10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

BLACK DIAE OF DEATH-HH—————71 €€ HE fact remains,” Kandelin purred in his rich baritone, “that my dear cousin Beatrice has abandoned her own babe on the steps of the most fashionable church in San Diego, If she deliberately had chosen to humiliate me —which she probab'y did—she could not have devised a better plan.” He strode up and down the sitting room of his expensive hotel! suite, Flax could hear automobile tires. sing~- ing past on the wet streets below. The smell of steam-heated air mingled with _ the aroma of Kandelin’s cigar and a faint wash of fragrance from a dozen Talis- man roses on the desk. Flax cracked his knuckles. See Henry . Dust, It wasn’t much to go on. “Listen, Mr. Kandetin,” he said. “I have a hunch, What if the dame, I mean Mrs. MeCormick, didn’t take a powder and bundle off with some guy?” Kandelin stopped pacing, confronted lax. He jammed both clenched fists into the pockets of his flowered silk. dressing gown. Flax was a pudgy, muscular chunk, five feet eight by three feet wide. Yellow hair bleached by the sun. Bleached out . eyebrows. A red face. He sat there in his. worn blue serge with his hands on his knees, looking up into Kandelin’s sallow, angry counte- nance. “Listen!” snarled the rich man, “I hired you to find her and make her take the baby back. Not io squat around here defending her character!” An infant’s squall reached them through the door of the next room. A nurse in white came out and went into the kitchen of the suite. “Maybe you better tell me,” Flax said. Kandelin shrugged impatiently. “Bea- trice ran wild im her teens. She picked up with a skittish bunch from Hollywoed. In those days it was fashionable to know gangsters. She got mixed up with hood- lums from Detroit.” Flax bit his lip. “Sure, Mr. Kandelin. I know. But a lot of water has gone under the bridge since. then: She’s married. Settled down. Her husband’s im the Ma- rines down in the South Pacific. She minds her P’s and Q’s or her female neighbors wouldn’t give her the O.K. When the dame next door gives a woman a clean slate, believe me it’s clean.” Kandelin sneered. “For a detective, ” you’re cunning with chivalrous. feelings, ' Flax stood up. “You really think the girl ran out om her husband and baby?” The rich man’s lips tightened, “As long as you keep this out of the papers, I don’t care what angle you. follow up,” he growled, resuming his. pacing: “But if she didn’t run. off with some sap, what did she do?” “T don’t know yet.” “What about the brass key: we found in the baby’s: basket? Did’ you check all the locksmith’s shops. to. find out which one of them made it?” Flax eyed Kandelin soadilp. “T did.” . “Well?” “Nothing definite to go on, yet,” See . dust. “Yet! Yet! ‘Can’t you do cagtihiveke ex- cept stand around and say: yet?” A buzzer chirped. “Semebody at the door,” Flax smiled. “Shall I see who, it is?” Kandelin stamped over to sdincdnan and flung it open. “Well?” he snapped at the man who stood there. “Mr. Kandelin?’”” the mam queried. He took off his snap brim felt. He was: a pallid; Latim type, with leng, delicate hands. “Yes; I’m Kandelin. What doe you want?” “ve heard through one of the hotel employees that you want facts,on a Mrs. MeCormick.”’ “Come in.” Kandelin shut the door. “All — right, spill it,” he told the visitor, when the latter stood im the center of the room. “Money talks, Mr. Kandelin.” - Kandelin thrust one hand into. the folds of his dressing gown and delved deep. He came up with a fat wallet. Peeling off a couple of twenties he held them out to Flax, “If you think his story is worth it,” he - sneered. The man’s.eyes brightened. “I saw- Mrs. MeCormick get on ‘he four o’clock bus for Los Angeles with a redheaded guy. Today, I mean.” : Kandelin looked at Flax, “What did I tell you?” : “Is that all you have to. say ?”’ pa a Flax, looking at the visitor’s woolly brown suit. “What more do you want?” the man “Here’s the dough,” Flax said. we