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.

CLASSROOM SLEUTH TSD gun and kept on going to the rear of the lunchroom. It was dark back here. No cus- tomers. Three telephone booths yawned blackly. He stepped to the last one, sank onto the little seat and sat there, head in hands. What was the matter with him? Had he gotten cold feet? Why hadn’t he opened up through his pocket and let the dirty son-of-a gun have it right in the chest? Nobody could have stopped him. It would have been over before they could have done anything. And the chief would lose his strangle- hold. Disgust for his momentary weak- ness crept like acid into the folds of Johnny’s vitals. He was no good. He’d flunked every quiz and now he couldn’t even shoot. Pah! KET poked down the aisle. Big, ruthless feet. The man with the big jaw slammed into one of the booths and dialed. He didn’t trouble to close the door entirely. He hadn’t noticed Johnny, crouched in the last booth in the darkness. “Hello, Pete? Didja make the geezer? ... Ya did? Good—what’s that? A kid? He took the rod from the geezer’s pocket and headed this way? What kind of a kid?... Yeah, I got it. The chief’ll want to know— Wait a minute. There was a kid shuffled in while me and chief was talking. I thought he was just—” The voice lowered suddenly. “Lis- ten, Pete, maybe this is it. If we give this kid a chance. ... Yeah, I got everybody lined up. By tomorrow night we’d be organized on the new basis. . . Ah, what the hell? Sure, chief gave me my start, but this is a dog-eat-dog game. What the hell? Chief thinks he’s the whole damned works. No guy is that good.... Yeah, I’ll nose around and if it is the kid, like you say, I’ll give him the breaks. ... Sure, I'll rub him after to make it smell good. Why should I take chances.... Yeah. S’long, Pete.” The receiver clicked and a heavy aS foot made a floorboard creak. The man’s body bulked in the shadows. Johnny clung tightly to the wall, breath stifled, trying to piece together what he’d heard. The muffled sounds from the front of the lunchroom were the same. Blue smoke rose from chief’s booth. Only a tiny island of his skull was visible. Not enough to shoot at. You’d have to walk up to him and give it to him in his chest, to make sure of the job. The back of the lunchroom was strangely quiet. Muted sounds issued from the small short-order kitchen where the chef was taking it easy. Johnny’s fingers bit into the telephone ledge. His body ached. His mind whir- led dizzily like a top spinning on a nar- row ledge forty stories high. The floorboard creaked again. The man’s body was shifting. The meaning of the conversation began to sift through Johnny’s racked brain. Neat facts piled in orderly row. This man was chief’s right-hand man. He covet- ed leadership of the organization. He was waiting for the chief to take a slug. He was even ready to help the assassin! Hopelessness choked Johnny’s re- solve. If was like cutting off the ten- tacles of an octopus! He realized what a fool he’d been to think of shooting chief. He realized with a dizzy burst of logic how little it would accomplish. He’d also have to kill this man who waited to take over the leadership. And how many more after that? Why, he’d have to kill and kill and kill! A peculiar rasping sound broke from his lips—half sob, half hysteria. The big man heard it, moved up, stared down at Johnny. His lips curled. “So this is what took the rod from the geezer,” he muttered in a low voice. “Well, you gonna use it? Or not?” He jerked his thumb toward the booth where the blue smoke rose in satisfied curls. An ambulance sirened outside. something shrank in Johnny. They . were coming for the professor. He’d refused his dying wish. A great sob COmMicloookKs (C@