10-Story Detective, June 1945 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

20———_—_—_—_—_——_—_—__—_—_—_——_——10-STORY DETECTIVE———___—_____—- Melton. Our mistake,” the red-faced dick whispered, perspiring. I nodded curtly and shut the door be- hind them. Doug Drake spoke up. “Nice to know you in person instead of by wire, Mr. Melton. I want you to meet Miss O’Quinn, She lives right here in the Glenshiel Arms, Miss O’Quinn, Mr. Melton.” “Mary O’Quinn, the agent?” I gulped. The little, blue-eyed woman smiled. In spite of a few threads of grey in her hair, she looked as smooth, hard and polished as anew chestnut. “You’ve heard of me?” “‘Who hasn’t?” I shot back, too quickly. A broker wouldn’t know that this lady ten-percenter handled the cream of the Hollywood character actors. You learned that by reading Variety in cheap hotel rooms and dreaming of the break you’d get some day. I corrected my mistake, “I mean, you’re Doug Drake’s agent, aren’t you? She shook her head. “He’s not in my stable now, But I signed him up when he first came to town as plain Anthony Wheeler. Now he’s Doug Drake. I’m proud of my part in that.” Doug Drake gave her the famous slow smile that melts the dames for miles around, and patted her arm. He turned to me. “We've come to take you to the party, Mr, Melton.” “The party?” I said, as if my mind were full of big-time financial deals. He glanced at his watch, “Yes, it’s nearly five o’clock,” he warned. “We'll wait while you finish getting ready.” “ll be right with you,” I said and gulped. The minute the words were out of my mouth I heard the crackling noise of my bridges burning behind me, It was root hog or die, now. | WENT into the bedroom, shut the door, and leaned against it. My legs were quivering a little. From here on out Billy Watson was James Melton, broker, and a newcomer to Hollywood. One of the ways to sink into a new part is to dress for it. The suit laid out on the chair caught my eye. It took me maybe one minute to skin into it and find it a perfect fit, I patted the pockets to find out about myself. Item one: A billfold, well padded with lettuce. I lifted the folding money out gingerly and dropped it on the chair, A murder rap would be plenty without carrying a dead guy’s money away. Item two: An envelope with a real estate agent’s name printed on it and a key inside. I kept that. Item three: A gold watch and chain. It went on the chair with the dough, Nothing else. No clues, And clues I had to have if I ever wanted to smell sawdust and hear carnival barkers again. Other- wise I’d probably hear the soft plunk of that cyanide egg dropping into a jar of acid under the chair in a certain little room at San Quentin. After that comes something that does- n’t smell like petunias. The loose-leaf calendar on the haieida table stared me right in the face. It said November 16. This was November 15. Somebody had torn off the top leaf— maybe because of writing on it, I thought. Looking close you could see the impress of pencil marks. I dipped my fingers in a dirty ashtray and smudged them across the calendar. Now the pencil impress ap- peared in pale lines. “Wishing you a happy and discreet fourth anniversary,” somebody had writ- ten on the calendar leaf for November 15. I tore off the smudged November 16 leaf, put it in the billfold, and went to the bathroom to wash my hands. Seen in the mirror above the bowl, James Melton, broker, looked as if he’d been through the mill. Too much of the whites of his eyes showed. A tight pucker of lines on his forehead told how hard he was thinking. I shut my eyes, drew a finger down slowly from the hairline to the bridge of my nose. An old Swiss actress taught me that trick. Then I dried my hands and went back out to the living room. Doug Drake hoisted his lean length from a chair. Mary O’Quinn got up, too. She looked cool, sure of the armored front she put up against Hollywood. “Ready?” Doug Drake asked, “All set,” I said. I would have said it the same way to the hangman ; EK HIT the party with a splash like three raindrops getting hep te Niagara Falls. Nobody paid us any at- tention. The long barbecue tables stood under leafy green walnut trees, backed up in a corner angle of the high, white, brick wall that surrounded the estate. A whole quarter of beef sizzled over olive-wood coals in a pit dug in the lawn. You could smell its juices dripping on the red coals and going up as steam. The biggest and noisiest part of the crowd eddied around the table of drinks where a butler handed out booze, (E(0) -comicbook