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

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

8——-- --- McKenna recollected himself, and with a wave of his calloused hand, cleared invisible webs away. He gave his name. “Mr. Tiere is expecting you.” Her mouth went wide, as if she had some suspicions of what he’d been think- ing, and was keeping a smile from her lips. “He told me to send you right in.” McKenna walked in front of her desk, twisted the brass knob of the door she had indicated, and stepped into the next office. He dropped his hat. From the thwacks of hig feet coming down on the floor, he thought he must have jumped a foot high. Fascinated, he went to the dead man at the desk. It was Tiere, dapper, black haired, small of stature. The only change in him was the big knife handle sticking out the side of his neck. McKenna wiped his hands down his trousers, and glanced at the parily open door nearly behind Tiere’s desk. He sprang to it, and rushed out into the corridor. The door was round the sharp turn in the corridor from the one by which he had entered the outer office. The corridor came to a dead end here, with just a wire-glass, closed window. Lunging, McKenna dashed round the turn. There was not a sound, except the click of typewriters somewhere. . No one was in sight. McKenna raced to the first door, and burst in on the girl again. He gestured towards the door by which she had sent him into Tiere. The girl took one look in at Tiere, then slammed the door with a vio- lence that drowned her scream. She inched round her desk, afraid of Steve McKenna now. With a sudden swoop, she grabbed the phone, and shouted, “Police!” into it. They stood there after that. Mc- Kenna retreated, and stood as far from her as he could. She huddled in the corner. There was only her desk between them. Once, a cloud passed over the sun, 10-STORY DETECTIVE The room became bleak and very lone- ly. It was as if the world had retreat- ed far, far from the two standing there. Belatedly, McKenna got his pipe out and stuck it between his teeth, with some vague hope thus of looking harmless. The two policemen who dashed into the office apparently thought him the killer, the moment they’d seen Tiere’s body. They rather manhandled him, slammed him against the wall. McKenna saw a new expression in the girl’s gray eyes. She was no longer afraid. On the contrary, she was be- ginning to wonder if she shouldn’t feel sorry for him. While one policeman kept a pistol trained on McKenna, the other phoned a report on the murder. The four of them were standing rigid when the door opened, and a blond, slight man sailed in. He took one look, turned on his heel and start- ed out so fast that he nearly made it. Growling, the bigger policeman dragged him back. The blond man shouted that he was Harvey Logan, that he had an appointment with Tiere. He looked to the girl for con- firmation, calling her Miss Dunbar. The girl nodded numbly, but the cops put Logan in a chair some dis- tance from McKenna, and watched him closely. Nearly all the men who came in thereafter, and there were many, were in ordinary clothes. McKenna real- ized they were detectives. They took all sorts of things into Tiere’s office, cameras, black cases that seemed to be heavy, a stretcher, then a basket. During it all, one tall, freckle-faced, straggly mustached man called Cap- tain Pearson asked a lot of questions, and answered none. EARSON was about to begin on Steve McKenna when a police- man brought in a_ well-dressed, haughty man. The gentleman, that was how McKenna thought of him,: identified himself as James Nisbet, and said he had an appointment for CEOPMNIC OOO KS (E@