10-Story Detective, June 1945 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

LAST ONE DEAD JIS AN OLD MAID! We tippy-toe out into the dark corri-— dor. I snap on a flash and play it around. There in a corner is a parrot looking up at me with his right eye cocked. There are some loose feathers on the floor. One of the parrot’s wings looked as if it had stopped some fiak over Hamburg. The bird yaps at us, and I was sure it asked us if the tornado was over. “Huh,” Hambone says. “A wicked lookin’ bird. You understand parrois, Alvin?” “My aunt had one once. I still have a scar on my—never mind,” I says. “T’ll see what I can do. It looks like it doubled for a watchdog, and the dishonest character tangled with it. Look, there is blood on its beak, an’ I bet there is stains on its claws. We’ll let the boys at the lab—” “Let’s go down an’ see if Isolde is speakin’ to us,” Hambone says. Isolde Furbish is mumbling a little when we return to the basement. The parrot is on my shoulder and nibbling at my ear. “Oh, you have Horatius,” Isolde says quite thinly. “He put up quite a battle at the bridge,” I says. “He tried to save us: It always sat on a perch out there im the second hall- way,” the old recluse says. “We couldn’t bear to keep him in a cage.” “Awright,” Hambone says. “One thing we got to know. Did you an’ your sister have any relatives you knew was left alive?” Isolde takes another whiff at a bottle of smelling salts. “Just one. Our late -brother Gladstone’s son, a nephew named siumbert. He lives out in Hohokus. Have- n’t seen him for seven years, thank heaven,” “Er—how much scratch did you an’ your sister have in your—wherever you kept it, Miss Furbish?” “Almost forty thousand dollars,” Tsolde says. “The robber took it, Anas- tasia’s petticoat an’ all. Oh, the shame of it.” “T’ll say it is a shame losing forty thou- sand fish,” I says. “Be more polite, Alvin,” Hambone chides. “This looks pretty plain to me, _ Here is a parrot who clawed somebody, maybe Humbert Furbish. Horatius here sure don’t have hummin’ bird’s claws. He must of left his trade mark on the as- sassin. There is blood here on this news- paper on the floor. We will arrest your a Mrs.—pardon me—Miss Fur- ish.” “Aren’t you bein’ a little hasty, Ham- bone?” I ask. “Oh, I guess you'd want to make a big thing out of it, Alvin. An intrinsie : 27 ease hard to selve, huh? Most of them happen only in books,” Noonan says. “We will go to Hohokus.” “IT put. Horatius on the back of a chair, Miss Furbish,” I says. “I’d git «< vet to look at him soon as he looks a little groggy yet.’ MBERT FURBISH lives in an old house on a side street in the Jersey town, The shack has not seen paint since Germany hated war. We wade through grass and weeds to the front door. “Tt looks like hermititis runs in the tere I eomment. “You think he’s in: 29 “Smoke is comin’ out the chimney,” Hambone says. “Can mice cook?” “That is not so funny,’ I sniff. Hambone bangs on the door, and two shingles fall. off the roof. A window blind. comes loose and nearly brains me. “You are not knocking on the door of a tomb,” I says. Humbert comes out. He is a watery- eyed citizen with a beard, although he can’t be over forty-five. He wears baggy pants with patches on the knees and old slippers with his toes showing through, “What you want?” Humbert asks. “You,” Noonan says. “Git inside there an’ don’t resist. We are goin’ to search this dump for forty grand, I bet you buried the petticoat, huh?” “Huh?” Humbert squeaks. “You must be erazy.” : “You’re warm,” I says and Hambone glares at me, Louie. “Awright, we can’t waste our time,” Hambone starts when we are in Hum- bert’s parlor. “There may be other crimes to solve across the river. You got two aunts named Anasthesia an’ Rissole, ain’t you?” “You mean Anastasia an’—” “Sure,” I says impatiently. “Did you or did you. not sneak across the Hudson last night, enter your aunties’ domicile unlawfully, knock off one of them, an’ lift the poke they had garnered all these years—the poke Morgenthau never got wise to.” “Whait’s he sayin’?” Humbert asks Noonan, _ “You know darned well,” Noonan re- plies. “We are acecusin’ you of murder and robbery and illegal entry and—where did you get those deep scratches on your arm, Humbert Furbish? Look, Alvin. “Look,” Humbert says. “I got a tom- -¢at that turned on me this mornin’. Now you git. out of here an’ let me alone.” “Fancy, Alvin! He wants to be alone like he was Mr. Garbo or semebody,” Hambone snorts and takes out his police — Roscoe. “A likely story. Show ue the ‘comicbooks (E@)