Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol.69, No. 5, August 13, 1932

There was a red-headed crook Ollie should have been chasing, but Ollie had a date to go night casting for bass.

I

Ollie Bascomb, the sheriff of Derby, leaned back in his favorite chair in the lobby of the Derby House and examined the level-winding reel that the city fishermen had just given him.

“My soul an’ body, Mr. Murdock, thanks,” he said gratefully.

“Don’t mention it, Sheriff,” laughed the big, ruddy-faced man called Murdock, with the abashed air of one trying to make little of a very nice gift. “Had it in my tackle box a — yep, a good dozen years. I remember I bought it back in nineteen twenty before I went up to the Adirondacks for some bass fishing.”

“Gosh, you didn’t go wrong when you did buy it,” beamed Ollie. “It sure is a beaut’, all right. Cripes, looks most new. Twelve year in your kit, eh? Take good care o’ your tackle, you do.”

“Well, you take just as good care of your own, from what I’ve seen, Sheriff,” the other complimented. “There’s just one complaint I have to make against you, though,” he added with mock gravity.

“What’s that?” asked Ollie.

“You should have taken up plug casting for bass long ago. It’s the greatest fishing there is.”

“I reckon you can’t git Ollie to admit any kind o’ fishin’ comes nigh to wadin’ a stream an’ castin’ a fly for brook trout, Mr. Murdock,” an onlooker broke in with a chuckle. “Eh, Ollie?”

Ollie flushed. He was famous all over the county for his love of fishing and hunting, but his favorite sport of all was known to be casting for brook trout with a dry fly. Nevertheless, it was plain that he did not want to offend a man who had given him such a valued present.

“Gosh, Mr. Murdock, they’s suthin’ to be said for both them kinds o’ fishin’. Wadin’ a stream is one o’ the noblest ways to spend a day I come to know ’bout, an’ this plug castin’ for bass after dark is sure a grand way to spend your night hours. Yes, sir, they’s a lot to be said for both of ’em!”

“And I’m saying right now that even if I think bass casting is the greatest sport in the world, I think you’re going to make one of the best night casters in the business,” insisted Murdock. “I never in my life saw a beginner become an expert so quickly. I—”

“Sheriff, here’s something we should look into at once,” a crisp and youthful voice interrupted from the doorway. “A message about a crook from the Chief of Police of Portland!”

Ollie Bascomb did not always relish hearing the voice of Bert Wells, his deputy.

“What’s the trouble, Bert?” he drawled, turning around.

“We’re to be on the sharp lookout for a crook travelling around in a green Sunray roadster, robbing summer camps and cottages on lakes. He’s been robbing places that have been shut up for the winter — breaking in — before people come up for the summer. He just broke into Senator Brodhead’s place, on Sebago Lake, and stole a Landseer oil paint picture valued at about five thousand dollars.” Bert glanced at the paper in his hand.

“Hmmm,” said Ollie.

“But that’s just one of the things this report mentions,” went on the deputy. “He’s been covering a lot of territory, posing as a fisherman to get the lay of the land. Two places were broken into at Long Lake, after Sebago. Then the Rangeley section has had — oh, five or six camps there were stripped. And remember that we’ve got Saltash and Upper Saltash Lakes near here, Sheriff, and that it isn’t July yet. Some of the bigger camps, with maybe valuable stuff in them, are still closed up. It’s your job — our job — to watch out. That Merton place must have a lot of worth while things in it, and there’s Ellery Gansvoort with his coins. He—”

“He got up early this mornin’,” broke in Ollie. “Come ’bout four o’clock. Woke me up, durn him. Drove up alone, ’thout no servants. Hankered to show me some new specimens to his collection. Beauties, they were. Dummed if he didn’t have one alone wu’th three thousan’ dollar, he said. Whul’ collection’s wu’th close to a hundred thousan’. He—”

“Sounds to me as if you ought to fish Saltash Lake, Sheriff, and keep an eye on things,” said Murdock with a chuckle.

“My soul an’ body, that’s another argument in favor o’ your bass castin’. Patrol the lake an’ fish at the same time.”

