"Maybe a State Police Crowd Could Have Handled It Better, but I Don’t Know."

"Murder Money."

By Ellis Parker Butler (1869-1937; Wikipedia HERE and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Argosy, March 9, 1935.

Short short story (9 pages).

Online at the Pulpgen Archive (HERE).

   "Sort of reverse English, huh?"

IF a middle-aged Huck Finn had ever decided to kick back in front of the fireplace and recount a tale of murder, it might have looked something like this . . .

Main characters:

~ George, Rance Dalton, Sheriff Elbert Donworthy, Andy Fuller, Mose Brown, Orty Jones, Terry Breen, Milt Morris, Pen Harmon, Phil Straus, Mrs. Eliza Gunnerson, Brick and Bessie, Doc Overton, and the unnamed tramp (and, yes, one of them is the killer).

Typo: “'Hands up!' she [he] ordered."

References:

- "The country was full of men out of work"; "The depression must be over":

  This being 1935, of course, the Not-So-Great Depression was still on everybody's mind:

  "In the United States, the Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 and then spread worldwide. The nadir came in 1931–1933, and recovery came in 1940. The stock market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, famine, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth as well as for personal advancement." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "until prohibition got wiped out":

  "The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "put the hounds on his tracks":

  "A hound is a type of hunting dog used by hunters to track or chase prey. What makes hounds unique is the way they hunt; some, known as scent hounds, follow trails with their powerful noses, while others, called sighthounds, rely on their sharp vision and speed to spot and chase prey across open land. Breeds like the Beagle, Bloodhound, and Greyhound are well-known examples." (Wikipedia HERE.)

Resource:

- Earlier this year we spent some time with Ellis Parker Butler's Great Near-Detective, Oliver Spotts (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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