10-Story Detective, November 1942 — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

CURSE OF THE BLEEDING STONE liant idea of pinning the blame on you —killing two birds with one knife. Well, Mr. Cotter, you’d better take a boat, go to the mainland and get the medical examiner.” OTTER stroked a large lump on his head. ‘‘I’m lucky he isn’t com- ing over to examine me. Whitten must have realized he had to get off this island before the Druids took him bodily. He slugged me with a fireplace poker. Anyway, we’re all very grate- ful for everything, Kerrigan.” “I’m the man to express my thanks,” Kerrigan grunted. “Whitten is going to talk a lot. Benson, alias Deek Chandler, told him quite a lot. Benson killed Rossiter whom I was taking to the city. Benson had to stop him from talking about the jewelry so he sneaked into the wash room of a gas station, waited until Rossiter came along and then lured him into the wash room. He probably choked him, but was careful to leave no marks. Then Benson shot one of the station attendants.” “I remember reading about it,” Cot- N hy FOPVICTORY 67 ter said. “They blamed the whole thing on you. Indicated that Rossiter was trying to make a break for free- dom.” “He wasn’t,” Kerrigan said. “Ben- son returned to the wash room, climbed through the window, but held Rossiter. He fired at me through the door, just waited long enough and then shot Rossiter through the head. He arranged it to look like suicide and then got away. I discovered Ben- son had been Rossiter’s cellmate and went looking for him, learned that Whitten had taken him under his wing and trailed both of them to this island.” Cotter said, “Well, I'll take the launch and go to the mainland.” “Not the launch,” Kerrigan stopped him. “It’s on the bottom of the ocean. Whitten made me put back the engine part I removed from the craft. As I did so, I fixed the wiring so that when he used the starter, the fuel supply would blow up. Step on it, will you? Some of Whitten’s Druid friends may start seeping through the cracks of the house and try to rescue him.” UNITED STATES DEFENSE Co lOOOLK C© S|