10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

38— klers. There’s nothing those two birds like better’n seeing the other get vooked. Jackson’d pay you to keep you from helping Neihart.” “Well, what about this robbery at Jackson’s? I may take a crack at that if I don’t have any luck with Nei- hart.” Hamilton got the records on this case also and I looked them over. “How about these fingerprints?” I asked. “If it’s a professional job, you ought to find copies somewhere.” “No luck yet,” replied Hamilton. “We've sent copies all over the coun- try. It must be a new guy.” STARED at the record of the prints that had been found on Jackson’s safe. All along I’d been having a kind of funny feeling about this robbery. Call it a hunch if you want to. I don’t know where it came from, but it was there in my head all right. Perhaps it was because it didn’t seem to me that a professional who could open a safe without tools would leave fingerprints. It didn’t stack up right. Finally the hunch grew s0 strong that I decided to take a chance, crazy as it was. I took the polished silver cigarette case from my pocket, holding it carefully by the edges, and laid it on a stiff blotter. “Can you print this?” I asked. “I’ve got a hunch we might find something interesting on it.” Hamilton stared at it in surprise. “Sure,” he said. “Andrews is gone, but Salzberg is here. What do you expect to find on it?” “Mebbe the prints of the man that cracked the Jackson safe,” I said. “And mebbe not.” Salzberg came in answer to Hamil- ton’s ring and took the case. He re- turned within five minutes, with the case upon a tray and the fingerprint records in his hand. The case had been sprinkled with a dark gray pow- der. “The prints on the cigarette case check with those that were found on —10-STORY DETECTIVE the safe in Jackson’s Pharmacy,” he reported. I had asked for it, but I hadn’t ex- pected it. So it had been Neihart that had robbed Jackson! No wonder that Neihart was so anxious that I shouldn’t take Jackson’s case. “What the hell! said Hamilton, his eyes almost popping out. ‘‘Sa-ay! Where in thunder did you get those prints, Slam? Who made ’em?” “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I taunted him. I picked up my cigarette case from the tray, took out my hand- kerchief and wiped off the gray pow- der. Then I took out a cigarette and hit it. “Come on, Slam,” pleaded Hamil- ton. “Don’t hold out on us. Tell us who the guy is so we can make a pinch.” : “Not me. I haven’t got paid yet. I don’t work for nothing. Ii Jackson wants to pay my fee, I’ll tell him who cracked his safe.” . - Hamilton alternately begged and bulldozed me, trying to make me tell who had made the prints on the ciga- reite case, but he might have saved his breath. It wouldn’t have been good busi- ness to tell old Hamilton. If I did, and Neihart had been arrested, where would I be? I’d come out on the small end. Jackson might not pay me— probably wouldn’t if he was as tight as Hamilton said. There’d be no more fees from Neihart. But there was no hurry. Maybe later, after I’d seen what I could do on the Neihart case. HE next morning, at eleven fif- teen, I knocked on the door of William Madigan’s apartment. Nei- hart had told me that his clerk had from eleven to twelve off for lunch, and that he ate it with his wife in’ their apartment on the outskirts of the business district. A young woman that I. judged to be Mrs. Madigan admitted me. A few minutes later William Madigan came into the room. I liked his locks at once. He was quiet and well-man- Comicoooks (C@