10-Story Detective, March 1941 — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

82—__—___—__—_—_——_-——_10-STORY DETECTIVE “I told Sweeny I’d nail him to the wall if he tried tricks.” “You’ve got Sweeny wrong, I tell you.” “Like hell I have!” roared Garvey. “IT happen to know boxes like this ain’t got door rivets! It means that fist fight was a copper gag—” Kendall’s blood went cold in his veins and he flung himself desperate- ly at the glaring flashlight. He was no . more than five feet from Garvey when the pistol blazed. The slug smashed like a sledge over his heart. He heard Sheila’s whimpering cry of horror as he dropped down. But he didn’t re- member hitting the floor. WAKENING later, he found that he still lay in that dark room. There were no sounds. He imagined he was alone now, so he sat up. The bullet-proof vest he’d had the precau- tion to wear had saved his life. But his chest ached as though a piano had dropped on him, He dug the flashlight from his pock- et and staggered up to his feet. The shard of light showed him that the room he was in was a library. He saw Carthers’ big desk nearby. A photo- graph on the desk attracted him. In a silver swivel-frame, it was a portrait of Worthley! Startled, Kendall moved to the desk and turned his light full upon the pic- ture. And he saw the handwritten in- scription under the picture: “To Dad, from his loving son, Tom.” Kendall forgot his aches in that mo- ment of surprise. Worthley then, was Carthers’ son who was supposed to be in California. Somehow, though, it didn’t make sense. Why had a kid like that been hiding incognito in a cheap rooming house? Could it be that he knew his father had been murdered? That he - ‘was seeking his father’s killer? Yet how could that be so when his father’s body was never found? “T’ve got it!” Kendall exclaimed as a startling thought struck him. “So that’s how it was!” He turned, went to the window and crawled out. The cool night air felt good to his tortured lungs, but it did not appease the fevered whirl of his thoughts. He had to get aid from the police. Not because he suddenly had stumbled on the horrible truth, but in order to prevent Garvey’s wrath from descending on Sweeny. Kendall’s heart sank when he reached the intersection, three blocks from the Carthers house. No stores were open; everything was shuttered and black. A cab was plying lazily along the street. Kendall ran out across the curb and hailed it. “Where’s the nearest phone?” he snapped when the cab pulled up. The driver grinned. “Nowhere around this neighborhood. They pull these sidewalks in at sundown. Better let me drive you over to Tenth Street. Lots is doing over there on Tenth.” “Too far. Where’s the precinct sta- tion ?”’ “Over on Tenth, too.” It brought that cold fluttering back to Kendall’s stomach when he heard that. He saw he would get no help from headquarters—at least, not in time. It left no course but to go un- armed and alone to Sweeny’s shack. He would have to face Ed Garvey again. “The nine hundred block on Fourth, cabby, and make it fast,” he said, and prayed he would not be too late. And after he climbed into the cab, he tried to figure out how Sheila Fox stood in Garvey’s vicious murder puz- zle. It was incredible that she, cul- tured, refined, should be a part of the plot which resulted in the murder of her own father. His face grim under this pressure of conflicting thoughts, Kendall pulled off his coat. He pulled off his iron vest. It was a relief getting that constrict- ing garment off his aching chest. ... The cab dropped Kendall off on a corner not far from Sweeny’s shack. He crept past the dark lumber yard. Exultation tingled his body when he saw Ed Garvey’s empty sedan parked cComicbook (E©)