10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

1g8———_____—_————10-STORY DETECTIVE one rudiment to handling family trouble.” I got out of the squad car and crossed the street. Since this was my baptismal job, I had a buck fever interest in 1600 Cathedral Lane. Somehow the building reminded me of our colonel at Algiers; aloof, solid and cool even in the heat. A black and gold sign im one of the win- dows read Atelier. On the top floor, part of a white sheet was hanging out of a window. At the far curb I turned and yelled at Chesney, “What’s that rudiment of fam- ily trouble, Sarge?” He spat a brown jet through the squad car window. “Why,” he said, “just don’t let the husband hit you on the head with a milk bottle, is all.” In the lobby of 1600 Cathedral Lane, a janitor wearing dungarees and a moldy green hat was swabbing the floor with a rat-tailed mop. But he picked up his mop and bucket and disappeared inside the building before I could hail him, So I looked at the directory of tenants over the five mailboxes. leases & Seton ai ortiats, ee The studio on the top floor was occupied by one Johnni Anger. The first floor was split up between somebody named Dor- Sey DelaDame and a party named bakosh, all in small letters. One half of the Eng- lish basement was tenanted by Pardo, janitor, apparently the bird I’d seen mop- ping the lobby. But the occupant of the other base- ment apartment was simply Lizzie Quinn, Among all those orchids it looked as refreshing as a hollyhock, The janitor had left the door unlatched, so I went in- side and rapped on her door. Lizzie Quinn hollered, “Entrez!” She was on her hands and knees, peer- ' ing through a magnifying glass at a painting lying on the floor. She was wear- ing an orange wrapper and black mules, but she didn’t look like anything out of a Halloween party. No, indeed. I flashed my brand new shield casually, trying not to act as green as I felt. “We had a report of family trouble in this building, miss,’ “Why Herb and I get along just peachy,” Lizzie Quinn said. “Honest, you can ask him.” She looked up at one of the cottage type windows, stuck two fin- gers in her mouth, and whistled. A blue cat materialized suddenly on the window sill, grinning at me. “Ain't it so, Herb?” — Lizzie Quinn asked the cat. Her studio was s0 cool and peaceful you could almost hear pine trees sough- ing. Across the front, eleven windows in a row admitted a surprisingly lot of north light. On an easel stood an unfin- ished charcoal sketch that looked fair enough to my art-illiterate eye. “This is the charcoal and cat depart- ment,” Lizzie Quinn said. “You might find family trouble on the floors above. Take the stairway to the left, sir.” ACK in the dim hall, I uncapped my fountain pen and filled in the re- port sheet like a conscientious rookie should, I knew that Sergeant Chesney had sent me in alone just to see what in hell I would do. Across Cathedral Lane, - St. Mystica’s bells began chiming six P. M. This much I remember clearly. I remember, too that I had climbed the stairs to the first floor landing when a shadow leaned over the bannister. I¢ cracked me hard on the Panama. St. Mystica’s carillon seemed to rise in crescendo. It went right on up to 18 o’clock, on the double. : I sprawled forward on the steps. The rough carpeting scraped my chin and the fountain pen snapped and ink squirt- ed like grapefruit. The ink ran down my wrist. Passing out, I thought, That damned husband with his milk bottle! When I came to, I was lying on a couch in Lizzie Quinn’s studio. She was on the hospitality committee, too, wiping foun- tain pen ink off my fingers, Cold towels swathed my head, so that I could see only a dime’s worth of the white ceiling. I felt as helpless as a mud turtle on its back. From the foot of the couch a man waa watching me. He was a gangling blond guy wearing a long gingham apron and a brushy red mustache through which the final inch of a dead cigar jutted. “T’m Bakosh, first floor,” he said. “Wa- ter color impressions. I was cleaning up my studio when I heard you moaning in the hall. What happened to you?” “IT broke my fountain pen,” I said. ‘Bakosh smiled faintly. “Did you break your cigars, too?” I felt in my breast pocket. “They're ok.” “What are you doing here? Who are you?” - cOomicboo