10-Story Detective, November 1942 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

MEMO FROM THE MURDERED—————————2l1 ly. “Tony, you moron, where are you?” he bawled. “At Katie Boyle’s apartment. Come on over.” “Brother, will I!’’ Ashes exclaimed. CHAPTER V NY’S just a kid in love,” Katie Boyle said when Ashes loped into her apatment. He swept past her, to confront Tony Ross. “The only thing that’ll stop me from wringing your neck, Tony, is talk- ing,” he snapped. “What was the idea of powdering?” Tony Ross’ thin face was taut. His yellow hair was rumpled, his shirt collar wilted. He clenched his jaw. “Tell him, Tony,’ Katie Boyle ad- vised. She looked at Ashes. ““He’s been up to a town called Marsville. He found out something, but he’s afraid to tell you because it might hurt Ma- rin Moerly.” Ashes roared, ““You mean—” “All right, all right,” Tony said. “‘I checked up on the Cameron case.” Ashes leered at him. ‘‘You can’t tell me anything about that that I don’t already know. I got it from Jakie. A blind man could see that Joseph Cam- eron changed his name to M.M. Macollum, and that the abducted daughter of Rose Fellows is now Ma- rin Moerly by name. You think you’re telling me!” “You do have more than muscle at that,” Katie Boyle said. “Well, that’s the pressure that was put on M.M. to make him print propaganda. He was afraid if this case came out Marin would be hurt. He adored Marin—’”’ “You don’t have to convince me,” Ashes growled. “The only thing screwier than a guy in love with a gal is a parent in love with a child. Okay, Tony, what else? Who knew about this affair? Who held it over M.M.’s head ?” A cop named Schimmel resigned from the Marsville police force and dropped out of sight, just about the time those records and evidence were 6¢ stolen from the police files. I read all this in back issues of a Marsville newspaper. The whole story is that Rose Fellows’ husband was a lush and a wife beater. M.M. caught the guy beating her one night and killed him, then took the baby girl and lammed. You can imagine how that story would wreck Marin’s life if it came out.” Ashes said thoughtfully, “This cop Schimmel found M.M. and _black- mailed him for years. When Herr Hit- ler started cutting up, Schimmel tied up with the Nazis. And then his black- mail took the form of making M.M. print propaganda.” Ashes pondered this for a second, then said, ““But Ros- er Slainte said he, Mrs. Slainte’s lit- tle boy, was the motive for the murder of M.M. What did he mean?” Katie Boyle said, “Obviously, Rosie meant that ordinarily M.M. never would have got hold of this evidence. The reason M.M. was killed was be- cause once he had that evidence in his hands, the person who’d been blackmailing him, Schimmel, no long- er had a hold on him. M.M. could have exposed Schimmel. Schimmel had to kill him.” Ashes nodded. “It rhymes,” he said. “If Rosie hadn’t got that evidence from Schimmel, it never would have gone back to M.M., and the murder wouldn’t have been necessary. So when Rosie said a certain party had told him something juicy about a cer- tain other party, he meant that Schim- mel had told him something juicy about M.M. Macollum. “There it is,’ Ashes. decided. “Schimmel was blackmailing M.M. into printing propaganda with this evidence. Rosie was. blackmailing Schimmel on something else. And when Schimmel could no longer pay Rosie money, he turned over this evi- dence instead. I wonder what Rosie had on Schimmel?” HE voice that answered wasn’t a bit nervous now, not a bit stac- cato. It was calm, suave, sure. It came from the doorway behind them. cComiclbool (©