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Show FAMOUS r M $ v tiEADUN hunter PI "The Man in the Rafters'' By FLOYD GD3BONS '"PHIS is the story of John Schindler of West Orange, N. J., and how he learned to be afraid of a pistol. That was a funny thing about John. He says he had always been afraid of things like fists, spiders and women, but a loaded revolver sticking in' his face wouldn't even make him bat an eyelash. Maybe it was a good thing, too, for John was a detective, and every once in a while somebody DID stick a revolver in his face. That happened to him once in the summer of 1922, down in a resort town on the Jersey coast. The superintendent of an estate there was suspected of robbing his employer with a sort of systematic sys-tematic thievery. John had been hired to get the goods on him, and was working as second chauffeur while he poked and prowled around gathering his evidence. He just about had the case sewed up when he met the superintendent on the grounds one dark night. The super had a revolver out, was pointing it at him. And what did John do? He walked over to the super and ripped the gun right out of his hand. The super started to tell John that he'd mistaken mis-taken HIM for a thief, but John just snorted, threw the gun on the ground, turned his back and walked away. A spider would have scared him stiff. He'd have run like a turkey from a woman. But shootin' irons just didn't impress him. That's what John THOUGHT. But he wasn't through with that case yet. He was due to be plenty scared before it was all over. And by a gun, too. Lunatic. Menaces John With Revolver. It happened the next day, about two o'clock in the afternoon. "I was entering the garage to go to my room," he says, "when I was greeted by the most blood-curdling laugh I ever heard in my life. I looked about the garage. There was no one in sight. Finally, I looked up!" Then John saw him! Three days before, the superintendent's superintend-ent's son had been brought home from the state insane asylum. Now he was sprawled atop a crossbeam of the garage, leering down at John with a mad light in his eyes. And in his hand he had a revolver! "I'd been thinking guns didn't scare me," says John, "but I'd never figured on bumping into one in the hands of a madman. It was the worst John Rummaged Through the Papers in the Drawer. experience I ever had in my life. My knees wanted to shake, but I didn't dare let them. I had to keep my head and keep on talking. And talk I did, while he toyed with me like a cat plays with a mouse." John Flatters the Ego of Homicidal Maniac. For a full half hour John talked and stalled for time. "First," he says, "he told me he was going to kill me but had a few things he wanted to tell me first. He said I had his father suflering the tortures of hell through my butting into his business, and now he wanted to see me squirm. He said he was going to make me suffer as long as possible before putting me out of my misery. Then he added that, of course, if anyone came into the garage that would upset his plans he'd have to shoot me before they could interfere. All I could do was stand there and play up to his ego while, at the same time, I prayed no one would come near the garage." John played up to that insane lad until he thought he'd crack from the strain. He 'yessed him to death admitted he had the upper hand and could control the show. He agreed that it was up to him whether he killed him then or waited until he was doggone good and ready, and did everything he could think of to make the maniac feel he was a great fellow. fel-low. And the crazy boy, all swelled up with conceit, ate it up as fast as John could dish it out to him. Gullible Crazy Man Helps in Phantom Search. Meanwhile, all John could do was stall along and hope that something some-thing would break in his favor. On the other hand, each moment of delay meant that someone might come into the garage and startle the mad boy into pressing the trigger. John had to think fast if he ever expected to get out of that spot alive. Finally, he began coaxing the mad boy to come down off his perch on the cross-beam. He told him he had all the evidence against bis father written down and hidden in his room, and that, before the young lad killed him, he ought to get those papers pa-pers and destroy them. "He agreed to that," says John, "and thought he was more clever than ever. He brought up In the rear and kept me covered as we went up the stairs to my room." Once in the room, though, John began looking around in places where he knew doggone well there were no papers, mumbling, as he searched, that he couldn't seem to find what he wanted. "Finally," says John, "I asked him In an offhand way if they could be on the table next to where he was standing. He fell for it started looking through the papers on the table. That was my only chance and I took it!" John Crowns Madman With His Own Revolver. John says his hands got to that table in just nothing flat. Then the battle was on. John says he was never much at fighting, but he fought for his life that day. He had a struggle to get the gun away from the lad, and another one to keep him from getting it back again. He finally settled that by socking him over the head with the revolver, and maybe, after remembering that terrible half hour of fear and flattery lie had been subjected to, ho socked a little harder than usual. Anyway, the lad went out cold. John didn't have any more trouble with him after that. But nowadays, John doesn't go up against any more birds with guns, unless said birds can furnish him with convincing proof that they're reasonably sane. WNU Service. |