10-Story Detective, November 1942 — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

40- him! That Dipperoo will be a gold mine for Stetter—” He stopped and looked up. The detective had come back. A harness cop was with him. “All right, boys,” the detective said. “You can stop playing now. I’m not from headquarters at all. Sorry to fool you folks, but I’ve just nailed Stetter and Hopping for collusion. I’m from the insurance company that branched out into ride liability insurance this season—”’ “Collusion?” I said. “You mean Hopping swapped ownership of that ride to get it under the policy that Stetter holds with your company? He swapped title after the accident?” “You are a bright boy!” the detec- tive said sarcastically. “I gather Hop- ping was a friend of yours. He'll get a fair trial!” “So will Stetter,” I growled, “but not for collusion. And Hopping can hardly be blamed for sliding out from under what he knew was—murder.” “Murder!” the detective snorted. “Listen, that freak fell out on her head. So what? There was a bar there for her to hang on to. You couldn’t get Hopping clemency with that story, and you can’t pin murder on Stetter !” “No?” I said. “Look—how did you blow in here in the first place?” “There was an accident on one of the other rides. It was the second one since the policy went into effect. I dropped by to check up, and Stetter mistook me for a local cop that he had sent for. I let it ride. I thought maybe that story about the hammer through the window had some kind of a hook- up with the other two accidents. It didn’t.” Again I said, “No?” I looked at the sarcastic face and didn’t like it. I said, “Did it occur to you that Stetter might have tossed that hammer through the window himself?” “Why 2” “In order to have a cop on hand, in- vestigating, when Eva was killed. He needed a cop handy to panic Hopping 10-STORY DETECTIVE into signing over that ride.” “Again that presupposes murder,” the detective said to me crisply. “In court it becomes necessary to prove murder. You can’t!” “IT can’t?” I said “‘Listen— I’ve a witness to swear that it was Stetter’s girl friend, LaVerne, who coaxed Eva into that ride and released the start- ing lever.” “So what? Putting Eva into that car might be malicious mischief—but hardly murder. Sorry, but your pal Hopping goes to jail. Even though the pinhead wasn’t strapped in, there was a bar for her to hang onto—” “Sure,” I said, “but she didn’t hang onto it for long.” “That would be ridiculous. Even the limited intelligence of a monkey would know enough to hold tight under such circumstances !’’ 3 “Yeah?” I asked him. “Did you ever see a girl on a carnival thrill-ride who didn’t scream?” “No,” he admitted. “They always scream.” “Okay,” I said. “And Eva screamed. I heard her. We all heard her. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” “Not a thing,’ he said, puzzled; and then he started to get excited. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Come to think of it—” “You come to think of it kind of late,” I said. ““You had the same oppor- tunity I had, there at the cookhouse, to see Eva. She screamed three differ- ent times during supper and you saw what she did, the same as I saw—” He had kind of a stricken look on his face. He didn’t pay much atten- tion to me. “Of course,” he said in growing excitement. “That’s it! Stet- ter knew and LaVerne knew! A wom- an always screams on one of those rides, and when Eva started to scream, every time—” 3 “Yeah,” I said, and my voice got raspy. “When Eve started to scream, she always let go of whatever she held and covered her ears with her hands!"’ Conn IOOOLK C@