10-Story Detective, March 1941 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

18—__—_—_—__——_—_————__10-STORY DETECTIVE Betty gasped, covered her mouth, and cringed back against the wall, away from him. Holding the big-blad- ed knife in his hand, McKenna ap- proached her. “Betty,” he said seriously, “either you know I didn’t kill anybody, and didn’t try to hurt anybody, and would- n’t harm a hair of your head, or you and I don’t know anything about each other. Either you believe I love you, or I’m fighting for nothing.” “Yes,” she said quietly, and her fears evaporated. “I believe you, Steve. But what did you do? Why did you break away from them? Steve, I would have made them believe in your innocence somehow.” “First I’ve got something to do. You stay quiet, and don’t answer the door.” McKenna turned from her. He made a survey of the apartment. This was a ground floor apartment, the windows five feet or less from the paved courtyard outside. The living room had two windows, opening onto a walk between this house and the next, and into which anyone could look from the street. The kitchen had one window, but small and high up. The bedroom had that window the in- truder had earlier found so easy of approach. It opened out into the back courtyard, was easy of access, and it was very dark back here. McKenna took the soft leather kit from his pocket, and screwed together the jimmy again. He set it on the sill, propping the window open, then slashed the sashcords, putting the whole weight of the window on the prop. The electric iron, the only heavy thing he could find, he set atop the frame of the lower half of the win- dow. CHAPTER V ETTY was waiting for him in the big room, where it was almost dark. Only the faintly blue, slightly eerie glow from the lamp relieved the darkness. McKenna opened the door, motioned her to the threshold, said: “Stay right there where I can see you every instant.” He went down the hall to the vestibule, punched ker bell button, then stuck it in fast, so that it could not come out. The bell was ringing shrilly. “For heaven’s sakes,” Betty cried, “shut it off! You’ll have the whole house up!” McKenna calmly locked and put the chain on the door, then went into the kitchen and pulled one wire off the bell. He took the assorted wire from his pocket and got to work. From the con- nection pulled off the bell, he took.a wire to the kitchen window, and fas- tened it. Fixing another wire with its bare end just a hairbreadth away, McKenna ran it back and fixed it to the connection on the bell. He repeat- ed this, running wire to each of the living room windows, to the door and back to the bell. He sighed with re- lief and turned to the girl. “What in the world are you do- ing?” Betty asked. McKenna took her over to the win- dow. He pressed two bare ends of scarcely parted wire together. The bell rang. He separated the wire ends. “It’s like that at these two living room windows and the kitchen win- dow and at the door,’”’ McKenna ex- plained slowly. ‘‘These bare wire ends take the place of the vestibule button now. See, if anyone moves the win- dow, that bare end of wire is brought against this one, and the bell rings. If anyone picks the lock of the door, the chain will keep him out, but you’ll know he’s at it because the bell will . ring. “I didn’t have wire enough for the bedroom window. That’s the real dan- gerous one. So I fixed it as a deadfall. The sash cords are cut, and there’s a prop holding the window up. Anyone tries to climb in, the prop will fall out, your mother’s electric iron will fall. And there’s a good chance the window will come down on the fel- low’s head.” “Well, thanks,” Betty said weakly. McKenna told her everything that — Eomnicbook CO