10-Story Detective Magazine, April 1946 — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

30-———___—_—_—_——_—_———10-STORY DETECTIVE——————_______—__ ago you claimed Vanessa’d been mur- dered. Now this man’s wife is dead?” “Vanessa was Johnny’s wife. She al- ways did like men who could handle horses.” { heard Emily Hayden gasp. WPue dazed took in Johnny’s washed-out blue eyes and the way his lips were too numb to handle saliva told the story. “How long have you been married to Vanessa?” Turrentine queried curtly. “Phoenix,” Johnny Cook mumbied. “Five years ago.” “J get it,” Purrentine scowled. “If ghe’d lived to produce one more flop, his cut of her estate wouldn’t have amounted to a plugged nickel.” “Not so fast,’ I said. “What about me? I’m in Vanessa’s will, too. So’s Emily. You had a damned good motive yourself, far’s that goes.” “She was costing me plenty,” Turren- tine admitted, his hard black eyes on my face, I held the aces now. “Don’t forget,” I prodded, “that the homicide boys are a cinch to find your horse’s tracks just outside the garden wall.” “AN right. I went there. We fought it out and she told me to go to hell. I left while she was still telling me what she thought of me.” “Will the cops believe it? Will the newspaper boys believe it?” Two vertical lines showed between Turrentine’s eyebrows. “Anything looks bad after a killing,” he grunted. “I’m afraid you’re right,” 1 admitted. “If Emily kisses the- Good Book on the witness stand, she’ll reluctantly have to say my hands were cold and wet when I came into the house from the garden swimming pool this morning. Wouldn’t you, Emily?” Emily Hayden sniffed disdainfully. I turned to Johnny. “Vanessa stayed here with you last night. idn’t she?” Johnny’s washed-out blue eyes stared around the sunny walls of the tackroom in a daze. “Yeah,” he whispered. “How was she dressed when she came over? Slacks?” He nodded dumbly. “Handkerchief tied over her head?” I asked, “T—don’t remember.” “Did she have on jodhpur boots?” Johnny’s eyes focussed slowly on my face. “No, Gold slip—” Emily Hayden’s purse belched fire and smoke and bits of leather at me, as Tur- rentine knocked it out of her hands. The .38 inside it popped like smashing a blown-up paper bag, only louder, ue leather purse lay on the floor, smoking. Turrentine fished Johnny’s 28 automatic out of it, and threw it on the desk. ¥ looked at Johnny Cook’s taut face. “Better take the clip out,” I told Turren- tine. He did. “So it was dear, calm little Emily,” he grinned. “She wanted to grab her hunk of Vanessa’s estate while there was still something left to grab.” I nodded. “She killed Vanessa and planned to let us three pass the rap around to each other like a hot brick. The newspapers would’ve had a field day. She saw her chance when you rode away from the swimming pool, She simply slipped down right after you jeft and cracked Vanessa at the base of the skuli and left her to drown. “What did you slug her with, Entily?” The mask of composure on Emily Hayden’s face slipped for just a second. “You nearly made it stick,” I told her. “But you stubbed your toe in one im- portant spot. You claimed you didn’t see Turrentine. Then, in the stable, you told him how he’d left his cigarette on the wall. I hadn’t told you about that.” “You slipped, too,” she countered sweetly. coughed too soon. You arranged that meeting to trap me, not Mr. Turrentine, That’s why I borrowed Mr. Cook’s auto- matic. I’m sorry I missed.” “Nuts,” I muttered, numbly. I was thinking about the first day Vanessa had come to my office with cardboard stuffed - in her shoe to cover a hole. Emily Hayden was powdering her nose, getting ready for the newspaper boys. “Mark,” she said. “What?” “How did you know I’d elated those clothes on the floor and dug out her old jodhpurs to make sure even the police would find out she’d been to the stabies last night?” “The earrings,” I said, “OP Brer Mark gave her that pair of silver frog ear- rings last week for a gag. She had a phobia against frogs; She wouldn’t be caught dead wearing frogs on her ears.” CORDIC LOO “You shuffled your feet and “S CO