Free Mourn the Hangman by Harry Whittington Page B

THE police station, Lt. Ross Connell said no to everybody and everything. As if by some kind of magic, a crowd formed in the dusty room when Connell came in with Steve Blake, wife slayer. To them all, Connell gave the same curt negative answer. No reporters. No lawyers. No questions. And no pictures.
    But of course, they got pictures. Somebody spoke Blake’s name, softly and urgently. It was an old trick, but Blake fell for it. He turned, his haggard eyes hopeful. Lights flashed, shutters clicked and Connell said, “Damn it all to hell, I said no pictures!”
    The photographers must have gotten a dozen more shots. WIFE SLAYER BOOKED…. BELT, SHOESTRINGS, KNIFE TAKEN FROM CAPTURED KILLER…. WILL WIFE MURDERER EVER RECLAIM VALUABLES SHOWN BEING CHECKED BY POLICE SERGEANT? … ALLEGED KILLER, CAGED, ON WAY TO CHAIR.
    The temporary cell in city jail must have once been a narrow corridor leading nowhere. It was a few feet removed from the tank where the common drunks, vagrants and petty thieves were lodged. There was only room to stand between the cot and the obscenely scrawled walls. Behind the cot was a commode without wooden seat. Before the cot was a straight chair with a wicker bottom.
    Blake sat dispiritedly on the cot. His arms and legs were numb with the lassitude that had attacked him when the chase ended so abruptly in the room at the Regal Hotel.
    They had him where they wanted him now and there didn’t seem to be a hell of a lot of use to fight any more.
    He could hear them arguing and talking in the tank. At least, he thought, they had not put him in there where someone would have tried to talk to him. Murderers always get more attention than first offenders in some petty crime. He shook his head grimly. A kid on a first rap is tossed in a pen with perverts, goons and two-time losers. But a murderer is protected. He doesn’t have to associate with such scum. With an angry shake of his head, Blake dismissed that vagary. Undoubtedly some man had been worrying about that since the first jail became overcrowded for the first time.
    Finally, he sank back on the cot and stared at the ceiling. Such ugly ceilings, he thought. He’d been meeting the poorest type ceilings lately.
    He let his thoughts move painstakingly back over everything he had seen, discovered and been told since yesterday afternoon at five o’clock. But no matter how he figured it, the thing looked like a murder frame. Arrenhower had gotten to Bricker. Bricker would sell his mother for greenbacks and Bricker had sold out to Arrenhower. Arrenhower had planned a perfect murder frame. Hell, Bricker might even have told Arrenhower of the violent and drunken quarrel between Stella and Steve the Saturday before!
    If that were true, Blake thought, he might as well relax. He was going to grow mighty old just staring at ceilings even filthier than this one.
    He pressed his fingertips against his eyelids until comets and rockets burst red behind his eyeballs. It was all so hopeless that he might as well sleep. Except for one thing. Stella’s murderer walked free.
    Steve sat up again. Whoever had framed him had overlooked one plain truth. When they killed Stella, they had committed the last act that would hurt Blake on earth. He no longer cared what they did to him now. But he did care what happened to Stella’s slayer!
    He had respect for Ross Connell. Connell might find the man who had killed Stella, except for one thing. Every resource had been used to capture Steve Blake. As far as the police were concerned, they had all the evidence, circumstantial and actual, they needed to convict him.
    Connell might have found a slayer, except that he was looking for Steve Blake.
    Steve stood up and began to pad back and forth beside his cot in his stringless shoes. His shirttail was out and his trousers had slipped down on his hips.
    A turnkey opened his cell door.
    “All right, Blake,” he said. “Come on.”
    “Formal?” Blake inquired. “Or can I come like