“This report goes on to state,” said Bert, ignoring the laugh from the crowd in the lobby, “that this crook is big and blustery, about two inches over six feet, with red hair and moustache. He has a distinguishing scar running from his right temple to down under his cheekbone. I think that covers it, just as I think we should watch the lakes around this whole section. With your permission, I thought of taking Upper Saltash and—”

“Say, I’m telling you boys I’m mighty glad I’m not red-headed,” broke in Murdock genially. “Yes, sir, this is one time I’m thankful for my blond locks, all right. Otherwise you might think I was this fishing crook and slip me into the hoosegow, eh, Sheriff?”

“That’s true,” said Ollie gravely. “Was you red-headed a feller might think you was that crook, mebbe. You could ’a’ shaved off that moustache, o’ course.”

“Yes, Sheriff,” broke in Bert Wells, “and if Mr. Murdock had a scar, and if he wasn’t under six feet instead of over, and if he didn’t drive a black Oakley coupe instead of a green Sunray roadster, and if—”

Even Murdock had to join in the laugh on the sheriff, at that one, but his was a pleasant laugh and he followed it up by clapping Ollie on the knee.

“Well, Sheriff, seeing that you’re not going to toss me into the hoosegow, how about getting started on some patrol work and bass casting combined. I’d like to hook into that big one I lost the other night up at Saltash Lake.”

“Gosh, so ’ud I like to hook into him,” said Ollie. “Great night for castin’, too, bein’ nice an’ warm an’ black an’ calm.”

“Well, let’s get going, then, Sheriff,” suggested the city man.

“Fine,” said Ollie. “I’ll jest step down an’ get my flivver.”

“No, we can use my bus,” said Murdock.

“All right. Drop me off to the courthouse so I can get me a line for this reel an’ that castin’ rod I bought me.”

“No need,” explained Murdock. “I’ve got a new spool of good hard braided line you can have, and you can use that one-piece bamboo rod I lent you the first time you tried plug casting. Save time that way. Come ahead.”

“Let’s go,” cried Ollie as he eagerly rose.

“Have a good time fishing, Sheriff,” said Bert. “Me, I’m going to mosey around the shores of Upper Saltash. Still a few big places unopened, around there, and you never can tell when this crook may hit this vicinity. There’s — there’s a total of twenty-seven hundred and fifty dollars in rewards for the capture of this criminal,” he added.

“Feller could buy a heap o’ tackle with that,” said Ollie, as he left the lobby.

II

As they reached the outlet of Saltash Lake, where the sheriff kept a rowboat, Ollie got out his knife, opened it and reached into his pocket for his pipe. When he brought out the ancient corncob, he cried: “My soul an’ body,” and looked worried.

“What’s the trouble?” asked Murdock.

“I… I… my reel! I thought I had it in that there pocket with my pipe! I could ’a’ swore I put her there ’afore I left the car, so’s to have my hands free to help you lug down the tackle. I… I—”

He stuck his knife and pipe back into his pocket and hurriedly started back to the car, parked perhaps a hundred feet away on the road.

“Jest a minute, Mr. Murdock,” he called over his shoulder. “Reckon I left that reel on the seat, seems as though.” Then, a moment later, he let out a whoop. “Yep, here she be, all right. I’d left her on the seat, like I said. Here I come, ready an’ rarin’ to give them bass all Sal Brookes an’ the devil.”

“Well, let’s get your line spooled onto your reel, first,” laughed the city man.

“Gosh, I do seem to be all excited up tonight, don’t I?” Ollie said with an abashed grin. “You got to excuse a feller, that’s all. This night castin’ for bass has got me behavin’ like a two-year-ol’ at the business.”

When they stepped into the boat after he had rigged up his tackle, however, Ollie became the cool fisherman that he was.

It was an ideal night for plug casting for bass. It was very dark, there was no moon up as yet, and the surface of Saltash Lake looked like a sheet of black onyx. For the end of June in this county in northern Maine, too, it was extremely warm. On such nights bass are hungry and ready to strike. Now, off in the shallows where the tanlacs grow in sandy bottom, they could be heard breaking water.

Murdock had insisted on taking the first turn at the oars, while Ollie took his place standing up in the stern. It was, in this case, virtually the bow, for Murdock was pushing the boat forward with the oars, so that the sheriff, facing the direction in which they were moving, could more comfortably cast toward the shore.

