McGladdery’s home was searched and there the police, among other suspicious items found a copy of Mickey Spillane’s The Long Wait …
….. (surely as suggestive a title as that of the record ‘It’s Now or Never’) which was ruined from innumerable puncture holes identical to those on the dead body.
He had used it for target practice! He had bought two files the previous day.
The police released McGladdery in the expectation that he would eventually lead them to the items missing from the murder scene. In that week of freedom he attained a certain notoriety about town and indeed a following. The police too were following him. McGladdery deliberately led them to the
But the police’s patience eventually paid off. On the evening of 9 February 1961 McGladdery was spotted by Constable Donald Keown leaving Dirty Dick’s caf