10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

‘Chesney was ‘telling lheatiquarters that the dead man was Johnni Anger, some kind of artist. I ‘kept out of his sight, gaping around the studio. It was a ‘barn of a place, roomy and cluttered. ‘There was a workbench, littered with tools and scraps of leather, in one corner. Under the windows which fronted on Cathedral Lane stood a rumpled daybed. Part. of ‘the top sheet was hanging oat-one of ‘the open windews. | I saw a black smudge in a corner of the sheet and smoothed it out. The smudge was a‘scrawl of ictters, probably hastily printed with the ‘black crayon that lay on the floor near ‘the daybed. ‘The letters spelled out, WINGO. Several other crayons lay on tke ~win- dow sill. To my untutored eye it looked as if this leather tooler, Johnni Anger, had known what was in the cards for him when ‘he got stabbed. Maybe ‘he had lived long enough to reach for one of the cray- ons on ‘the window sill. Maybe he ‘tried to write a message on his bedsheet. Any- thing, the first confused thought of a man about to die. What he’d managed to scribbie—WIN- GO—made no sense to me, but perhaps young Anger hadn’t lived te complete ‘it. He did have time, though, to shove part of the sheet through the window, as a sort of flag of distress, “Rookie!” Chesney ‘hollered. “I told you to drag freight!” Yep, take cop sergeants literally, too. [ dragged freight down the staircase. On the first floor, Bakosh’s deor was closed. The door across the hall, however, ‘was open a couple of inches. J heard a man inside apparently talk- ing on a telephone. He said, “Twelve- fifty tonight, Mrs. Benn The sign on this door reall, Atelier of DorSey DelaDame. I knocked, and Dela- Dame called, “Yes?” I went inside. He was sitting at the telephone with an ash tray full of cigarette stubs at one elbow and a typewritten list of some kind at the other. He was a chunky, apple- cheeked guy, smartly dressed in a tan suit of some silky weave and tan cordo- van shoes. They were as interesting a pair of kicks as ever I clapped eyes on. He must have been a sculptor, because there -were some old rocks lying around the place and a few plaques that looked no better than the guesswork I used to do in — school, “{ dropped in to see Mr. Bakosh;” { eaid, “but I.can’t seem 0 raise hhim. My name is Nosegay.” “Bakesh stepped out to buy some wine. I don’t knew when he's coming tback. See him later.” Back in the hall I lingered outsitle DelaDame’s closed door, listening te this telephone dials clicking. He was ‘telling everyone on his list the same dope. ‘T:welve-fifty tonight. He was going down his list expertly, like a ‘bucket shop op- erator. Squads from headquarters began :pull- ing up outside No. 1600. Being new, I wouldn’t know any of those cops. I didn‘t want to meet them anyway, so I slipped down to Lizzie Quinn’s studio to give them a chance to go upstairs without spotting me. ‘Chesney could fill them in on my brilliant work. IZZIE QUINN was sitting on ‘her couch, weeping, and talking with the janitor I had seen in the lobby, the man named Pardo. His moldy green hat was — tilted back on his head. From under white eyebrows his eyes looked scared. “A man’s been killed;” ‘he told me. “There’s a cop upstairs.” I didn’t recognize his accent, but it wasn’t Virginian. “T want to talk with Miss Quinn alene,” I said. Pardo picked up -his mop and bucket and moved toward the door, shaking his head. “The cop told me somebody report- ed family trouble in this building. And nobody in here is even married!” Lizzie Quinn, I think, noticed the jani- tor’s mop about ‘the same time I did, for her red eyes threw me a startled glance: Pardo’s mop handle was broken in two, snapped off clean a foot from the wire. I was willing to bet ail my chances of ever making the force that his mop was the club ‘which cracked me on the Panama. Lizzie Quinn forgot to cry, waiting for me to put the’arm on Pardo, I sup- pose. But I let him go unmolested. When the door closed, I said to her. “I gather. Johnni Anger was your perfectly good 4-F dinner date?” Ske sniffed a couple of times and tucked her handkerchief into a pocket of- her orange wrapper. “He was a peach of @ guy.” “I eat dinner occasionally, too,” ft