10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

LONG-DISTANCE DOOM————————_____—-4 “That’s the name, I believe,’’ Mar- tin confirmed. “But he’s not here,” the gambler said easily. ‘The fact is, I hear he’s been kidnaped.” “Sure,” said Martin. “You kid- naped him, I came here to get him.” “Mind your talk!’ Durga flared. “I don’t know anything about Frank Lindsey.” The bulge in Martin’s coat pocket changed shape slowly. Something round and hard poked out the cloth in front. “Suppose we go up to your office and talk it over,” the detective sug- gested. . Durga shrugged. “Why not? If you feel that way about it.” He turned on one heel and walked toward a stair- way that led up beside the wall. At the newel post he halted, waited for Martin to go first. Martin was halfway up the stairs when Nelson Lindsey’s son burst into view at the top. His clothes were awry and there were welts on his face. “Get back, you damn—” Durga snarled. Back to the wall, Martin flashed out his gun and leveled it at the gambler’s chest. “Careful, Durga!” he said slowly. “My trigger is pulled all the way back on this rod. Nothing is holding the hammer but my thumb. If anything should happen to me and my thumb should let the hammer go, you’d get a dose of lead!” “T can’t go through with it!” Frank Lindsey was saying from the top of the stairs. “To hell with you and your crooked gambling games!” Durga’s lips curled wolfishly. “Just the hammer holding it back, eh, Mar- tin? When the hammer is turned loose, out comes the bullet, eh?’ “That’s right.” “T’ll take my chances!” the gam- bler clipped. And, still looking stead- ily at the gaping muzzle of Martin’s revolver, he spoke to the men behind him in the room, “Give it to ’em, boys! Both of ’em!” His body was taut as he prepared to throw himself to one side to escape Martin’s bullet. The detective’s left hand had been hovering near a vest pocket. Now it flashed up threateningly; he held a small bottle high enough for all to see, “Soup!” he yelled. That word, cracked out in a differ- ent kind of gathering, might have been funny. But it was not funny in Tieless Tony’s hangout. Soup, to these killers, was occasionally some- thing to eat, but more often it was a high explosive—nitroglycerine. “One shot and I throw this bottle!” Martin shouted. “Just dropping it would probably be enough. It would blow every mother’s son of you to hell!” He held the bottle with its grayish fluid poised high. Not a man stirred. Then he spoke without looking up. “Come on down the stairs and get out of here, Lindsey !” The young man came softly past him, stopped briefly beside Slick Steve Durga, started to say something, thought better of it, and went on. Slowly he walked between the bar and the tables where Durga’s hench- men sat. He was halfway to the front when Nelson Lindsey and the giant, Erie, appeared in the entryway. The magnate and his big servant gazed wide-eyed at the scene. “There’s your son, Mr. Lindsey,” Martin said from the stairs. “Get him out of here quick and call the cops!’ : “You don’t have to call the cops,” said a voice from behind Nelson Lind- sey, as a headquarters detective stepped into view, followed by half a dozen more. “We’re already here.” ALF an hour later, at the police station, the inspector was ex- plaining his timely appearance. “After we investigated the murder of the butler and left Lindsey’s house,” he said, “I had a feeling that some- thing was wrong. You had been pret- Gomichooks;com