5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 95: what you’re looking at

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

HE’S IN THE DEATH HOUSE getting that I’d taken his automatic. Then he closed it, his face expression- less. “You’re just talking, Foster, because you’re in a Jam. You can’t prove a word you’ve said.” Kate was staring at him. “Why, you dirty, murdering rat! And you pre- tended that you were trying to save Charley!” She swung around. “I made a deal with Smith!” Her voice was high. “He was to try to save Charley from the chair, to get him a life sentence in- stead. In return, I was to go away with Petie.” “He couldn’t do that,” I told her, “be- cause as long as Garron lived, you wouldn’t have inherited the money.” “IT see that now,” she said. “Well, I'll fix him! I know some things my- self. [P’]—” He leaped directly at her across the desk, grabbing her shoulders and pull- ing her slender body down into a chair between us before I could shoot. But it did him no good. The plainclothesmen there had guns. One had his gun up- lifted as he leaped forward to brain Smith, but another one fired twice. Petie Smith was dead.... The highway looked long and wind- ing in the early morning sun. I hadn’t been in bed. I’d spent the night ex- plaining to the cops. The unpublished information I’d dug up at the news- paper office had backed me up. And that marriage licence I’d found had helped—it was a license for Kate and Charley Garron to marry. Kate, Tom Martin, and Compton Worth talked. Smith, it seemed, had had a phony option on the Garron prop- erty on which he had borrowed a lot of money from Shephard. Shephard had threatened to expose him, so Shep- hard had died. Then Smith had promised to use his influence with the governor to inter- cede for young Garron if Kate would go away with Petie. Peyton and Van Doan had got wise and had talked to the police chief who, after calling Smith, had gone out to find out from Judy if her brother really was married. The surprising part was that no one else had figured it out. I guess they’d all been so impressed with Smith and 95 his power that they hadn’t added two and two together. A big coupé was coming down the road. I didn’t see who was in it until it was braked to a stop. Then Judy Gar- ron opened the door. “Trying to run out on me, huh?”-she accused. I fumbled around for words. I’d seen the way Cliff Reed had looked at her the night before. I finally said so. She smiled at me. “You’re not so good at figuring things out, Mike. Cliff has been asking me for years, and I’m still saying no.” I got in. “Where do we go from here?” she asked. I looked at her and shrugged. “All I know is oil, Judy.” Bee smile widened. “Then we follow oul.” She swung the coupé in a circle, and we headed back toward Templeton. Every wildcatter in town celebrated that night. They drank the town dry at our wedding. But there were no lease hounds present at the festivities. My friends saw to that. ®@e @ The murder led Johnny from a girl in a sparkling G-string and transparent bra— to a sizzling fifty grand, red with blood! REUNION WITH }imn\\ DARKNESS A Novel of Today’s Underworld by WILLIAM DEGENHARD ® Featured NOW in July POPULAR DETECTIVE On Sale at All Stands comic ooolks (S| QO) mM