Plug casting for bass, as Murdock had frequently stated in the lobby of the Derby House, was one of the most difficult as well as the greatest sport in the world. It is hard enough, in daylight, to cast from the reel a wooden or metal lure for a distance of fifty, seventy-five, a hundred feet or more; when it is dark, and the shore line is barely distinguishable, the feat becomes infinitely harder.

Murdock had not exaggerated, however, when he had also said that Ollie Bascomb had become an expert from the start. Now, with the city man pushing him along some seventy feet from the shore, the sheriff was not getting a single backlash, not once overshooting his mark and getting the hooks on his lure entangled in the tree branches that spread out over the water. It was, apparently, born in the man. He had spent all his life handling fishing tackle and firearms, and he handled them with that indefinable something that causes even a casual onlooker instinctively to sense that the rod or gun are almost part of him.

“Dammit, man, but you’re good,” Murdock finally said, after he had pointed out a log in the darkness and suggested that Ollie cast close up to it. “Eighty feet away if it’s a foot, that log, and you spanked that plug within two inches of it.”

“Aw… aw, I had a good teacher to fu’st show me the ropes, remember,” said Ollie, with genuine feeling.

“You sure know your stuff,” said Murdock, admiringly. “You—”

Chung!

That, as Murdock had said, was about the only way that you could describe the sound made by a bass hitting a top-water plug on a calm and black night.

“I got him,” cried Ollie, as the placid surface of the lake broke into foam close to the log where the sheriff had cast his lure. “He’ll go four pound or better,” added Ollie, as the white belly of a bass could be detected, through the blackness, in an arching leap into the air.

“Hold him,” said Murdock.

“Cal’late to,” said Ollie.

The sheriff, for the next seven or eight minutes, played his quarry with the supreme skill of a master. The bass dived, broke water, rushed inward, ran this way and that, tried every trick he knew. Ollie, however, stood there in the boat as coolly as he always did when handling one of his brook trout on a two-ounce rod, meeting every attack and ruse of his finned adversary.

During his fight with the bass, Ollie kept up a steady stream of conversation. It was close to eleven o’clock now, he said, and as he saw three of the four camp lights on the lake go out, within the space of a few moments, he opined that those folks were missing a lot of fun by going to bed when they might be out fishing. The only light left, across the bay, was Mr. Gansvoort’s. Stayed up late, he did, fussing with his coins. Stayed up most of the night, sometimes. Nice feller, Gansvoort. He and Ollie were good friends. He—

But the sheriff broke off, as he was about to explain something, and said:

“Net him, Mr. Murdock. Got him tuckered out now, I have.”

The strength of the game bronze-back had finally surrendered to the strength of split bamboo and braided silk and human hands. After a last leap into the air, when he landed, he lay supine on the surface, over on his side, fins barely moving.

“Put it under him gentle, Mr. Murdock,” said Ollie, as Murdock slipped his net in the water and moved it toward the fish. “There. Now. Lift him easy!… Hi, that’s the ticket!… My soul an’ body, but he’s a beaut’, ain’t he?”

The city fisherman had deftly netted the fish and brought him into the bottom of the boat.

Ollie, as deftly, had disentangled the hooks from the mesh of the net and very carefully removed the barbs from the tough cartilage of the upper jaw of his vanquished opponent. For a second or two, he held the bass up for his own loving inspection, and then he slid him softly back into the water.

“There you go, ol’ boy,” he said. “Thanks for a whoppin’ good fight. Meet you ag’in some time, perhaps mebbe. I—”

“You’ll stick your hands up into the air, that’s what you’ll do now,” came from Murdock, all the geniality gone from his voice.

Ollie, turning, saw his fishing companion leveling an automatic at his chest. His face was savage and ugly, and he frankly looked like a man who meant what he said.

Obediently, with a sigh, the sheriff of Derby stretched his arms above him. He spoke simply:

“That’s as high as they’ll go.”

Murdock grunted, reached out his left hand, and patted the pockets and armpits and waist of the sheriff.

“All right, you ain’t heeled. Put ’em down. Yeah, put ’em down and sit down here in this seat an’ grab these oars. Then row like hell for your friend Gansvoort’s camp. I gotta get them coins an’ beat it for Canada!”

