10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 98: what you’re looking at

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

96-——__—__-_———__10-STORY DETECTIVE picked up a towel, and unlocked his door. Mrs. Freling was in the kitchen preparing breakfast. She called out a cheery, “Good morning, Mr. Kem- merer. You have good exercises, no?” He said, “Good morning, Mrs. Fre- ling. I smell bacon. Turn my eggs over this morning, will you?” Then he went on into the bathroom and shaved, He was very cool. This didn’t surprise him; he had planned long and well. The incident of the pen had been annoying, but he’d covered every angle of that. He finished, taking his time. He slicked his hair back and left the bathroom. MAN was waiting for him in the kitchen. Mr. Freling was eating his breakfast undisturbed, but Mrs. Freling was fluttering about, ex- cited. “Mr. Kemmerer!” she exclaimed. “This man is from the police. He wants—” The detective motioned to her. “‘All right, lady, Pll talk for myself.” He turned to Kemmerer. ‘You been here all morning?” Kemmerer said angrily, “What do you mean—have I been here all morn- ing? What’s it to you? What are you doing here anyhow?” The detective held up a placating hand. “Don’t get excited. I’m just checking up. Your boss, Jake Banff, was choked to death at a quarter to seven this morning!” Kemmerer acted well. He had re- hearsed. He clutched the detective’s coat. “Good Lord, no!” Mrs. Freling let out a little bleat. Mr. Freling, with a mouth full of egg, said, “Too bad. But Kemmerer had nothing to do with it. He was in his room doing setting-up exercises, like he does every day. We heard the radio.” The detective looked at Freling. “But you didn’t hear him—did you?” Kemmerer said, “Well, of all the—” The detective stopped him. “Wait a minute—we can settle this quick, if you'll cooperate. If you had noth- ing to do with it, you’ll show me what I want to see, and then I can go.” *‘What’s that?” Kemmerer asked. “Your fountain pen!” The detective rapped it out, watching him keenly. “My fountain pen!” Kemmerer looked blank, then shrugged. “Okay. If you want to act crazy—” He went to his room, the officer fol- lowing. The officer stood in the door- way while he got out the pen, then snatched it from him, removed the cap, and wrote with it in his note book. He looked up disappointed. It had written black. “I guess you’re all right,” he said. “If this was Banff’s pen it’d be filled with green ink. You see, the guy who bumped Banff, took the old man’s pen, as near as I can fig- ure out, because his own got smashed in the—” He was interrupted by a loud rap- ping at the outer door. Mrs. Freling, who had come after them and had been watching with open mouth, went to answer it, When she opened the door, an im- mense woman in a house dress came in, carrying a pillow. She said in a loud, angry voice, “I’m Mrs. Reilly, from the flat below. An’ I wanna know what you people mean by throwing green ink down on my bed- ding what I was airing!” The pillow case had a large green stain, hardly dry yet, across the top, Oe tee a er teat ae pa comicbooks co Tay | } -_ y \ ‘ (5) :/ aot f ~) oP er ae Br AD it hy ‘, Page )