Slade was given the note for
something to think about, to draw
his attention away from the main
issue. Just, as in all probability,
the shots fired at Weston and the
Brinleys and JEFF and Sara had
why, Of course! He'd been stupid.
All the same sort of thing. All a
smoke screen. Get people worked
up about one thing, and they'd
miss something else.
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