5 Detective Novels Magazine — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

DEATH TAKES NO HOLIDAY like nuts on a Ford car. He went out into the street and watched the sun sink slowly behind the roof tops of Beverly, then he turned and walked back toward the Park Hall Apartments. He wasn’t on business now. His assignment had ended when he '‘lo- cated the place where the girl was stay- ing and what name she was using. It had taken three days, a hundred and fifty dollars and thirty for expenses. He wished now that the expenses had run to more money, but old lynx-eye, the agency bookkeeper, would kick as it DETECTIVE HARRIGAN was. From the way the old goat squawked, you’d think the money came from his own pocket. The doorman had changed when Har- rigan reached the apartment. He glanced at his watch. He wondered if the whole staff changed at six. He hoped so, for he couldn’t think up another story for the girl at the switchboard. He was going to do a foolish thing. He knew that it was foolish, that it would un- doubtedly get him into trouble and prob- ably lose him his job. He went past the doorman with his head held high and an expression which said that he had just foreclosed the mortgage on the whole place. There was 71 a new girl at the switchboard. This one had glasses and a librarian look. Harrigan pulled a blank envelope from his pocket, wrote “Miss Walker” across its face in a round. flowing script and handed it to her. The girl took it, barely glancing at him, swiveled to a row of pigeon-holes behind her and stuck it into the one marked 515. When she turned back, Harrigan no longer was beside the desk. He had rounded the pillar and slid into the ele- vator. “Five,” he told the Filipino, and the car shot upward. The door of 515 looked solid and unin- viting. He hesitated. It wasn’t too late to back out now, but it would be too late in a minute. The hesitation was momentary. A Harrigan never retreated, especially when a yellow-haired girl seemed to be in trouble. He raised one big-knuckled hand and beat it gently against the panel. He stood there, shifting uncertainly from one big foot to the other. He was almost afraid for that door to open. He tried to frame what he was going to say. UT it didn’t open, not at once. He almost moved away down the hall. Then he heard a noise behind him and turning, saw the yellow-haired girl com- ing along the hall. She paused at sight of him and then came slowly forward. “Were you looking for me?” “Yes, Miss Walker, ” he said. | have a message for you.” Her brows went up and the look of uncertainty spread“across her face. He knew what she was thinking. Her name wasn’t Miss Walker. She wasn’t a “Miss” at all, and no one was supposed to know that she was staying at the Park Hall Apartments under the name of Walker. _ “All right,” she told him. the message ?” His Celtic smile lit up the broad, ir- “What is GOmMiGbooks