Murder off the Record

Sanctum mysteries of the Creaking Door. This is your host to welcome you once again into the inner sanctum. Come here. Don't hesitate. Come right in. Once you get accustomed to our surroundings, you'll never leave.

Nobody ever does. Once you're in, you're out. This is the kind of place that grips you. A kind of place where the bars hold, and no holes are barred. I wish you were somebody else, somewhere else.

And hang on to your wishbones, we've got a horrible example of what we mean. We're in the biggest little city in the world, Reno. A fellow with a growth of beard, thousands of ballooned at the knees, and a dragging walk.

This is a store whose sign reads, the Realtal Records shop. Make a record of your own voice. I'll record of your voice. Yeah, how much can I get on a record? There's a special long playing record.

How long? Almost 20 minutes. That's it. Where do I go? Oh, this food. This button starts the recording. You speak into the microphone. I got it. Scramble. To the chief of police, greetings. This is Happy Dolan, age 26, citizen at large, who is a occupation drifter.

I wrote into your merry little burg on the wrong end of a locomotive that was yesterday. I came here to change my luck, and I did. My luck was bad, I changed it to terrible.

I almost got knocked off twice for nothing, and I got a complaint. The weighing machine at the store drug store ought to be declared out of violence because that's where crazy things began happening to me.

I put my last copper penny in the machine just to see what not eating did to the human figure. Besides my weight, the machine stamped out a card from my penny, one of those little white cards with your fortune on it.