10-Story Detective Magazine, April 1946 — page 68: what you’re looking at

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

! 66—$—$__—_______—_ 6 STORY. DETECTIVE apparently. He pushed the bell-button, heard the bell. growl like a metal cur, and waited. No answer. He knocked, and the door creaked inward from his knuckles. The room beyond was dark. Nelson stepped in. The fellow with the green car had probably been Monfrede, at that. Well, Nelson would find a cozy chair, make himself comfortable, and wait. He fumbled along the wall for the light switch and tripped over something goft and yielding. He found the light, clicked it on, and saw that what had tripped him was a body. This was Elmo, all right. The corpse was much more Miss Jacques’ type. As hard-faced as she, even with his mouth sagging open. Dressed in a grey zoot-suit with a red chalk stripe. Sprawled as though an idiot giant had pulled his arms and legs out of their sockets, like maim- ing a fly, then flung the body down and stamped on it—the grotesque distortion of death. Another body lay beside him, a tiny one, A doll’s. Napoleon Bonaparte lay broken and twisted. Only his mouth was- n’t gaping and his eyes rolled up to the whites. Even in miniature death, Napo- leon retained his dignity. What had killed Elmo? A bright sliver protruded from his throat just below the ear. A shining splinter with a hilt and finger-guard. Napoleon’s little four-inch sword! It had been thrust into Elmo’s throat and viciously twirled, severing the. nerve paths, paralyzing the man’s involuntary muscies, strangling him almost instantly. * Oops!” Nelson gurgled, and turned, about to make a hasty exit. But someone was at the door—Gerry Jordan, Her face was paint-white, her lipstick shocking red, one hand raised in horror to her mouth. Slowly she raised her eyes from the body to Nelson, let them settle down to the body again. “Nelson! You didn’t—you couldn’t ?” Her voice was mechanical, inhuman. “Of course I didn’t!” He touched the cadaver’s cheek. “Elmo’s been dead for hours. He’s cold.” “But what are you doing here?” She ecouldn’t turn from the corpse. It was at- tractive to her as a snake’s eyes to a bird. “I came to tell him off. What are you doing here yourself?” At last she looked up, a trace of color large parcel warming the white. “I was afraid maybe you'd come here. I wanted to warn him—” He stepped over to her, grasped her arm. “So you cared about him, did you?” She struggled a little, but ineffectually. “No, no. You don’t understand. I just didn’t want you to get in trouble over me, that’s all!” Then, being in love, they forgot for a moment that there was any such thing as death, for it was their reconciliation, “Pretty picture!” jeered the redheaded Miss Jacques from the hall. “Love in bloom! Step aside and let me talk to—” She jerked as if beaten. “Elmo!” She thrust them aside as if they were weeds and dropped to her knees by the body. But almost in the same second she was on her feet again, whipping a gun from her purse and covering the two with it. “Talk, and talk fast! Who did it?” Gerry cried, “Neither of us—” just as Nelson said, “We just got here!” | Mis Jacques approached them. “TI just got here, too. Come on, speak up, one of you, or I'l] let you both have it!” oogp!: DEAR, dear—oh, deary me!” murmured a fourth voice from the door. It was Martin Clayfus with a in brown paper. “Why, Jenny—Miss Jacques—what-~are you doing?” He saw the body, and dropped his package. It contained glass and made a dreadful crash. Jenny Jacques pointed with a taut perk of her head. “Get alongside them!” Her gun was covering all three. “What’re you doing here, toy-maker?” “When Mr. Monfrede called for the Napoleon doll this afternoon, he forgot the pedestal and glass dome,” Clayfus said, making tst sounds with his tongue. “And to think he was alive only a few hours ago!” Suddenly he gasped and screwed up his face like a little boy on the brink of tears. “My Napoleon! Broken!” He would have reached for the doll, but Jenny Jacques backed him to the others with a wave of her weapon. “Oh, who did it? Who did it?” 2 “That’s what I want to know,” Jenny said curtly. “All of you get farther in the room—and keep your hands up. I loved Elmo. I’d just as soon kill you all, the way I feel right now.” “We just got here,” Nelson said, “He's | ComicoookKs (S@