by Lionel White
By this time Howard McNally was cold sober. Perhaps not quite sane, but certainly cold sober.
The moment Tomlinson snapped on the overhead light, Howard dropped to his knees so that the keyhole was within an inch from his eye. He had a clear view of Allie, blocked only by the silhouetted shoulder of Tomlinson. He heard Tomlinson’s words, which didn't at first mean anything to him.
But then he heard Tomlinson mention the murdered girl. He saw Tomlinson reach out for Allie Neilsen and twist the scarf around her neck.
There was no mistaking what Tomlinson was about to do.
The gun wasn’t even loaded: The target gun which Howard McNally still clutched in his hand.
He didn’t even think as he crashed through the door. He didn’t even realize that he was holding the gun by the barrel and pointing the butt of the gun at Tomlinson in a completely ridiculous fashion, as he yelled the words.
“Drop her,” McNally yelled. “Let her go!”
To do what he had to do then, Tomlinson was forced to take his hands from the scarf.
As the gun in Gerald Tomlinson’s fist, the gun he’d jerked from his rear pocket, quickly leaped in his hands and the impact of the shots blasted in the small rectangular room, the sirens screaming a block away reached the killer’s ears.
Howard McNally never heard the sirens, although it was his own wife who had called the police to the scene. He was already dead as he slowly dropped across the doorsill half in and half out of the room. He never knew that it was Myrtle who had called the police to arrest him for the Julio girl’s murder; the same police who within minutes were to capture Gerald Tomlinson as Tomlinson tried to shoot it out with them on the lawn of his home in Fairlawn Acres.
Chapter Fifteen
Now and then Lieutenant Clifford Giddeon will think about Fairlawn Acres; not long ago he drove through the place, passing along Crescent Drive. He was on his way from his home over to a new yard out near North-port, where he keeps his ketch. He turned in at Fairlawn on a whim; he sort of felt sentimental about the neighborhood.
Things haven’t changed a great deal in Fairlawn, although Mathews and Cohen did add a couple of hundred additional homes. A few of the older residents have moved away and their houses have been purchased and occupied by new young couples, most of whom have children.
The Tomlinsons, of course, are no longer there. Tomlinson himself is in the death cell up in Sing Sing—they never did try him for the Julio murder, but a hunter accidentally discovered Arbuckle’s body when his beagle began digging around for a rabbit and uncovered a swollen hand. The bullet in Arbuckle’s skull matched Tomlinson’s gun and a conviction was easily obtained, in spite of the brilliant defense by I. Oscar Leavy, who took on Tomlinson’s case immediately upon losing Len Neilsen as a client.
It happened only two weeks after Tomlinson’s capture and was very convenient all the way around. Marian Tomlinson and Patsy just disappeared and no one knows what has become of them.
The Swansons are still there, but the Kitteridges have sold their place and moved into a residential hotel in upper Manhattan.
Oddly enough, Myrtle McNally also still lives in Fairlawn. It turned out, much to her surprise as well as everyone else’s, that Howard had taken out a double indemnity policy for fifty thousand dollars less than a month before he was killed. The money makes it possible for her to keep her house and bring up little Melanie.
The Julio family have long since departed but the Doyle youngster, Peter, still Eves around the corner with his mother and father. He has turned into a very normal boy and is wildly enthusiastic over baseball and football and has given up most of his childish fancies. He is no longer interested in play acting.
Of course the Neilsens are no longer around; they sold the house and took a place up in Westchester, where, finally, they were able to uncover a good “buy” within their means. Len is doing fine as the office manager at Eastern Engineering and is in line for an assistant vice-presidency any day now. He drinks nothing stronger than root beer.
Perhaps the strangest thing is, that of all the people whose Eves were to be so vitally affected by that rather miraculous incident mentioned in the very beginning of this story—the incident of Mrs. Manheimer’s scream when TomEnson was about to bring his gun down on the skull of Angelo BertolE— only Mrs. Manheimer herself really benefited.
During the course of the JuEo murder investigation and the subsequent trial of Gerald TomEnson, Mrs. Manheimer sold an extra hundred papers over the counter of her newsstand each day.
It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.
THE END