10-Story Detective, June 1945 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

TNT for Two Those little red lobsters had a secret significance to Eben Hunt's criminal past. When the gunman met them again, they were the key to a suicide setup menacing his present. A menace which Eben could meet only by threatening his future with sudden self-inflicted doom. CHAPTER I HE LAN D- LADY handed the little man a matronly smile along with the rent receipt. “You’re a good roomer, Mr. Hunt, ” she told him, “Always prompt with your rent and never a ) complaint out of you.” Eben Hunt grunted, turned, and went _ out to the hall. The mail lay piled on the long hall ta- ble. There was a letter for him in a long plain envelope, and the handwriting was a school teacher’s dream. Eben knew that the letter was from Walt Rome be- fore he got the envelope open. Walt should have a good handwriting —he was so good at imitating every- body else’s that he could select the best for his own. That talent had landed him in the state penitentiary for the second time. Walt wrote that he would be out LS month and wanted Eben to meet im, The street door opened. Eben shoved the letter into a pocket and turned to look at Dorothy Gibson’s greeting smile. “Hello, *” he said. “There’s a package for you.” “A package? I didn’t order anything. Who would send me—” She moved to the table and frowned down at the tiny pack-— age. It was about three inches long and two inches wide. “It looks like jewelry,” she a as she started to tear off the pape “Fyrom a boy friend ?” he asked, try- ing to make his voice bantering. “There’s no man I know well enough in Coast City,” she muttered. BEN’S chest lightened. She had moved into Mrs. Redden’s boarding > house two weeks ago, and she had always had a smile for him. She was a slip of a girl, the right size for him, with a pale wistful beauty, There was a touch of weariness in her smile, a cloud of gsad- mess covering the sparkle in her black eyes. He had an idea that she was lone- ly as he was. For days now he had tried to work up the courage to do something about it. The wrapper was off the package. She held a little red box in her hand. She turned it in her fingers. “How about having dinner with me?” Eben blurted. Her dark eyes tilted up from the red box, There was no response in them, no expression, A flush of resentment spread up Eben’s pinched cheeks, He had never been any good with women. He was too small, too insignificant, now perhaps too me though he was still this side of for- “Dinner?” she echoed dully and looked down at the box. Automatically her fin- gers lifted the cover. A little red celluloid lobster lay inside —a child’s toy. Outside, the street was noisy with traf- fic and children, but the sudden stifling silence in the hall seemed divorced from the world, For a breathless moment the little man and the slight woman stood staring down at the red lobster. Then Eben Hunt found his voice. “Who sent you that?” Dorothy Gibson didn’t seem to hear him. Mechanically she dropped the box and the lobster into her handbag, snapped the bag shut, and went to the street door. “Wait!” Eben touched her arm. “That lobster—does it mean anything?” Her biack eyes were on him, but they weren’t looking at him. They didn’t see him or anything in the hall. Her face was as static as a mask. “Can’t you answer me?” he asked. “I asked—” She opened the door, He started after KS (E@) Comichoo