Show R OYD FLOYD GIBBONS gybbons aw adventurers club A 6 za the clue clite that spelled death by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter ELL sir weve got cot a detective story to tell today and a real WELL dieto to tell it ile he is richard D smith and he spins aps us a looking for clues and found adaven swell yarn of how he went out ture instead or maybe I 1 should say that dick S smith mith found adventure too for he found the clues he was looking for dick says hes fifty one and feels just as fit as he ever did hes a ma m around to clubs and parties giving giblan now not a detective today he be goes other people mysteries to think over instead of solving them himself but not of the trusted operatives of an internationally so ao many years ago he was one known detective agene agency v and according to some of the newspaper clippings dick must have been a wonder remember all those detective stories youve ever read most of them start off the telephone rang in the office of the detective bu reau 11 well this one is no exception to that rule the only difference Is that this story is a true one and the telephone rang in dicks home one night in august 1923 while he sat there listening to the radio dick answered that phone it was the office the office told dick to take the night train for 0 bensburg ogdensburg 0 dens burg N Y way up on the st lawrence river report to the general manager of the rutland railroad and see it if lie he could find out anything about bags of sugar that had been stolen from the railroads warehouse on the waterfront this was a sweet case looking for stolen sugar dick arrived in ogdensburg on the following day he talked to the railroad cops and the local police he looked the scene of the robbery over the police knew nothing definite and the scene of the crime yielded d no clues then dick went and looked up a friend in the U S customs service whose job was to watch the river for smugglers trying to run liquor in from canada dick knew that the men of the underworld have very few secrets among themselves and he had a notion that if he could get the customs men to operate cooperate co by capturing a crew of rum runners he could learn something from those rum runners about the sugar theft the customs men fell in with his idea and that same night five of them and dick along with them went out in a government launch and hid in a cove a little way up the river the first night they spent well just waiting nothing happened but the second night they spied a dark object out in the middle of ahe river and f EM MJ it turned and rammed Us directly in the center waited until it had come across to the american side then they set sef out full speed ahead after their quarry and the next 10 minutes were the most exciting of dicks life L first blood in battle of boats says dick when the other boat saw it could not get away it turned and rammed us directly in the center the other boat was heavier than ours our boat was cut clean in two and 1 I with my five friends was thrown into the river then not satisfied with having disabled us and thrown us in the water the rum ruin runners came back circled around us trying to brain each of us as we were trying to get our bearings in the water there followed the fight of dicks life the customs mens guns were behind them in the wrecked boat dick was the only one who had a revolver on him 1 I drew it out and tried to shoot it out with the rum runners he says but a piece of iron pipe came down from a boat and knocked the gun out of my hand the man who was wielding that piece of pipe could work a lot fa faster S ter than I 1 could in the water the mow blow that knocked the gun from my hand aso also broke the hand itself the pipe went up and came down again this time hitting me a hard clout on the head I 1 could feel senses my slipping away f from I 1 OM me then for once in my life I 1 thought my time had come dick learns why it pays to buy life insurance my last thought boath was the satisfying one that I 1 had paid my life inaura insurance rice premium tor for a month 1 I said to myself that the folks back home would I 1 have tave a house to live in and a five thousand dollar insurance policy to live on then I 1 felt myself going down under the surface of the water when dick came to they told him that he had gone down a second and was going down for the third time before help came to him in the meantime an approaching boat had frightened off the rum runners and one of the customs men managed to reach him with part of the wrecked boat he held dick up until the rest of the men could get there then somehow they all manac managed led to get to the shore all that trouble for a clue and still no clue in sight but after dick lind had spent a few days in bed 1 resting up he went out again with the same crew of men and another boat they were after runners and no fooling this time they caught them four of them ind and dick talked to them some something thing like this youre in a tough spot now but it might be worse give me a tip on alko copped that sugar a r and well well forget we ever saw you the way a lot of crimes are solved and on the tip oft those birds gave him dick not the men he was after wm service iee |