5 Detective Novels Magazine — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

36 Blood had drained from her cheeks. Her lips were a straight, harsh line. “Yes?” she murmured. “What’s your Joe like, Mrs. Macon?” “He’s a—a good boy. Wild, perhaps, but no wilder than a lot of young men with too much money. Did you find him? Did you get rid of the girl? Did you—” “How old is he?” “Twenty-six, on the 14th of July. Did you—”_.. “Plenty old enough to know what he’s about. Uh—before you called me early this morning, where had you been?” “Been? Why—here.”’ “Not out to the lake?” She sat up straight, swinging her feet off the lounge. She gave me a long, up- from-under glance, and there was anger in her eyes. “I didn’t pay you to cross- examine me, Darling.” “You didn’t pay me. There are cer- tain rules you follow in this business, Mrs. Macon. You don’t buy my Services like so much lumber. You give me a job. You tell me the facts, all the facts. If it’s legal, I go to work. If you and I hadn’t known Judge Harg, if he hadn’t suggested that you call me, I wouldn’t have come over here and I certainly wouldn’t have gone out to the lake. How much trouble has Joe been in before?” “Not so much that money couldn’t handle it,” she said tartly. “Sit down, young man.” SAT ON the edge of an Adirondack chair. “What happened at the lake?” she asked. “Her name is Kitty Watrous, 398 Avondale Road, Paterson. She’s mar- ried, but the landlady at the Paterson address hasn’t seen Watrous in over a year because he ducked out of sight. Twice, in the past month, two letters came to the wife post-marked Los An- geles. The landlady said they were in Watrous’ handwriting. That cost twenty dollars, and you’ll get a bill for it.” “What happened at the lake?” I puffed on the cigarette. “How long FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE has she been running around with Joe?” “Two-three weeks. What happened out at—” “Her clothes were in the closet of the master bedroom. There wasn’t much food in the house, but plenty of Scotch, so they had probably been just sleeping there.. Think back. Can you place a small, slick-looking man with a hungry face, sharp eyes, about twenty-six or seven, weight one-forty, black hair and eyes?” She thought back. “No.” “He’s not the husband, who is tall and rather thick-set, according to what the landlady said.” I was watching her face to see when she’d break. ““The woman is a looker who’d attract men. She wasn’t very attractive when I saw her because she was lying on the bedroom floor with a .22 caliber bullet in her chest. She was quite dead and rigor mortis was setting in.” She asked, “Which bedroom.” “The master bedroom. I said dead, Mrs. Macon.” She moaned, low and piteously, and her face broke in a hundred pieces. But she was a game woman. She must have had to put up with a lot from young Joe. I didn’t think she had had prior know- ledge of the murder. “You phoned, the police?” she asked tonelessly. I tramped out the cigarette in the grass. “No.” “Who killed her, Darling?” “Look, climb down off the high horse. I’m in this, burned check or no burned check. Tell me what you should have told me this morning before I went out to the lake.” She told it evenly, calmly. “I have a wall safe in my office inside. I keep a lot of money in there and my jewelry. Joe didn’t come home last night. This morning, I found the wall safe open. The money was gone, about twenty-thousand dollars in hundred and five-hundred dol- lar bills. Four or five diamonds were missing, but I couldn’t be sure how many until I checked the inventory. The dia- MICLOO comic S