10-Story Detective Magazine, April 1946 — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

56———_——_———- 10-STORY DETECTIVE says. “I could be at Camp Dix in a few hours. J—” Chitney comes back into the room. He says the seeretary will be right over. He sits down and cracks his knuckles. The armadillo climbs into Lucretia’s lap. It seems to get darker in the room. Some citizens come in with a wicker crib and remove the corpse. One throws the sheet in my face and | almost scream. “Let’s talk about anythin’, Alvin,” Louie says. “Say, I had a buddy in the tank corps who got a date with a swell cupcake in Florence one night. This babe tells Doozie she has a friend for me the nex’ time. She gives Doozie a pitcher of the babe tc show me. Man, I feasted my lamps on that pitcher. All the flicker _ ehicks couldn’t git to first base with her. I finally lost the pitcher one night while ridin’ in a gondola in Venice. I will never forget that. Well, when me an’ Doozie went back to Florence, Doozie’s gal says her friend beat it to the Riviera or some place. Those are the breaks I always git.” “I’m still shakin’, Louie,” I says. “You got another story?” “One of these three done it,”” Hambone says. “We will sweat it out of whoever it was. We don’t have to go no farther than right here, Look, was there anybody here last night tryin’ to buy this old paintin’, Chitney?” 3 “Two persons called,” the butler says. “Up until about ten o’clock. I went to bed at that time, as always at ten on the dot I have to feed my black widows.” “You have to—ugh!” Hambone says. Louie Garfunkle drops a cigarette on the floor and bends over fast to keep the old musty rug from going up. He bends over so long I wonder if he has a crick in his back. | ONAN crams the last of the ham- burger into his big mouth and starts working again. “Chitney, you know where to reach them art praisers who visited the deceased last night? You git them over here. We’ll -fmish this job without movin’ from this house!” “The way you work,” Louie says, “you better sign a ninety-nine year lease.” He goes into the next room. Noonan takes ganders at the paintings on the wall. “Which one was stole?” he asks. Chitney says it was one that was not framed yet. Quirk kept it rolled up and locked in the drawer of his big desk. Lucretia starts tapping out a very eerie tune on the back of the pet armadillo, and I get the ague once more. Then I look at the door that goes into the room where Louie went to mooch around. There is’ Louie looking out at me. He is as pale as the inside of grape fruit rind. He beckons to me. “Ham- bone,” he says as I leave my chair, “me an’ Alvin will case this joint in here in case the crooks got in that way.” ‘You won't find nothin’,” Noonan snifis. “The killer was invited in. Even I can see that. But go ahead as you two do not seem to be of no help here.” I get into the dingy den with Louie. There is some sunlight coming in - through some cracks in the drawn shade of a window. Louie holds something in the palm of his hand. I don’t get it. Louie says he did not expect me to the first try. “Alvin, look! The artist who painted that pitcher long long ago must of put the colors on thick, as this piece chipped offen the canvas. Look close. You will see it is an eye.” “Huh? An eye? Why, it is. It scares me, Louie, to say the least.” “Alvin, you have known me a long time, ain’t you? I do not kid around maur- ders. I have seen this eye before, Alvin. The other one was just as spooky. | know ~ the name of the paintin’ that was stole by the citizen who rubbed out Quirk, I saw it in an art gallery in Florence, Al- vin, It is called Mona Lisa’s Mother, Tt was called by the character who showed me around the oldest paintin’ in oil in the world. I guess you realize it has to be bein’ of Mona Lisa’s ma, huh?” “Let me sit down, Louie,” I says. “Be- fore you go ahead some more, This dame Mona Lisa got famous by smilin’ over somethin’ nobody could figure out, huh? People went nuts decidin’ what she was grinnin’ at an’ what for.” “Check, Alvin. Her ma was fameus for the awful dirty look she wore when she heard Lucretia Borgia had sai¢c some- thin’ nasty about her. Like I said, the paintin’ of Mona Lisa come after the one that was snitched. You know how much the one of Mona was worth and still is.” “TY wouldn’t know,” I admit. “So where do we go from here, Louie? You don’t think Lucretia in there is a descendant of this Mona Lisa, do you? Maybe her daughier or gran—”- KS GOMmicooo (SO)