10 Story Detective, July 1942 — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

the statues because I was afraid they would make me blush. They were sort of Egyptian dancing girls and if some- body didn’t cover them up soon they’d ve liable to catch pneumonia. The gir] took her fingers out of her mouth and gulped twice. “I—I’m sor- ry, but your unele isn’t at home. Couldn’t you come hack some other cime ?” I shook my head. “If you don’t mind, miss, J’ll wait for him.” She pointed to a chair. “Then sit down there.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a pretty gir) before. Her eyes weren’t ereen or topaz at all. They were kind of a deep mottled gray. She was slen- der and soft and her hair was the eolor of corn in midsummer. And she was scared. Anybody could see that. Really scared. She separated a pair of drapes and went into an inner room. I saw her hat and coat lying on a chair and beyond the chair was a fireplace. Uncle Henry was lying beside the fireplace. TI eouldn’t really see his face because nis arm was flung out covering it. But there was blood on his sleeve and a pool of blood on the floor. The hair at the side of his head was matted with it. Beside his hand and almost touch- ing his fingers was a heavy brass poker. ¥ SAW all that the instant before the portieres swung back into place. It didn’t take me long to jump out of the chair and burst into the room. I stood there staring at the girl who was slip- ping into her coat. My mouth was dry as a piece of sunburnt flannel. The girl stopped putting on her coat. It was a yellow polo and she looked like a canary frozen in mid- flight. Her red lips were slightly part- ed and there was a feverish, fright- ened look in her mottled gray eyes. I went around to the other side of Uncle Henry. He was dead, all right. His face had a waxen pallor and his eyes were still open, the pupils large —.-—------—-—-———-CRIME ON HIS HANDS ts and dilated under a pair of thick- lensed glasses. “Uncle Henry!’ I whispered, shocked. Then I turned around to the girl. “Look here, miss—” She was racing for the door, her yellow coat skirt flying. I chased her and pulled her back. She became a sud- den tempest. Her nails scraped a fur- row of skin off my cheek and I tasted blood on the corner of my mouth. She was breathing very hard, in great ragged gulps, like the splintering of wood, just before the slivers fly off. I have never seen anybody so fright- ened. She was scared green. I grabbed hold of her arms so tight it must have hurt and I shook her like a cat rattled a ball of wool. “Stop that!’ I said. “Stop it!” And then she collapsed and sort of fell apart. She became limp and her arms dropped to her sides. Her eyes rolled up and she started to fall like a crushed caterpillar. I guess if I hadn’t been holding so tight she would have spilled to the floor. But she soon had a grip on herself. I led her back to the ottoman and sat her down. The ottoman was uphol- stered in gold brocade and made a huge semicircle around one side of the room. She was crying now, not so much tears of sorrow, but sort of a nervous reaction. It made me uncomfortable. I don’t like to see girls cry. I waited until she got a grip on herself and then she looked up at me and her voice was thin. “Please, let me go.” “Why did you kill him?” I asked. Her head jerked and her eyes grew wide like two round jade discs. ‘‘Me!” she breathed in a timberless voice. “Me! You think I killed him?” She tried to struggle off the ottoman again, but I barred the way. She sank back and her face was blank, wooden. “You’re wrong,” she said. “I didn’t kill him. It—it was an accident. He fell. Yes, that’s it.” She swallowed eagerly. “He fell. He hit his head GORlGooo S (C(O) nn