5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

DANCE, PRETTY MAIDEN “It was on the phonograph up there,” Ollin said. “It seems it was being played just before the girl—died.” “Ah!” said Siddington. He looked a trifle paler. He tried to make his voice casual as he asked, “You played it? Er—how does it sound?” Ollin laughed sourly. “Like hell, for my money.” Siddington looked down. “Well, it accompanied a rather horrible cere- mony, of course—the sacrifice of Xipe, the Flayed.” “Shee-pay ?” Ollin asked. “Yes. It’s spelled X-I-P-E but pro- nounced ‘shee-pay.’ In this god’s wor- ship the victim was decapitated, instead of having the heart torn out, as in most sacrifices. This girl, Liria, was—” “Almost,” Ollin said. He saw: that Edna Ferry was biting her lip. Siddington straightened, slammed a fist on the desk. “Well, we must face it! But I won’t believe Hil did it. He prob- ably simply got drunk and wandered off. Then some jealous suitor of the girl’s came in and killed her.” “She had some other suitors?” Siddington shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s likely, with her type, isn’t it?” Oe thought of the sleek youth in the yellow car Who had picked up the girl’s mother that morning. “Still,” he said, “since the manner of death seems to tie up somehow with that musié, Kern seems the one most likely to know about that. By the way, what can you tell me about this man, I. Tez- eat, who sold Kern the recordings?” “Practically nothing,” Siddington re- plied. “He contacted me first, as I said. but after Kern took the business over, I never heard from him again. He ap- pears to have been very secretive any- how. Claimed his identity had to be kept secret in order to maintain his con- tact with the Indians he got the music from. Kern just wrote to him at a post office box in Mexico City.” “You knew Kern received this new recording yesterday ?” “Oh, yes. He called me late yesterday afternoon, seemed quite jubilant. I sug- gested he play it over for Edna and me at once, but he said he wanted to play it over for Liria first. He promised to 37 call. Edna and I waited in my office un- til after eleven, but—” He glanced at the girl—“Hil never called. Finally we gave up waiting. I drove Edna to her boarding house and went home to bed myself.” Ollin said, “Well—” He rested his hands on the arms of his chair a mo- ment, then rose. He watched the smol- dering emotion in Edna Ferry’s averted face. He asked Siddington, “Will you pronounce the name of that Aztec god again—X-I-P-E?” “Shee-pay,” Siddington said quickly. “The x has an sh sound in the Nahuatl languages. Is it of some importance?” “Could be,” Ollin said. “I just hap- pened to think that a woman who heard that music playing last night says it stopped on a cry that sounded like ‘whoopee,’ or ‘yipee.’ So I wondered—” “It was probably the god’s name,” Siddington said with a nod. “Anyhow, I’ll play it over and check,” Ollin said. “It might help to establish the time of death. I’d like for both of you to come down to headquarters later and hear it, too.” Siddington nodded, but the girl looked away with such an expression of fear that Ollin said, “Bear up, Miss Ferry. You might be able to help Hilary Kern. I assume you want to?” An almost fanatical light flashed briefly into the girl’s brown eyes. “I guess I’d do anything for Hil,” she said fiercely. Then she dropped her head on folded arms and began to sob; “Oh, that little she-devil was the ruin of him!” Siddington hurried over to comfort her. Ollin stood a moment eyeing her with narrowed gaze. Then he went out quietly. Back at headquarters, Ollin read re- ports. The license of the yellow car which had picked up Senora Baeza that morning had been traced by the Mexican authorities. It belonged to one Fausto Azul, twenty-five, sometime novice bull fighter, tourist guide, part-time musi- cian. Questioned about him, the Senora Baeza had said that he was a childhood friend of Liria’s, whom she had not seen in several years. They had met acci- dently a few weeks ago. Since then he had seen Liria occasionally, she thought. She did not know Azul’s address and COnNIElooOo S (C(O) mM