FICTION

The Great Escape

by Kathy (5-P-4) FPE

Allen Horn, lower jaw drooping in disbelief, stared at the open safe in the rear of the accounting department of Horn & Lear Investment Company. When he and Fred Lear had left the office the previous day, there had been $250,000 in negotiable securities plus a substantial amount of cash within the wall safe.

He scooped out neatly tied bundles of money in a fruitless search for the securities that had been so recently in the vault.

Almost without thinking, he reached for the phone and began dialing for the local police, but then stopped abruptly as the realization of his position as a result of the missing securities became clear.

Only he and Fred knew the combination of the safe. He was the junior member of the partnership and had invested his life savings in this venture, while Fred was a wealthy respected member of his profession.

It dawned on him that he would be the logical culprit and perpetrator of this crime. What chance would he have to disprove his guilt! Fred was independently wealthy and he was not.

If he were to bring in the police, they would not believe him and he undoubtedly would be jailed, tried, convicted, and

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