10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

72 night meant for romance. I thought of the girl with the copper hair back at the big house and all this time I was wasting. She was all alone on a glider and here I was playing spy. I yanked open the door of the swim- ming cottage and dished out a beam of light from my pocket torch. The man and the woman were standing in the center of the room and they had a half-Nelson on each other. You couldn’t blame Clayton Speer for kissing Diane Atwood Glynn. Giv- en the opportunity, other things being equal, I would have relished that par- tieular sport myself. Except it wasn’t right, Diane was married to Duke Glynn. Duke was the guy who’d brought me up here to join this week-end party and to find out what, if anything, was cooking between his wife and the ved- dy social Mr. Clayton Speer III. From the looks of it, plenty was cooking between them. They jumped apart as if a firecracker had gone off at their feet, and they stood there, blinking into the flashlight. Diane muffled a gasp with the back of her hand, Over the hand her eyes were a wide, startled green. Speer flushed. His handsome face turned a ripe beet red and stayed that way. He crossed the room and snapped on the light switch. Eleetric glare coned down. It was a nice room, fur- nished mostly with wicker stuff that wouldn’t get spoiled from damp bath- ing suits. I grinned at them. Speer balled his fists and took a single threatening step forward. His voice was bellicose. “Well?” I said: ‘‘Well!” “What do you want?” “Nothing—execept to see what was going on.” “Well, you’ve seen, Now get the hell out of here,” ; “Soon,” I said. 10-STORY DETECTIVE—_——___—_—_____—_ WALKED over to the phone .ex- tension and rang the mansion. I connected with Duke Glynn, I told him to come down to the swimming cottage. I sat down and took a file and coolly began to round the edges of my nails. A blaze flickered in Diane’s jade eyes. Her voice took on a bitter edge. “I know. You’re a private detective. A cheap snoop. Duke hired you to spy on us.” I looked at her. “Almost right—except for the cheap part. Sam Criqui’s services come high. You wouldn’t call fifty dol- lars a day cheap. Or would you?” She might at that. Diane had in- herited a cool million fish from her maternal grandmother about a year ago and there was more coming when she got a little older. Speer said grimly. “If you think we’re going to stay here and have a scene you’ve got another think com- ing. Let’s go, Diane.” I stood up in front of the door. “Not yet. We have to wait for Duke.” Speer put Diane to one side and cocked his fists. _“You’re asking for this, Criqui,” he said and began to move forward. I sighed and teok out my Corpse Maker, which is the term I use for the Colt .45 which I carry in a shoul- der sling. It is a very big weapon, but in my business I always say that when you need a gun you need one badly. Speer stopped dead. He opened his fists and let them drop to his sides. He opened his mouth and let his jaw drop against the flowered foulard tie sported around his neck. Consterna- tion spread around the edges of his face. I imagine it was the first time in his sheltered life he ever looked into the business end of a gun. Behind him Diane gasped. Her face lost its color. Ordinarily, in polite com- pany I don’t like to take out the Corpse Maker, but I wasn’t in the mood for a brawl with young Speer. And I had my orders. As long as Duke Glynn was ~ comicbook com