10-Story Detective Magazine, April 1946 — page 34: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

looked at Culpy and smiled vaguely. “Thought I heard somebody. Sorry, I’m not taking any more patients to- night.””’ He moved as though to close the door. Culpy had been listening with only half an ear, all his senses tuned to the noises of the outside corridor. The footsteps had pounded past. Now they returned, hesi- tated, and seemed to be holding a confer- ence somewhere close by. Culpy gnawed at his lip. He had to stay here for a few minutes at least. His eyes darted about, seeking, and slid swiftly over the frosted door-panel, passed on and jerked back. His mind spelled out the reversed letters. H. D. B-R-E-C-K-E-R, D-D-S. A sawbones. “Say, Doc—” Culpy eased across the room, his voice low, his hands in pockets, one hand caressing the thick wad of bank- motes that had come from the loan com- pany’s safe, the other curled around the cool, slim length of his knife. A flick of his finger and an evil, six-inch blade would snap out. “Say, Doc—” Culpy moved closer. Dr. Breeker peered at h#m near-sight- edly. He spoke hesitantly. “Of course, if you are in pain, perhaps TI could help you.” “That’s it, Doc. That’s it.” Culpy’s hand made a tentative motion at his stomach. “I hurt.” Dr. Brecker stepped back into the other room. “Come in here and Ill have a look.” The footsteps were still shuffling and mumbling around outside, so Culpy fol- lowed the doctor. He stepped into a small, spotiessiy sterile office. Culpy’s eyes widened and his mouth twisted as he saw the dentist chair in the center of the fioor. “Cripes! A toothsmithk!” He half-turned away, but the sound of voices in the corridor forced him back into the reom, urged him eringing, into the chair at Dr. Brecker’s motion. The doctor put the bowl he had been stirring down on a cabinet and was wash- ing his hands in a pungent disinfectant. “Be right y ith you. Been making a final cast. This plaster is hard to get off.” A few seconds later he approached the ehair, drying his hands on a towel. “Now,” he said, “open up and let’s see what the trouble is.” Culpy cracked his mouth. The dentist pried the reluctant teeth apart. He ad- justed his glasses and peered inside, then 10-STORY DETECTIVE elucked his tongue and waggied his head. “Hmm. Think I see the trouble.” He picked up a small instrument, the end of which gleamed and twisted wickedly. Then he dove back into Culpy’s mouth. “Ts this it?” He touched a tooth, and red- hot agony screamed through Culpy’s veins, His body arched in the chair. The dentist stood erect and turned to his instrument cabinet. “We'd better fix that right away.” Culpy was holding one hand to his throbbing jaw, and the other was ner- vously on the knife in his pocket. His little eyes were wicked and fieree on the doctor’s unconscious back. Nobody had ever hurt Culpy like that and lived—for long. Turning back to the patient, the dentist smiled his automatie, sympathetic smile, “Now, Mr. — eh — what did you say your name was?” Culpy seowiled, “Smith,” he ground out. “Now Mr. Smith, this might hurt a little.” He pried Culpy’s teeth apart again, and inserted a vise of some sort. ‘So you'll be sure and keep that month open.” It had been years sinee Culpy had been in a dentist’s chair, but he remembered the drill. He shrank back as the dentist approached with it. He couldn’t close his mouth, The vise prevented that. The sides of his jaws were aching with the strain. Then the drilling started. Sweat popped: out on Culpy’s forehead and lip. His hand was tight around his knife. Clenched so tightly that the nails were breaking on the bone knife-handle. The whining, screeching rasp of the drill seemed to be going through the top of his head. The drilling stopped. Dr. Brecker looked down at Culpy and frowned. “Mr. Smith, you’) have to keep that tongue out of the way.” The dentist peered at him disapprovingly, then poised the drill once more. Just then there was a knoek on the outside door. Cringing back in his chair, Culpy heard the door open, and the clomp of heavy feet crossing the room. The chair faced away from the door, but Culpy saw the dentist as he looked up “Ves tog There was an apologetic cough and a shuffling of feet. “Seen anything of a little fellow in a blue suit, sort of squinty eyes?” The voice was heavy. Culpy could almost feel EGOMIGIOOKS (C@