32 Caliber

32 Caliber, by Donald McGibeny

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Title: 32 Caliber
Author: Donald McGibeny
Illustrator: Hugh Mackey
Release Date: September 27, 2007 [EBook #22781]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 32
CALIBER ***

Produced by Al Haines

32 CALIBER
by
Donald McGibeny

Frontispiece by
HUGH MACKEY
[Transcriber's note: frontispiece missing from book]

INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT 1920
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

CONTENTS
I BRING JIM HERE
II TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
III I COULD KILL HIM
IV THE WORST HAPPENS
V ACCIDENT OR MURDER
VI A CLUE AND A VERDICT
VII I TURN DETECTIVE
VIII IT LOOKS BAD FOR HELEN

IX LOOK OUT, JIM
X I ACCUSE ZALNITCH
XI A DOUBLE INDICTMENT
XII WHO AM I
XIII WE PLAN THE DEFENSE
XIV BULLET PROOF
XV THE ANSWER
XVI THE MECHANICIAN
XVII RED CAPITULATES
XVIII I LISTEN TO MY FOREBEARS

32 CALIBER
CHAPTER ONE
BRING JIM HERE
I was in the locker-room of the country-club, getting dressed after the
best afternoon of golf I had ever had. I had just beaten Paisley "one-up"
in eighteen holes of the hardest kind of sledding.
If you knew Paisley you'd understand just why I was so glad to beat
him. He is a most insufferably conceited ass about his golf, for a man
who plays as badly as he does; in addition to which he usually beats me.
It's not that Paisley plays a better game, but he has a way of making me
pull my drive or over-approach just by his confounded manner of
looking at me when I am getting ready to play.

We usually trot along about even until we come to the seventh hole--in
fact, I'm usually ahead at the seventh--and then conversation does me in.
You see, the seventh hole can be played two ways. There's a small clay
bank that abuts the green and you can either play around or over it to
the hole, which lies directly behind. The real golfers play over with a
good mashie shot that lands them dead on the green, but dubs, like
Paisley, play around with two easy mid-iron shots. When we get to the
place where the choice must be made, Paisley suggests that I go around,
which makes me grip my mashie firmly, recall all the things I have read
in the little book about how to play a mashie shot, and let drive with all
my force, which usually lands me somewhere near the top of the clay
bank, where it would take a mountain goat to play the next shot. After
that, Paisley and I exchange a few hectic observations and my
temperature and score mount to the highest known altitude.
Of course, every now and then, I forget my stance and Paisley long
enough to send the ball in a beautiful parabola right on to the green,
and when I do--oh, brother!--the things I say to Paisley put him in such
a frame of mind that I could play the rest of the course with a paddle
and a basket-ball and still beat him. This particular afternoon he had
tried to play the seventh hole as it should be played, and though we had
both foozled, I had won the hole and romped triumphantly home with
the side of pig.
I was gaily humming to myself as I put on my clothes when James
Felderson came in. His face was drawn and his mouth was set in a way
that was utterly foreign to Jim, whose smile has done more to keep
peace in committee meetings and to placate irate members than all
other harmonizing agencies in the club put together. There was
something unnatural, too, about his eyes, as though he had been
drinking.
"Have you seen Helen?" he demanded in a thick voice.
"No. Not to-day," I answered. "What's the matter, Jim? Anything
wrong?"
Felderson has been my law partner ever since he married my sister

Helen. I had left him at the office just before lunch and he had seemed
then as cheerful and unperturbed as usual.
"Helen has gone with Frank Woods!" he burst out, his voice breaking
as he spoke.
It took a second for me to grasp the meaning of what he said, then I
grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Jim, Jim, what are you saying?"
My sister--left her husband--run off with another man! I had read of
such things in stories, but never had I believed