10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

Wy ae necessary in finding Felix Kent’s name in the phone book. Then he dialed. Almost instantly, the call was answered. “Yes,” the voice said, Felix Kent.” “Mr. Kent—it’s me, Gorman at the museum, You remember me?” “Of course, Gorman, What’s wrong? Why are you calling me at this hour ?” “I just found something and I don’t like the looks of it, sir. In the “this is hands of that big Aztee god. It was. a small stone head and it—looks just like you, Mr. Kent. There’s a bullet hole—” : “Gorman—are you sure? You’ve actually seen the head?” “Yes, sir. I’m holding it in my hand right now. The bullet hole is—” “Then it’s finally come, has it? Perhaps I’m glad. I knew some day this would happen, I—” “Mr. Kent,” Gorman asked in a _ ghaky voice. “Mr. Kent, are you still on the phone. Mr. Kent—” Gorman suddenly gave a start of fear. Kent didn’t answer, but a gun did. The explosion must have been very close to the phone because it all but blasted out Gorman’s eardrums. He began screaming Kent’s name and received no answer. The line was still open—he was positive of that. Over and over again he called Kent. Then Gorman hung up for a sec- ond, raised the instrument and dialed the operator. “Get me the police,” he ordered. “Quick !” Sergeant Jim Jarvis took the call when the headquarters operator fi- nally pacified Gorman enough to understand him. Jarvis listened while the old watchman poured out his fantastic tale. “And I think Mr. Kent shot him- self, He sounded like he was going to do something desperate.” “T’ll go over to Kent’s place,” Jar- vis said. “I doubt there’s anything to this, but just to make sure, you CRIME IN THE WACKS’ MUSEUM——————————53 stay right where you are. I’ll be down shortly.” ARVIS hung up, jammed on his hat and patted a hip pocket to make sure his gun was there. He hurried to the garage, climbed into a detective ‘eruiser and used the siren to clear traffic. He reached Kent’s house, a large, lavish place, Jarvis went through the gate and raced up the walk to the front door. While the watchman’s story had »sounded like a pipe dream, still there was enough substance to it so that Jarvis’. nerves were tingling. He punched the doorbell and waited two or three minutes. No one came. “Funny,” he said. “A big house like this should have a lot of ser- vants.” He tried again, and then took a long chance of getting into trouble. He kicked in a window, opened the latch and raised the shattered win- dow high. He drew his gun, stepped into a well-lighted living room and remained silent for a moment. Not a sound reached his ears. He searched the rooms on the lower floor, found nothing and he half sensed that the watchman’s hunch would bear fruit. He ran up the massive staircase, reached the second floor and went through sev- eral of the rooms there. He paused before one closed door and sniffed. He’d smelled cordite before and there | was plenty of it coming from behind that door. Jarvis’ grip tightened on the gun he held, He turned the knob slowly, put the flat of one shoe against the panels and sent the door banging wide open. There was a man in that room. He sat behind a big desk. His. head and arms were outflung and blood was oozing across the papers on the desk. The telephone was off its cradle. The man held a heavy auto- matic in his right hand. He was dead. Jarvis knew that without touching the corpse. The bul- let had plowed right between the _. comicboo