III

Ollie, putting down his arms, silently exchanged places with the city man. He took the oars and began to row.

“Put some steam into that rowing,” Murdock ordered from where he was sitting in the stern.

“Judas Priest,” said Ollie, as he increased his speed, “then I reckon you’re the feller that robbed all them other camps, eh? Senator Brodhead’s place. Them at Long Lake. The bunch at the Rangeleys!… I—”

“Bright boy, Sheriff,” said the crook. He added, shortly: “Come on, row like your friend all Sal Brookes and the devil. I’ll admit it’s a hot night and I hate to see you overworked, but I gotta get quick action from now on.” He took off his own coat.

Ollie, silently, did as he had been bidden. Peering at Murdock through the darkness, he knew that here was a man who could be classed as dangerous. If crossed in the perpetration of one of his crimes, he would unquestionably shoot. He would shoot to kill, too. Something in his eyes — that were not those of a genial fisherman any more — assured Ollie of that.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later, after Ollie had been steadily pulling across the lake, he nosed the boat up against the wharf in front of the Gansvoort camp:

“Stick that stern around so I can get out first,” ordered Murdock curtly, in a whisper. “Don’t step out till I say so. When you do get out, keep your trap closed.”

He stepped out onto the dock and then motioned for the sheriff to follow suit.

“Tie the boat up. Then walk up to the porch of the camp and call out to your friend Gansvoort. Tell him you were fishing and just thought you’d drop in. I’ll be right behind you with this gat, and if you make one false move I’ll drill you and him both. Savvy?”

Ollie nodded.

“Get goin’,” said Murdock.

Ollie walked to the porch, more sure than ever that he was dealing with a man who would shoot to kill.

“Call out to him now,” whispered the crook presently.

“Hi, Mr. Gansvoort. It’s me, Ollie Bascomb. I was castin’ for bass an’ thought I’d drop off an’ visit for a spell, seein’ that you was prob’ly up fussin’ with your coins.”

“That’s fine, Sheriff. Glad you did. Step right in,” a friendly voice answered, coming through the opened window.

Ollie, pulling open the door, did step in. Murdock, right behind him, saw a thin, bespectacled man bending over a table, a magnifying glass in his hand with which he had apparently been examining a scattering of coins spread out on a green baize cloth.

The crook, at this, briskly moved in behind Ollie and waved his weapon threateningly.

“Stick ’em up again, Sheriff. You stick ’em up, too Gansvoort,” he commanded.

“Sorry, Mr. Gansvoort, better do like he says,” said Ollie, as his own hands went up. “Not my fault. I had to come with him. He’d ’a’ got you anyways, an’ if he’d surprised you alone there might ’a’ been worse trouble.”

“You’re talkin’ sensible, Sheriff,” said Murdock. He added: “Go ahead an’ lift ’em, Gansvoort.”

As the coin collector obeyed instructions, Murdock glanced about the large, comfortably furnished living room. His eye passed by some fine hunting and fishing prints, some superbly mounted moose and deer heads, some equally choice salmon and trout and bass specimens. He saw, only, two ebony cabinets, one on either side of the huge fireplace, on the purple velvet backgrounds of which the collector had started to place some of his coins for permanent display.

“Gansvoort, go over and strip them cabinets. Chuck all the stuff in those two leather cases you carry ’em in I see there on the table. Put all the others on the table in with ’em. Hustle!”

Gansvoort, like his friend the sheriff, apparently decided that the crook was a man who meant business. He walked over to his cabinets and removed the coins he had secured there on metal racks. It was with a slight sigh, though, that he let them trickle through his fingers into the two valises on the table. Finally the job was over and the cases closed, ready for transportation.

“You, Sheriff,” said Murdock, sticking his hand into a hip pocket. “Take this roll of picture wire and bind your pal to that straight-backed chair. Do it right, see. Then you’re gonna row me back to my car. You won’t have to gag him, cause if he lets out one peep while we’re on the way I’ll drill a hole through your bean. Savvy, Gansvoort! One yelp from you in — well, in the next hour, and Bascomb’s a dead bird!”

Gansvoort nodded, not at Murdock, but at Ollie. The latter, knowing that both of them were still completely under the crook’s power, went about the task of binding his friend to the chair with the roll of picture wire. He did a thorough piece of work on it, realizing that it would be folly to try anything else.

