10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

4A 10-STORY DETECTIVE——— the shaft and the door slid back. Stepping out, the bluecoat nodded to Stendahl in recognition, growled dis- appointedly : . “There ain’t nobody up there, sarge.”’ “Tsk, tsk,” Stendahl clicked. “That’s too bad. It looks like maybe he got away.” He pushed through the door lead- ing out back and the others followed him through. Under the spidery structure of the roller coaster the pier was largely open. Water glinted darkly against the slimy piles, little collars of white foam frilling around them and breaking as the tide rocked back and forth. Cosgrave pointed to a straight ladder leading down to the water. “Hell, he could have gone down that and into a boat. Easy enough to slip away under the pier. Maybe that’s the way he got by your dragnet. All he’d have to do was to get some one to lure Bonelli up in this tower on some pretext or other.” Millard thought of May Fitz and there seemed to be a tight band around his throat. He had a hard time get- ting out words, but he played up to Cosgrave’s lead. Gazing up a continu- ation of the ladder that climbed the back of the elevator shaft, he said: “Sure. That ladder runs clear to the top. Anyone could have gone up and down it.” Stendahl took a look, nodded and hunched his shoulders. “Amazing, Sherlocks! Far be it from me for an ordinary police dick to say you super- sleuths might be wrong.” He led the way back inside. The crowd was still out in front, being pushed back by a squad of bluecoats, but most of the plainclothes cops had come inside. One of them, King—an investigator from the D.A.’s office— was questioning a thin freckled-faced kid of about eighteen. The freckles stood out like splatters of orange paint on the kid’s white skin. He was scared stiff and wobbling. “T took him up first, and then a little later a girl—a lady—and then I come down and jeest—!” He gagged, pointing a shaking hand out toward the dragon’s mouth. ‘‘He— [ heard a woman scream and I ran out there and he’d come out of the slide and jeest!—he was all dead and bloody!” King was young and clean-cut, too handsome. He had curly black hair, a hard-chiseled jaw, and was filled with a sense of his own importance, ‘““Who was this girl—this lady?” “Jeest!”’ The elevator operator shook his head, grimacing. “I dunno! I never seen her before.” “What'd she look like?” snapped. “I dunno, She was wearing a veil- like over her face—a scarf.” King was impatient. “Well, was she fat, thin, tall, small? Think, man! What was she wearing?” The kid’s hand wavered up and down before his face. “She was about so big, I think. With a nice build!” “You would notice that. And you never brought her down?” “No. Maybe she’s still up there!” “No, she isn’t,” the prowl car cop- per who had gone aloft said. ‘“No- body’s up there now.” Millard was easing toward the door, had almost made it when King saw him from the corner of an eye, cracked: “Where you going?” “Out,” Millard said. “Got any ob- jections ?” “Yes. Maybe I want to ask you some questions. Stick around. What were you doing here?” King ING griped Millard. He’d never liked the guy’s attitude. He was too smart for his own good and they’d clashed before, with no love lost on either side. Now, Millard told him: “Stendahl’s got everything I know about this, and that’s nothing. I was outside on the pier when Bonelli came down.” “Yeah?” King’s eyes were thin. “What were you doing around here?” Gomichbooks.com