10 Story Detective, July 1942 — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

—__—__—___—__————-_CRIME ON HIS HANDS————— with me to Reno so that I could get my divorce from Albert. We were talking about it, and then all of a sudden he stood up and grabbed his chest and started cursing. His face became terribly hideous. He fell on the floor. I tried to talk to him. I rubbed his wrists. Nothing helped. “T didn’t want to be found there with him. I thought he was dead. I ran away and left him there like that. When Albert came home I told him what had happened.” She added sim- ply: “Albert is in love with me, al- ways has been even though he knew about Henry Lambert. He said he would go back and recover my purse. I had a key to your uncle’s apartment and I let him have it. I didn’t know anybody would be there. I remem- bered it was Ecija’s day off.” “Where igs Mr. Kenyon now?” I asked. She shook her head, ‘I don’t know. He hasn’t come home since he left me to get the purse.” BIT on my lips for a moment and then I asked her: ‘“Couldn’t he have sneaked your key away and had a duplicate made, one that would let him spy on you and Uncle Henry?” And I thought to myself: A key that would let him into the apartment so that he could kill Uncle Henry. . . “You’re a very bright boy,” a voice jerked my head around to the door- way. “A very bright boy. Too bright, I might even say.” Albert Kenyon had come in very silently. His tall, hard frame filled the doorway and his right hand was in his topcoat pocket. His eyes were as hard and dull as nailheads and his mustache seemed to bristle Hike cop- per wire. A sardonic grip was on his face. “TI see the police have let you go,” he clipped. I nodded. “That means they don’t suspect you any longer. It also means that you'll inherit a nice piece of change from ——=53 your uncle’s estate. I suppose you’d like to live to enjoy it.” I nodded again. Those eyes of his held me with the same paralyzed fas- cination that a snake charmer’s flute holds for a cobra. I did not say any- thing. His wife was still seated be- side me, her hands on my shoulders, her soft full body flung half across mine, . A very awkward situation for a fel- low like me who never had any ex- perience in things like that. “Then get up on your feet,” Ken- yon snarled, “and get out ef here. Go back home where you came from. Don’t get mixed up in things you can’t finish. I have half a mind to kill you right now.” “Tisten, Albert,” Mrs. Kenyon said, “you don’t understand. I was—” “Get out!” I pushed her away and got uv. My heart was contracted inside my chest like a tight knot, It wasn’t really fear. I’m not sure what I felt. But I walked past him because I wanted to get out of there and give my churning thoughts a chance to think things out more clearly. I had some dinner and I walked aimlessly around the park. It was late, very late, when I returned to the Y. I was exhausted. I got un- dressed and climbed into bed. But it was hard to fall asleep. Too many things had happened. First I’d stum- bled into a murder, Then I suddenly found myself a rich man. And now I was in love. I didn’t fool myself about that. Or- dinarily I’m shy with girls. My emo- tions have always been boxed up like a mousetrap. One thing I knew, though. I was in love with Sally Ben- son. It had hit me clean and it had hit me hard. Working a farm like I do you sort of get to be a fatalist. Whatever has to happen will happen. Frosts and floods and good crops. Living so close to the earth you have more respect for religion. So we always tell our- OOO) O COMI S (C(O) nn