“All right, Bascomb. Pick up them cases and let’s blow,” ordered Murdock. “Keep your trap closed, Gansvoort, that’s all. The sheriff ’ll be back in a couple of hours, perhaps mebbe, like he says!”

Ollie, waved at with the automatic, picked up the valises and went through the door without a word. Gansvoort said nothing, either. Murdock, outside, glanced up at the crescent of moon that was coming over the tops of the trees.

“Shake a leg and get in that boat. I want to be up in Canada before daylight.”

The sheriff, once on the dock, untied the rowboat and then placed the coin cases in it.

“Hop in and turn her around stern towards me so I can get into her easy,” snapped the crook.

Ollie did hop. As he hopped, however, he seemed somehow to lose his footing. He plunged from the dock, seemed to try desperately to right himself in midair, and landed in the boat feet first, falling backwards into the bottom of it as he did so. The momentum behind him, the weight of his short and stout body, sent the craft shooting out over the calm surface of the water, a good fifty feet or more.

“Damn you, what you tryin’ to pull?” snarled Murdock, rushing to the edge of the dock and aiming his weapon. “Come back here, you fat sap, or I’ll drill you to hell!”

“Don’t shoot, Mr. Murdock! My soul an’ body, don’t shoot,” cried Ollie. “I’m tangled up in this net an’ line. I’m jest tryin’ to git my bearin’s. I’ll be at them oars in a minute an’ be at the dock for you! Please don’t shoot, Mr. Murdock!”

“Get them oars and hustle back here,” said Murdock.

“I will… I will, Mr. Murdock!”

IV

But Ollie, in presumably trying to disentangle himself from the landing net and line, was searching for the bamboo casting rod and securing the proper grip on it. Finally he succeeded. Then, with the expertness on which the crook had complimented him, he whipped back the rod tip, twisted his body about to face the man on the dock, and made what he knew was to be the most important cast of his life.

Swiftly and silently, with three gangs of treble hooks screwed securely into it, that top-water plug sailed through the air. Ollie, for an agonizing second, thought that he had overshot his mark. Immediately he was reassured, though, for with a relief so great that it literally caused his whole body to tremble, he saw that he had at least won the opening move.

The plug struck the bare right forearm of Murdock, holding the automatic, and as the sheriff yanked with all the strength that he felt the split bamboo could stand, the hooks sank into the crook’s flesh. Murdock let out a cry of surprise and pain. The gun went sailing out of his fingers to land in the lake. Simultaneously, the man himself lost his balance, tried to right himself, and pitched forward into the water with a heavy splash.

Ollie began reeling in his line like a madman. It was new line and strong line, he was aware, and it could take powerful punishment. It had to, furthermore, for the sheriff was pulling his boat toward his captive, still struggling in the water. The lake was not more than three feet deep there, and it was not long before Murdock had regained his footing. He stood up, blowing out water and shrieking with pain:

“Damn you, you’ve dug them hooks clean through my arm!… Damn you, lemme loose!… I’ll—”

“You’ll stand quiet an’ stick your hands in the air, this time, Mr. Murdock,” said Ollie quietly, when only a few feet away from his opponent. “If you don’t, I’ll jest be c’mpelled to bash your bean in with one o’ my oars!”

The crook obeyed.

“Good,” drawled Ollie. “Now jest stand there till I git on the dock.”

Ollie, then, deftly maneuvered his boat, pushing it along with one oar, until he was able to step onto the wharf. He gave further commands:

“Walk up here to the edge of the dock. That’s it. Now, put your arms down, close to your sides. Fine. Keep ’em there an’ — no, keep ’em there, I said!”

As he spoke, he began whirling the short one-piece bamboo rod in the air and winding the braided silk casting line around Murdock’s body, lashing the crook’s arms to his sides.

“Jeez, you’re cuttin’ into me,” complained Murdock.

“Had to cut into my friend Mr. Gansvoort a mite, didn’t I?” queried Ollie, going on with his job. “There. I cal’late you’re what they’d term plumb roped an’ hogtied, out in the great open spaces o’ the West, Mr. Murdock,” he added in a moment.

Murdock was bound quite beautifully, at that, with all but perhaps eight or ten yards of the tough line.

