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Show Murderer's Reward... A SHORT STORY By Richard Hill Wilki nson Wally Donato carefully wiped off the automatic and placed it in the hand of the dead man. The dead man's name was Lynn Og-den. Og-den. He had been Wally's business partner. So far the thing had gone off with no deviation from the manner man-ner in which Wally had planned The greatest possibility of a slipup slip-up had been overcome by Lynn's wholly unsuspecting attitude. Ten minutes ago Wally had stepped into Lynn's office and found his partner finishing last details before going home. Lynn had looked up, only mildly curious; cur-ious; had noddod, and bent over his desk once more. And Wally had calmly drawn the automatic from his pocket, aimed it at Lynn's temple and as calmly pulled pull-ed the trigger. He listened for a moment to make sure no one had heard the o"Vi rt- tirop rrr-r- inrr 4--. inwasti. fcJllU l 1 VV ftO VViliiiLg L. All. V L.1 gate, even though he knew the office of-fice force had long since departed. Presently he removed a handkerchief hand-kerchief from his pocket and wiped wip-ed the automatic with careful deliberation. de-liberation. He had to steel himself him-self to the business of inserting the weapon between Lynn's fingers. fin-gers. ' i "Suicide-" he muttered. "There isn't a possibility of their advancing advanc-ing another theory, and even if they do they won't know whom to stispect." Oh, it was a nice set-up. It could-not could-not be nicer. Wally's attitude was almost jaunty jaun-ty as he walked over to the safe and spun the dials.. The heavy door swung back and Wally drew up a chair to make himself comfortable while sorting out the papers he wanted. He found them without the least difficulty. dif-ficulty. Securities worth thousands! thou-sands! And no one save Wally and Lynn was aware of their presence pre-sence here. Their removal, therefore, there-fore, could never arouse suspicion. suspic-ion. He restored other things in the safe to their proper order, first wiping each article carefully to remove his fingerprints. Presently he stood up, a satisfied satis-fied look on his face and returned the chair to its former position. He iglanced at his watch. Five-thirty Five-thirty exactly. The whole business had taken less than 30 minutes. And there had not .been a single hitch, not one disturbing factor. The task had been completed in exact detail as he had planned.. He turned and looked about the room. There was plenty of time. Lynn's body would not he discovered discov-ered until next morning. It was hest now to make sure that no possible clue remained, and with this in mind he made a slow, scrutinizing scru-tinizing tour of the room. Poor Lynn! What an utter, stupid stu-pid fool the man was- Well, that's what you get for trusting every Tom, Dick and Harry who comes along. A shrewder man a man with Wally's brains, for example would have foreseen this possibility poss-ibility and guarded against it. The picture of Lynn lying there, face down on the desk, was certainly cer-tainly realistic enough. Wally told himself. No professional could have done a better job. The bullet lips .... It was inspector Joe Warren from police headquarters who explained ex-plained the phenomenon. Warren spent several hours alone in the office after the discovery had been made. At the end of that time he summoned the dozen curious and impatient newspaper reporters who were waiting outside. out-side. "Obviously murder," he explained. explain-ed. "But the murdered man1 shot the murderer before the latter could get away." The reporters looked 'bewildered. 'bewilder-ed. "Donato," Warren went on, "came in here, shot his partner and then placed the weapon in Ogden's hand to make it look like suicide. After that he removed certain papers from the safe, which were discovered on his person. per-son. This probably consumed about 20 or 30 minutes, during which period rigor mortis set in in the dead man. Rigor mortis, you know, is a stiffening and contracting contract-ing of the muscles. Unfortunately Unfortunate-ly for Donato the muscles of the forefinger in Ogden's right hand which was wrapped about the trigger of the automatic, stiffened stiffen-ed and contracted enough to discharge dis-charge the weapon. Donato was in the path of the bullet. It is the only case of which I am aware where the murdered man killed his murderer." ( had entered his right temple and the wound was surrounded by powder burns a sure-fire factor in establishing a suicide theory. The automatic was clutched in the dead man's hand with the forefinger fore-finger wrapped around the trigger. trig-ger. It couldn't look more genuine. genu-ine. Wally smiled to himself again and turned away. It was then that a most, surorisinp t.hinp harmened. To an observer it would have appeared ap-peared weird, miraculous, uncanny. uncan-ny. Wally had taken one step toward to-ward the door, when the automatic, automa-tic, resting in the lifeless fingers of Lynn Ogden, exploded. There was a roar, a burst of flame. Lynn's hand jerked off the desk and the automatic went clattering to the floor. The noise made by its fall was lost by a greater noise that produced pro-duced by the terrific impact of Wally Donato'3 heavy frame crashing against a chair to the floor; the sound of an agonized cry that presently died on his |