10 Story Detective, July 1942 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

———_——SATAN’S SCANDAL SHEET—————————_ ago. If nothing else, the commotion should have attracted her. A couple of more cops arrived and cleared a space around the body. | took up a post at the edge of the crowd. A sheet appeared from some- where and a cop dropped it over what was left of Mark Gregg. Then another cop yelled: “Anybody here see it or was near the man when he went under?’ A boy and girl in their late teens edged shyly forward and started talk ing to the cops in undertones. After half a minute a bald-headed guy and then a husky young fellow joined them, Presently a group of men in plain- clothes broke through. A _ thick-set, gray-haired man was in charge. He took a peek at the body, then spoke to the cops and witnesses. When he seemed to have absorbed the idea, I stepped forward. “Pardon me,” I said. “I can identify the corpse.” “That’s fine. Who is he?” “Mark Gregg, a small-time gam- bler. He came here from New York for the Hialeah races, but has been spending most of his time at the dog tracks.” ; “Were you well acquainted with . him?” The detective was one of the few men I]’d met in Miami who had a genuine Southern accent. “Not too well. We had a talk twen- ty or thirty minutes before he was murdered. He’d been palling around with a girl named Betty Boyer who dances at Augie Shor’s Club. I saw them in the water together a little while before his body was dragged out.” His light gray eyes ran over me scathingly. ‘Were you here all along?” “I was in the water, a few hundred feet away when he was stabbed.” “Why’d you wait so long to tell us you knew him?” I grinned. ‘““Why waste time on the patrolmen? And I knew you’d want to question the witnesses first.” His face == BT started getting sore, aS mine would have if I’d come up against somebody like me. So I added quickly: “You see, I’m a cop myself. Lieutenant Claude Durkee of the New York Police.” TRE STRETCHED out a hand. HE “Glad to know you, lieutenant. I’m Sergeant Swanson. Here on busi- ness ?”” “Just a vacation.” “Anyway, it’s lucky that you hap- pen to be around. There may be a New York angle you can help us out on.” “Glad to,” I said. “Do the witnesses know anything?” Swanson shrugged. “It was a clev- er job. They remembered seeing him in the water, and then a minute or two later that young fellow over there saw a wave hit a body that was just under the surface and didn’t seem to be get- ting up. He grabbed him and felt the body was limp and sang out for the lifeguard.” “Did anybody see the girl with Gregg ?”’ “What girl?” “The one I told you about—Betty Boyer. I looked for her right after the body was dragged out, but she wasn’t around.” “Say, you’ve got something.” I tagged after Swanson to where the four witnesses were standing whispering to each other. Only one of them had noticed Betty, and that was the young girl. “Because she was so stunning,” the girl said. “Yes, she was with that poor man.” “How long was she with him be- fore the body was found?” Swanson asked. “Well, I couldn’t say. You see, we swam out a little farther for a while, and when we came back to shallow water, neither of them were in sight. That is, I didn’t pay any special at- tention to whether or not they were nearby—there were so many people about—until this man started yelling that somebody was drowning.” Swanson turned to the man who had discovered the body. “And you. OO) @) (CONNIE S (C(O) im