10 Story Detective, July 1942 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

SD Rs ae The grip of his fingers bit into her arms. He said: “I came out here to talk about one thing, Donna. You’re not sidetracking me. I’m a cop, on va- cation from police work, but my brother is in trouble. My brother! We've stuck by each other since we were kids. Greg is straight, see? I know that. I’m not going to let him be an idealistic sap!” She stiffened, tried to free her arms. Her sleek body squirmed, but Rocky held her arms fast. “What— what has that to do with me?” she cried. “You’re hurting my arms!” “Shut up and listen. Greg didn’t kill Jack Rance.” Rhodes took a deep breath and plunged into his lie. “Greg valued that knife. There’s only one person in the world he’d give it to, outside of me. That’s you, Donna. He gave it to you as a keepsake. Never mind how, but I know you had the knife. “You killed Jack Rance with it, knowing Greg would be blamed. He realized that, took the rap for you because he’s still so damned in love with you he’s out of his mind!” “No, no, Rocky!’ Donna tossed her head, “You—youw’re right about Greg giving me the knife, but I didn’t kill Rance. I kept the knife home in my bureau. Someone must have stolen it. He—” The bushes rustled behind them. Before either could act a vague, shad- owy figure reared up. Something swished through the air straight at Rhodes’ head. Lightning-like reaction was all that saved him, He got one arm up and fended off the blow a little. The heavy chunk of wood didn’t connect squarely with his skull. Rhodes staggered back, a blood-red haze blinding him. Through it he saw a blurred vision of Donna shrinking back against the fence of the sum- merhouse, hand to mouth, stifling a scream. He couldn’t see the man be- cause he was standing in shadows. Then the inside of Rocky’s head whirled like a roulette wheel. He acted purely on instinct after that. 10-STORY DETECTIVE———— The bludgeon struck again, but by now Rhodes had his neck hunched down into broad shoulders, alleviating the force of the blows. He staggered a few paces, plunged to his face. OCKY came to in a dancing white fog which slowly cleared. He crawled a few feet, worked some of the rubber from his legs and stood up. He brushed off dirt, dabbed sticky, half-dried blood from his ear and the side of his head. Then he retraced the few steps to the summerhouse. He struck several matches, exam- ined the ground. There were foot- prints and signs of a struggle in broken branches and trampled grass, but they didn’t help much. The little white business card caught in the top of a rose bush did, though. Rhodes picked it up and read: HUGH RAWLINS, D.DS. ALBON BUILDING HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA Rhodes pocketed the card, pushed through the garden toward the house, found that all the guests had departed. He answered Abe Dortmann’s anxious queries with a story about tripping and knocking his head against a gar- den bench. Dortmann regarded him shrewdly. “Look, Rocky, I got a wad of dough tied up in your picture. Don’t go wal- lowing around in this murder mess and crossing Lew Jensen. If shooting is held up even for a few days on this picture, it'll cost me—” “The hell with your picture!’ Rhodes snarled. ‘Listen, Dortmann, I’m going to get my brother out of this fall-guy rap if the only picture you ever have of me is in a coffin.” He wheeled toward his ’35 sedan, tooled out onto Santa Monica Boule- vard, headed toward town. He made the run from Beverly Hills to the Albon Building near the post office in fast time. Charwomen were scrubbing the lobby and by flashing his New York shield, Rocky got them to let him in. OO) =) ms [ (C(O) S (C(O) nn