10-Story Detective Magazine, April 1946

This issue of 10-Story Detective (Vol. XII, No. 4, April 1946) contains nine crime and mystery stories. The featured novelet is Glenn Low's "Merchant of Vengeance," in which private investigator Tommy Slawter boards a late-night bus after a desperate woman warns him not to let "the man in there" kill her boy. Slawter recognizes a grotesque, small-limbed passenger—Masser Fane—whose face triggers terrifying memories he cannot quite place. Fane enters Jake Romine's Cafe, and Slawter follows. Other stories include William Hellmann's "A Bullet for the Groom" (about a patrolman's rival), Fergus Truslowe's "Stars Die at Dawn" (a Hollywood agent condemned to Hell), Berna Morris's "The Killer and the Cavity," and Mark Coe's novelet "The Choke's on Me" concerning suspicious heirs and a bodyguard. Additional tales cover revenge, homicide, and criminal justice across various authors. Stories range from approximately 4 to 72 pages.