10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

64———_—————_10-STORY DETECTIVE sheet of notepaper I found in the wastebasket. That kept you from smudging Madden’s prints. But you didn’t stop to think that the paper would hold the curve of the butt of the gun, and your prints would be on it—” The words caught in the investiga- tor’s throat. He stared unbelievingly at the ugly snout of the pistol in Den- ning’s hand. Denning still sat on the ground, but his arm was steady and there was no sign of weakness about him. “You’re too smart,” the secretary said, “I used to like you. I liked the judge, too. But a man’s best friend is the almighty dollar, and once the old man signed that estate over to me, I couldn’t see him hand it back to his no-good son. I killed him, like I’m go- ing to kill you—” S GORE leaped, weaponless, the world seemed to explode in his face. Denning’s bullet struck him like a mighty fist, hurling him back- ward. The earth came up and struck him. The pistol roared a second time, and Madden coughed and stumbled. On his hands and knees, Madden blundered into Gore, jarring him painfully. Jeanne’s scream rose piercingly and was echoed by excited shouts from the house. “Yell your damn head off!” Den- ning jeered. “I’ll have the last word. I'll blast you all, the way Nick was going to. But I won’t have to run. I’ll say Leslie did it, and I managed to get the gun away from him at the last and kill him!” Gore’s arms were like at: his muscles like soft putty, but he moved them by sheer power of will. He clung to the thought that somewhere near him lay two weapons—his own pistol and the gun Nick had dropped. If he could reach either one... “No, you don’t!’ Denning blurted. SS Go A third shot bellowed, and grains of sand leaped close to Gore’s face, sting- ing him. The investigator’s groping right hand touched a hard, cold object. His fingers curled around a _ familiar scored grip. The pistol weighed a ton, but somehow he lifted it. He fired straight into a fourth spurt of flame from Denning’s weap- on, He heard a choked cry, a thudding of many feet. He lay back, fighting agony in his right shoulder. Then Jeanne was beside him, and in the glare of flashlights he saw that she was unharmed. He managed to sit up and noticed Madden crouched near- by, his face pale, staring at a widen- ing red stain against the gray of his trousers where a bullet had punctured his thigh. Denning sprawled on his back ten feet away, and by the amount of blood that bubbled from his stomach Gore guessed he was done for. But Denning was talking, never- theless. “Cripes!” sputtered Sergeant Link, stooping over Denning. “Cripes, he’s saying he done the killing! Well, Ill gd Some one was shaking Gore’s hand. He looked and it was Reslie Madden, and there was an expression in the youth’s face that said volumes more than his faltering words. “T thought you had it in for me, like the rest of them,” Madden blurted. “I was wrong. Since we’re ‘going to be brothers-in-law, Gore, we might as well be pals, too.” Jeanne was crying, but they were happy tears. Gore pulled his hand free of Madden’s grasp so that he could put his good arm around her, where it belonged, - He grinned over her burnished head at the fat sergeant. “You might as well go home, Link,” he said. “I’ve got everything under control.” com IelOOOKS COR