10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

§2——_—_____________10-STORY DETECTIVE He was standing in front of a two- story house. His eyes caught sight of a card in the window: FURNISHED ROOMS. Running from the sidewalk, by the side of the building, back to the rear, was a dark walk. Joe turned and ran swiftly down the walk. He halted abruptly in a back yard. The yard was surrounded by a high fence, too high to climb without some- thing to stand on. There was nothing to stand on. Three steps ran up to a small porch and the back door of the house. Joe ran up the steps, tried the door. It was locked. Near the door was a small win- dow. The glass window had been left open, but there was a latched screen. Joe produced a knife, quickly pulled the sereen as far away from the win- dow as possibe, inserted the knife and dislodged the catch. He swung the screen open, sprang up on the sill, It was a little awkward, because he was still clinging to the handbag. But he made it. There were footsteps pounding down the walk toward him. He slipped across the sill, dropped to the floor inside, pulled the screen down and latched it. He was in a small pantry. It was dark, but he could make out shelves and cupboards; close by was an open doorway. Just outside, in the backyard, were sounds of heavy, lunging tramping. Then there was silence for a moment. Joe squinted through the screen. Some one was playing a flashlight against the high walls. “He ain’t here,” muttered a voice. “And he couldn’t of got over them fences this quick,” said another. “Maybe got in the house here some way,’ said the first. Almost at once, the footsteps start- ed again and came up on the back porch. Joe moved quickly through the open doorway into a corridor. He stood - there in the darkness for a moment as he heard some one trying the back door, at the end of the corridor. He stepped forward lightly then. The cor- ridor ran straight through the house to the front door. Halfway down the corridor, a stair- way started up to the second floor. Probably the best thing to do, Joe thought, was to go to the front door, open it, glance out, watch for a chance to walk away from the house. He could pretend, if necessary, to be a roomer in the house, just going out. He reached the bottom of the stair- way, stopped suddenly. Some one was at the front door, just inserting a key. WIFTLY, Joe found the bottom step of the stairway, started up. He had reached the top when the front door opened. He paused there, out of sight from the bottom. The man who had entered made straight for the stairs. Joe slipped down the dimly-lit second-floor corridor. There were doors on each side of him. If only he could risk finding one room empty— Soon he had reached the end of the corridor. The footsteps were coming deliberately up the stairs. There was only one small window at the end of the corridor, high up. It offered no escape. Just to the right of him was a closed door. Joe seized the knob, turned it, pushed, The door opened. He entered the dark room noiselessly, closed the door again. He stood against the door in the darkness, waited. The footsteps were coming along the corridor. Presently they halted. Then he heard some one knocking on a dcor—the door just across the cor- ridor, There was a silent pause, then came the low voice of the man in the cor- ridor, talking to some one in the room there, through the door. “Hey, Post, open up!” The man’s voice sounded excited. Joe could hear the door across the corridor being opened, and the blurred sound of whispering voices. Then the door closed again. Joe’s sigh of relief was suppressed, and brief. He was in some one’s room: comicbooks..«