10-Story Detective, June 1945 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

——_———A KILL POR TRE 2 - Deug Drake hauled me over to the butler, got me a Manhattan, introduced me to a elacking, skinny, blonde woman. Then he vanished from my ken. “Vm the Martha Hayes of Hayes Real Rstate and Rentals, Mr. Melton!” she shrilled. “Why, you don’t look at all like the chareoal sketch of you I hung im the master bedroom!” I choked on my Manhattan. “What?” I sputtered. “Oh, that sketch—why—” “T hope everything suits you, Mr. Mel- ton P’ she eooed excitedly. “I tried so hard to get everything just as your ietter of mistruetions said, Even down to the recipe for drinks you sent!” “Thanks, that’s wonderful,” I teld her, with a strange, sin feeling im my gizzard. I shook her off and she vanished mato the human whirpool, _ My fimger erooked at the butler got hima away from the table of drinks for a minute. “Who's giving this party?” I whispered. He looked at me with a dead-and-buried gleam of amusement in his eye. “Why yom are, Wir, Melton, of course!” i elutehed the edge of the table for support. “Will you repeat that?” I gulped. “Tt’s a housewarming party, Mr. Mel- ton,” the butler explained. “Oh, you'll get used to Hollywood, sir, It just takes a little time.” I ran my finger around the inside of may collar, “I’na beginning to believe that.” “De the eocktails meet your approval, sir? I followed to the letter the reeipe you sent on,” He patted his pocket. It gave me an idea. “Let’s see it,” 1 demanded. He fished forth a draggied leather and handed me a piece of paper. I stuffed the scrap in my pocket. way is the master bedroom He glanced at the long, low California at the end of the — *““Phrouch the living room, first on ae then last en the left, sir,” “he ‘old =e eowhoy musician was wresthng with a bull fiddle twiee his size mear the barbeeue tables, A couple of ether mu- sielans in western togs wandered about as I crossed the lawn to burgle my own An uneasy hunch that Liscomb_ might be somewhere im the the offing in- truded itself, but I didn’t have time to worry about ‘that. A record player boomed soft swing for three or fowr eceuples dancing im the living room. I went right on through, door on the right, last om the left, _ and found the master bedroom. There on the wall, looking me right in — fecnenee Now which _ 24 the optics hung a portrait of a face Id seen before. Dark eyes, curly hair, every- thing but the blue-rimmed bullet hole in front of the red mush of brains and blood behind, I reached for it. It was just a simple, easual charcoal sketeh signed “James Melton by Tony Wheeler,” but to me it could be as a eobra. If a shrewd eye got a qaatiex at this sketch before I eould hide it . IT had my hands on the frame when a woman’s voice spoke quietly, behind me. “Mo,” she said. I spun arovad, Mary O’Quinn stood there with a nasty Tittle blue-steel .25 automatic leveled at my tum-tum, She swung the hall door shut. “You handle the part well,” she said in cool tones. “Who are you? You're not Melton.” “Tt don’t know what you mean,” I said with offended dignity, “And d how dare you —— a gun in my—” I know a god job of acting when I see #4.” She kept the muzzle steady. “Now do you talk to me or to the police?” A CARNIVAL shill has to add up hu- man nature in a flash. Mary O’Quinn wore armor, From the toes of her trim little shoes to the top of her smooth chestnut head, where the first threads of grey showed, she was a skeptic. But deep down in her eyes, where Hollywood couldn’t get at it, I saw the hunger you ean find in a tough Hitle pavement Arab’s eyes. It’s the hunger to oe just onee, in Santa Claus. 1 gambled everything on that look in her Irish blue eyes. Leading off with Lis- comb’s reefer jag and methods of coaxing, I gave her a quick picture of the setup. When I finished the muzzle of the .25 was wavering, “That's all, I guess,” | added brokenly. “There’s a phone over there on the table if you want to eall “Cut the corn,” she broke in. The snub- nosed automatic vanished into her brown suede purse. The purse snapped shut. “All right. You’ve got a break. What are yeu going to do with it?” With a sigh of relief that came all the way from the soles of my shoes, I hauled out the cocktail reeipe in James Melton’s handwriting, which I had hijacked from the butler. “Here’s my first real lead,” 1 teld her. We spread the smudged calendar leat for November 16 Vd stashed in my bill- fold beside the ae ge and compared the handwriting, — “His, all right, im both eases,” I opined, “What of it?” comichook