10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

RETURN FROM HELL——————_————————65 TSD body but young Thorpe, that new timekeeper.” “Good grief! Johnny Thorpe?... Wait, Tim.” The super whirled on the men. “Don’t touch anything! The timekeeper fell in this hole and I'll take care of him. Go on back to your jobs—beat it!” They did. Emerson was the sort of a boss who did not have to speak twice. But his voice was a shade husky when he turned back to the foreman. “Is he dead, Tim?” Egan loosed another rope and be- gan throwing back the tarp. “Shure, an’ I had but the one look, him bein’ huddled upside down on his head.” “Poor kid,” said Emerson softly. “His leg was touching that salaman- der when it was red hot.” But the little open stove, used to prevent fresh concrete from freezing, was now black and almost cold. The superintendent stepped across to the pier form and descended. Touched an oddly twisted arm gingerly, then, compressing his lips, removed a glove and thrust a hand against the lad’s breast. He coughed and looked up, re- gret plain in his deep brown eyes. “Cold and stiff, Tim .... Poor chap! He must-have slipped in during the blizzard which came on just be- fore quitting time. His head hit one of these braces and stunned him so that he froze to death when the fire burned out. Maybe he broke his neck when he fell—it’s seven feet to this footer. Well, we won’t move him. We'll let the police see it just as it was.” : “T think you’re right, sorr,” said _ the foreman, frowning when Emerson climbed out. “But he didn’t freeze, that’s sartain. The air’s still warm, because I give old Jonas, the night waichman, strict orders to throw on a shovel of coke at midnight. It wuzz gittin’ cold at five an’ I didn’t wanta run no chances o’ freezin’ them piers, whut with steel comin’ the week. Tony an’ me looked at them first two piers, then come to this wan.” “He’s upside down,” Emerson mused, “and lying next to that sala- mander. Funny Jonas didn’t see him. How did you recognize him with one look, Tim? You couldn’t see his face.” “Shure, an’ I saw his red an’ green mackinaw.... Say-y, are yez accusin’ me 0’ pushin’ the lad in, Mister Emer- son?” Tim asked heatedly. “No, but the police might ask us some hard questions,” the super re- turned heavily. “Well, tie that tarp rope and we’ll go up to my office and report it to them right away.” As they moved away he turned to the worried little man beside him. “If that tarp rope was tied down he couldn’t have fallen in, Tim. You sure all those ropes were tied to the stakes?” Egan scratched the back of his neck with a mittened hand. “Lemme think. Seems to me they was .... I’m sure of it. I was cuss- in’ some because I had to take off me mitts to untie the knot. I larned old Jonas to drop a double half-hitch over— Say-y, boss, that was a double overhand knot I untied. Bejabers, Jonas either got careless or else some- body shoved the pore feller in an’ tied a different kind of a knot!’ - Tim halted dead in his tracks and stared, goggle-eyed, at the super. Ray Emerson nodded. “I think so, too, Tim, Johnny Thorpe was murdered! But—good grief—why ?” That was Saturday, the fourteenth of January. 66 HAT’S the story, Gardner,” president Thomas McGann was saying the following Monday. “I’m hoping that the Gardner Detective Agency can do us some good.” The slender young man in Me- Gann’s private office carefully flicked the ash from a stogie into the cuspi- dor at the end of the president’s desk. His hands and face had the deep- tanned look of an outdoor man. He looked supple, intelligent, capable. He sat leaning forward in his chair, but his gray eyes were half-closed as he studied the beefy, red-faced contrac- rs; = hew : —e Se ie la Ll » oz - in tas s ms - eee Se < = <4 ba ey pee en - ns = ~ = < m —* a 32-7 = ~. a - . fed