10-Story Detective, September 1941 — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

30———___—_—_—_———-——_10-STORY DETECTIVE not important. What is important is what he was doing in there. Have you any idea?” “None.” “Try guessing.” Tom hunched his shoulders in a helpless gesture. “I can’t.” “Then you’d better start and pretty damn fast. This is murder. You can’t keep this guy a secret. If the cops don’t find him, the chambermaid will. You can’t keep her out of here forever. Cops are curious people. They’ll ask questions, Tom, lots of them, and you’d better be prepared to answer them.” “But I don’t know a thing,” Tom cried. “Good Lord, man! What kind of an answer is that? The guy is found dead and you say you don’t know a thing about him, dead in your room.” “Well, that’s the way it is,” Tom answered angrily. “Take it or leave ae I turned to Carla. “You heard every- thing he said. Is it true?” . Twin spots of color showed in her cheeks. “You don’t think Tom killed him, do you?” “IT don’t know anything,” I said. *“My job is to protect you, and besides that I want to help Tom.” “Listen,” he said earnestly. “I didn’t kill Diehl. I swear it. You know my word is good, Bill.” “All right, then answer this. Why did you drag him from your room into Carla’s?” 6 Bos brushed his hand nervously, through his hair. “Because the windows in my room look out on the street. The windows in here look down into a courtway. We were going to wait until it was dark enough, then dump the body out. We thought it wouldn’t be discovered for a while and in the meantime we’d leave, then they wouldn’t connect us with it.” I started cursing. “That was bright, very bright. What do you think cops are—nitwits? They’re smart. They’re smart as hell. You know the first thing they’d do? They’d learn that Diehl worked for a man named Parkhurst. Then they’d find out that Parkhurst’s daughter was registered in this hotel, that her room looked out on the court- way into which the body had been dumped. They’d go after her. They’d break her down. They’ve got ways of doing that. “She’d let something slip and the first thing you know you’d be in- dicted for first degree murder. And they’d make it stick too. Getting rid of a dead body. What the hell do you think a human corpse is? A piece of garbage you can toss out of a window like from an East Side tenement.” After that outburst I stopped to catch my breath. Carla looked alto- gether miserable and Tom Grove’s head was hanging. I was happy at least to see that he was ashamed of himself, that at last I’d made some im- pression on the big fathead. He said in a pleading voice: ‘“You’ve got to help me, Bill.” “All right, but you won’t answer any questions. What do you want me to do?” He was silent for a minute, swallow- ing, his throat working, and then he held out his hands and I could see how badly the fingers were quivering. Tom was a big shot on the football field, twice the man I had been, but this was his first experience with murder and he was like a helpless, scared kid. There was quiet urgency in his voice. “You’ve got to help me get rid of the body.” I stared at him, at his ashen face, at his lips bleeding where his teeth had bitten into them. “You know what that means?” I said. ““What they’ll do to us if we’re caught?” “Yes.” It was a barely audible whis- per. “And you still want to go through with it?” “Yes,” “All right,” I said. “I’m a fool. I’ve always been a fool and I’ll probably die a_fool. Maybe sooner than I ex- Conn (C NOOK (©