10-Story Detective, June 1945 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

| 190-—__-__—- 10-STORY DETECTIVE — : gets wacky, and you got one on your arm | and get so excited when I tell you—” _ Eben was no longer listening. He had ‘dvopped money on the bar and was on the way out. Bais lungs were on fire when he pound- ed up to the ornate entrance of the apartment building. He grabbed the door- _ ’s arm and panted, “Hilda Whit- jer!” The doorman looked superciliously down at the flushed littl man and shrugged him off. “Miss Whittier just went into that taxi.” Eben swung to the yellow eab pulling away from the curb. As he ran toward it, he glimpsed a woman nestling in a corner of the back seat. He leaped on the run- ning board before the car gathered speed. Clinging to the door handle, he poked his head through the lowered front window. “Stop!” he yelled. Charlie Falkner came down on. the brake and stared at Eben. His eyes were dull, almost lifeless. A nerve ticked in his sallow cheek, his hands shook on the wheel, Wordlessly his mouth hung open. “What's this?” Hilda Whittier was leaning forward. “Driver, who is this man ?” “Dunno,” Charlie muttered vacantly. Horns honked urgently. Eben glanced around and saw that the cab was blocking the street. Doubt hit him. On the way here he had told himself that the cab would blow up the moment the driver stepped on the starter. Yet the motor was rumning and the cab remained intact. Was he all wrong? Was he making a fool of himself? “What about the red lobster?” Eben said desperately. “Lobster?” Hilda Whittier echoed in the back seat. “Driver, has this man lost his mind?” Still Charlie had no words, but his eyes. flicked to the windshield. Propped on the narrow windshield ledge, next to a pack of cigarettes, was a little red cel- luloid lobster. “That’s it!” Eben turned his head to the woman. “Get out of here, Miss Whit- tier! Your life—” Charlie’s low moan pulled Eben’s eyes back to him, The driver was leaning side- ways in his seat, his hand groping along the floorboard. Eben Sa es a toggle- switch lying loosely on the floorboard, and two wires running down under the car. “No!” Eben reached through the win- dow in a frenzied attempt to tear Char- lie’s hand away. A man with longer arms couldn’t have made it. Charlie's hand élosed over the switch. - Eben threw himself off the running-— board. His heels hit the curb. He felt him- self toppling. Then the blast hit him and sent him sprawling on his back. Thunder erashed against his eardrums. Concus- sion sent him all the way across the side- walk and against the wall of the building. Stunned silence hung over the street. for an eternal moment. Then somewhere a woman screamed stridently. It was lke a signal releasing other voices. Running feet flashed by Eben’s eyes. Slowly Eben straightened up. He was jarred and breathless, but unhurt, a wheel lay within five feet of him on the sidewalk. Where the cab had been there was rubble and broken cement. Some- thing that looked like a broken life-size doll lay in a twisted heap across the street. Eben did not try to see more, For a little while he was isolated and forgot- ten against the wall, lost in the horror and confusion and bewilderment of peo- ple running and gawking. Within a min- ute Eben was beyond sight and sound of the latest pair of murders, 5 Vuk police were hunting for him. Eben heard it on a store radio an hour later, while he was taking the shoulder-holster and revolver out of the jacket pocket into which he had crammed them earlier that evening, Hidden in the shadows, he put on the holster and listened to the radio news. The man in the beer joint had deseribed the little man who had been interested in Charlie Falkner and Hilda Whittier, so had the doorman. Because Eben had been under suspicion where two similar kill- ings had been concerned last night, In- ee Swick fitted the deseription to But Eben Hunt had not thrown a bomb into the cab, as had at first been assumed. The bomb squad had found that TNT packed under the car had caused the ex- plosion, and a switch had set it off. Hunt couldn’t have done that or he would have been blown up himself. Eben continued to listen to the radio. The newscaster sounded puzzled. What was the answer? Another suicide pact like last night? But it was hard for the police to believe any intimacy between poor, shell-shocked Charlie Falkner and rich, socially prominent Hilda Whittier. Meanwhile, the police were wondering if the shooting at noon of George Prid- dy and Art Yard could have any connec- tion between the two explosions which had caused four lives. Dr. Finch, wanted by the police for questioning in the shoot- ing, was still missing. Eben stepped out into the street. He walked boldly through the night, keeping streets to the busiest ‘beeause he knew comicboolk (E@)