“Step up onto the dock now,” said Ollie. “Here. Let me give you a hand. There. That’s fine. Now pick up them two valises. We’ll go in an’ free Mr. Gansvoort an’ then we’ll hike into Derby.”

“Hike into Derby?” gasped Murdock, as he awkwardly and painfully stooped and picked up the bags that Ollie had placed on the dock.

“Sure we’ll hike,” said Ollie.

“Can’t… can’t we row over and get my car?” asked Murdock.

“Shucks, your car ain’t fit for travellin’. Not knowin’ what ’ud happen, you see, I went an’ cut the two rear tires an’ the spare when I made believe to go back for that reel. That’s why I had my knife opened. Besides, I got to show the boys to the Derby House what I caught whilst out learnin’ plug castin’!… Sure, pick up them bags an’ let’s go let loose Mr. Gansvoort!”

It was after sunrise when Ollie drove his captive onto the macadam road that led into the county seat. Practically all of Derby, and most of the inhabitants of adjoining Saltash Corners, were on hand to greet him. Ollie had seen to that, for he had to think of his votes in the fall. He had marched the crook two miles to the nearest telephone, after they had freed the coin collector, and had sent in word that Bert Wells was to be located and get ready a cell for him.

Bert had done so, presumably, for the deputy was the first to greet him.

“Got your cell ready, Sheriff,” he said, trying to be offhand.

“Right sorry I had to git you out o’ bed to do it, Bert, an’ that I couldn’t ’a’ left orders with you ’afore I went fishin’ with Murdock,” said Ollie. He went on, slowly and gravely: “I suspicioned suthin’ were wrong when Murdock were so sot he’d bought that reel in nineteen-twen’y, but I jest couldn’t go an’ be sure.

“Dangerous to act without bein’ sure. All I could do were string along with him. I couldn’t pos’tive place him for the Sebago and Long Lake crook, although a feller might wear a red wig an’ mustache; an’ might paint a scar on his face; an’ might have shoes made to have him a few inches taller; an’ might sell or exchange a green Sunray roadster for a black Oakley coupe; or—”

“Yes, you did an excellent piece of detective work, Sheriff,” came from the deputy, who was plainly trying to slide out gracefully.

“The joke o’ the whole thing be,” chuckled Ollie, “that it were my fishin’ hobby that you fellers twit me about that went an’ helped me think Murdock might be the crook. Whereas I never were a bass caster ’afore tonight, I do a heap o’ readin’ in gun an’ fishin’ tackle cat’logues. I don’t mean it boastful, but I can come close to tellin’, through this same readin’, jest when a gun or a rod or a reel were manufactured. Anyways, when Murdock said he’d bought that reel in nineteen twen’y, I knowed he were a liar. That reel wa’n’t manufactured by that pa’-tic’lar maker until nineteen twen’y four!”

“Hell,” said Mr. Murdock.

“Well, you’ve earned a nice reward, Sheriff,” said Bert.

He looked disgruntled.

“Think I have earned it,” conceded Ollie. “Yep, seein’ as I wa’n’t able to git to the courthouse to git my gun ’thout makin’ Murdock think it funny, I were in what you young squirts call a spot where I might ’a’ been drilled. Yep, reckon I did earn it. I—”

“You can buy a lot of tackle with it, all right,” said the deputy. “I wasn’t thinking of the reward myself, when I went up to Upper Saltash,” he added.

Ollie smiled, slowly and whimsically, and scratched his bald head and blinked his round turquoise blue eyes. He spoke with a soft drawl:

“I were thinkin’ o’ the reward, alius. You see, seems as though Ken Benson, that were my dep’ty when I fu’st come into office twen’y-odd year ago, left a widder an’ three young uns when he died last year. He didn’t leave ’em much money, neither… Seems as though poor Blaise Guptil, when he lost his left arm on his portable wood saw, lost a way o’ makin’ a livin’ for him an’ his ol’ mother…”

Ollie broke off.

“Shucks, Bert,” he went on, “I reckon they’s a heap o’ ways o’ usin’ that reward. I don’t need no more tackle… Ain’t I got a pretty sweet reel right here? Look what it caught me — a twen’y-seven hundred an’ fifty dollar fish!”