Pulp Fiction, 1938 · page 56 of 116
10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 56: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is **story prose** from a hardboiled detective pulp magazine. The page shows two connected sections of narrative: the protagonist physically confronting Stellman after a tense interrogation, then later discovering newspaper clippings about a gem thief named Keller who died in a sanatorium after killing a detective. The detective narrator is now investigating the case further and deciding whether to visit Doctor Jollard's sanatorium, uncertain but driven to solve multiple suspicious deaths involving what appears to be a stolen "heart of emeralds."
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
54—_—______________10-STORY DETECTIVE Stellman glared at me. “Never mind the side remarks. What do you know ?” “About the green heart? I’m not certain of anything about it,” I ad- mitted. Their hands were suddenly chilly again. Stellman stepped toward me. “We've been very patient with you,” he said. “You have,” I agreed, placing a cigarette between my lips. I picked my lighter off the night table and held it off to the teft while I snapped it. The flame flared and Stellman’s gaze diverted to it for just a frac- tion of a second. | But in that fraction my right fist drove home to his jaw and knocked him baek into line between me and Droopy. I followed right up and shoved him hard against Droopy. They sprawled back on the bed. For my weight and build, I’m six-two and stop the seales at one-ninety, I can tionally neglected to tell me the name of his own physician, He knew some- thing about the green heart, some- - ec “< — ~ ~~ 62° so © ee ee ee ae _ eo —~_ oe a - the shell of this ease than I’d hoped to be. My number flashed on the board, and I went to the window and got bound copies of newspapers two months old. At last I found what I wanted after glancing throwgh sev- eral editions. GEM THIEF DIES AFTER KILLING DETECTIVE Uses Sanatorium as Refuges Bystander Wounded by Wild Bullet The account in the papers cleared up a lot. The bystander was Charles Gammer. Passersby had carried him, unconscious, into a small private sana- torium, the same sanatorium in which Keller, the gem thief, had taken ref- uge and died. The various newspaper aecounts related how Doctor Jules Jollard, the owner of the sanatorium, had performed an immediate, single- handed operation to save Gammer’s life. At least, the operation was single-handed until the arrival of an ambulance summoned by the police who found Keller lying dead in the hall. I frowned at the papers. For a mo- ment I thought I knew who had stolen the heart of emeralds, who had committed the murders. But some- thing I’d heard said tonight I couldn’t ignore, even though it kept me from sewing up this case—unless I could figure a new angle to explain the death of Dr. Plunkett, the second man to die. I was very anxious to meet this Doctor Jollard, so I handed in the papers, and on the way to Jollard’s I stopped briefly in a haberdashery to buy a hat. Outside the sanatorium, I paused. Madison Avenue can appear very deserted at night after you’ve seen it jammed in the daytime. I felt Pd be walking into a hornet’s nest if I went in, so why should I? Why not let -the police mop up this case? cS cComichoo (E(0)