10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

83: — te windows until they swung open on well-oiled hinges. It was almost too easy! Nothing remained but for old Baudet to walk into the trap. In two shakes, Slick wouid shove a gun into his ribs and take over a fortune in blue white stones. Slick entered, closed the windows cautiously behind him and drew to- gether the heavy velour arapes. Now for a hiding place from which to leap out and get the drop on his victim. Old man or not, he would take no chances. A tall, lacquered screen, in the corner, offered the necessary shel- ter. From this place of vantage, the intruder took up his position and began a leisurely inventory of his surroundings. Jeez! What junk these rich fellers wasted their jack on! Candles .... Statues of undraped figures .... That picture over the mantel, too, the beery-faced old bum with the ruffies ’round his neck and a jane’s plumed hat. Every flop house was full of ’em. Slick spat disgustedly on a thick rug. And—fish! 3 The heist man snorted as he tip- toed across to the aquarium, where a dozen goldfish disported placidly above a bed of iridescent shells. Ugh! slimy things. The sudden roar of a motor car in the driveway cut short his specula- tion. Slick took cover behind his screen, reached into his coat pocket, and, withdrawing a silk handkerchief, tied it for a mask below his eyes. From somewhere in the house, an electric buzzer rasped. Slow feet shuffled down the hall to the front en- trance. Followed the click of a re- leased latch and the murmur of con- versation. One voice was low, mum- bling, unintelligible; the other, high, staceato, with a foreign accent. _ “Non, Emery. You serve me no coffee tonight. Go to bed, my friend. I shall work late, in my study .... Bon soir!” Abruptly, the massive library door opened and Pierre Baudet entered. 10-STORY DETECTIVE HE newcomer was a small wisp of a man with a precisely waxed gray mustache and mild blue eyes. As he hurried forwaxd, the firelight gleamed on his white shirt front and his polished boots clicked on the in- ter-spaces of the hardwood floor. He was humming gaily. Monsieur carried a parcel in his hands and now he removed the cled paper and disclosed a bouquet of blue and yellow flowers. These he ar- ranged deftly in the bowl upon his desk and then stepped back to note the effect. “Charmant!’ exclaimed the old gentleman, his gaze encircling the room appreciatively. “Charmant—” For a heartbeat, the nearsighted blue eyes seemed to linger on the screen in the corner, and the waiting intrud- er tensed to charge forth at the first hostile move. But it was a false alarm. The little man turned away again with a shrug, and, mincing toward the opposite corner of the room, ad- dressed the goggling goldfish. “What, hungry, my children?” he chirped, tapping upon the glass bowl with a pointed finger nail. “Come, then. Come and feast.” As he spoke, Monsieur Baudet ex- tracted a box of white wafers from his waistcoat pocket and, crumbling them into bits, began to scatter the flakes upon the surface of the waiter. Slick Valetti sneered behind his screen, The old bird was cuckoo, all right. Now was the time to pluck his tail feathers. Cautiously, he emerged from his shelter and cat-footed for- ward, gun trained on that tapering broadcloth back and the slender hands that fluttered, here and there, above the aquarium. His unconscious victim continued to chatter cheerfully to the fish. He upbraided the efforts of the largest specimen to crowd his fellows away from their food. “Back, gourmand,’ he chided, wagging his white head, “back, for shame!” — It was at this moment that Slick stabbed his gun into the jeweler’s COPMICMOOOKS (E@)