10-Story Detective, June 1945 — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

— I enter Humbert Furbish’s deserted mansion by a rear window and step right into a plate of something squishy. I slip on it and sit right down in a big saucer of milk. Then I snap on the flashlight. J look at what was to have been a mouse- chaser’s breakfast or lunch or dinner. “Why, Humbert must have owned a tomcat,” I says. Could it be we had mis- judged the character and lifted his bank- voll which might have belonged to him anyway? I start sweating, Louie. It is a blue sweater I am looking for. 1 search the house top and bottom for two hours and cannot find a blue sweat- er in Humbert’s abbreviated wardrobe. When I get back to the big town, I says to myself you had better call Hambone Noonan. I do and Hambone happens to be home, “This is Alvin,” I says. “Ham- bone, I—” “Don’t talk to me, stinker!” Noonan says and hangs up. “Awright, smart Aleck, if that is the way you want it,” I snap at the dead phone, guilty!” What was I sayin’, Louie? ~- - THREE days pass, I still do not get up the courage to tell anybody about the yarn that Horatius nearly choked on. How would you like to have gone into the © D.A., Louie, and said: “I think somebody besides Humbert Furbish liquidated Anastasia Furbish and all you haye to do is find a blue sweat- er which was knitted with yarn like what the vet found in the parrot’s trachea.” ‘The D.A. would have sent me over to Belleyue, and not for a hypo. Well, it was one afternoon when who comes into headquarters but a lawyer named Sidney Hooze, He comes into the backroom where the detectives hang out. He looks like he has gone through all the Pacific islands with the U. S. Army, “Well, Hoozy,” Hambone says. “What erook are you figurin’ on gittin’ a detain- er fee on, huh? What’s the matter, some- body steal your last sack of makin’s?” “Aw, I git the worst breaks,” Sidney gripes. “Here I got me a cineh case. A dame comes to me and asks does she have a ease. I go and look the ease over, It’s a cinch lawsuit for her husband and should net about five grand in damages. I tells the babe it is a pushover. “Then the next day which is today she eomes and says her husband don’t care to sue as after all he likes his neighbor. What a break. The guy gits a rare dis- ease because of his neighbor haying a pet cracker punisher. What does he con- traet but psitiacosis. It could be fatal, an’ —— _* -: —_—_——LAST ONE DEAD IS AN OLD MAID! “Go on thinkin? Humbert is 29 then she'll have to sue. But it’ll be my luck the jerk lives.” I am alone a few seconds later, when all of a sudden I nearly faint. I make a sound like you hear when you pull the plug out of a sink drain, uie, Oh, I nearly nauffed it. A disease from parrots! If a citizen was gouged by the talons of a big baby like Horatius— I run out and catch Sidney Fooze just as the lawyer is getting into his sedan, *Hey, what is the name of the character who has psit—whatever osis it is, Sid. I got a reason to ask.” “Wait now,’ Hooze says. “Yeah, the name is Mrs. Rudolph Smootzig. She hasn’t got it. Her husband has, Alvin. It is a cinch case as the doctor’s bills alone should run up—what makes guys so dumb when they can make easy a couple of grand after my fee—” “I wouldn’t know,” I says. I sit down on the curb and try to remember where I saw a name like that. Just as. Hooze throws the jalopy in gear, I yelp: “What does this Smootzig do?” “He runs a store of some kind,” the lawyer says and then drives off. “Smootzig,” I says. “Smootzig!” Then it comes to me, I run back into the build- ing and hunt down Hambone Noonan. Hambone is trying to borrow two bucks from Hard Hat, but Hard Hat is ada- mant, That means he won’t loosen up. “Hambone,” I yelp, “I will loan you the two bucks, if you will just get off your knees an’ come an’ see me in private.’ “Oh, you are a pal, Alvin,” Noonan saws. “What is the matter with you, though?” “Huh? Humbert Furbish is as inno- cent as you are,” I gays. “I am going to prove it to you, and also take you with me to apprehend the real assassin. I have been killed almost three times now by forgetting to take you with me.” “It can’t be,”” Hambone argues, “All the evidence—” “Circumstantial,” I says fast. “Hum- bert saved his dough, too, and lived hke a ragbag to retire early, Let us look up a name in the phone book, We will go to the address an’ clinch this murder case. Now I know why Mrs. Smootzig decided not to let her provider sue his neighbor.” “I bet he wears a blue sweater an’—” “Alvin Hinkey, you are nuts,” Noonan says, “But I will go along with the gag. Vl tell the D. A. though if—” “Oh, keep still,” I snort. “Here it is, Rudolph P. Smootzig, 719% Bleaker Street. Come along, Hambone, I hope the fever does not steal him away from the hot seat. Why, we should have known _ he’d know more about the Furbish dolls —~ ~~ (E@) — comicboo cS