5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

He Wanted to Know What Kind of a Game Was Being around the corner, the black polish of the gun as the bright afternoon sun struck it. He heard the hammer of the rapidly fired shots. Then the little man was falling, and the girl had turned and started to flee. She ran directly across the side street. As she came toward him, Prentiss saw that she was carrying a package. He had seen it a few moments before, but the little man had been carrying it then. Now the little man was dying on the sidewalk. Prentiss’s long legs swiftly carried him out of the doorway, directly into the path of the girl. She tried to scurry around him like a frightened rabbit hunting vainly for cover, but he shot out a hand to catch her shoulder and stop her in midflight. ‘He got a shock when she turned her startled face to him. Her eyes were deep violet, so dark that they looked almost purple, and there was pure fear in them. “Please!” she cried. “Please let me go!” He snapped his head from side to side. “Little girls shouldn’t run away when they’ve just witnessed a killing. The police will want to ask questions.” “But I ean tell them nothing,” she said quickly. “I don’t know anything. I never saw the poor little man before. It was terrible, and I can’t be mixed up in any- thing like this. It will mean my life. Do you understand? My life!” He believed her, but not in the way that she intended. He thought she prob- ably had guilty knowledge of the mur- der, had probably been a part of it. Perhaps she had managed to place the httle man on that corner at the exact time set for the killing. After accom- plishing her purpose, she had probably seized the package and was racing away. He kept his grip on her arm and turned to look across the street. A crowd had gathered around the fallen man. A police car drew up, its squealing brakes making a sharp cry above the rumble of distant traffic. “Come on,” Prentiss said to the girl. “Let’s go over and let the cops ask ques- tions.” 62 He turned to look at her. As he did so, something struck him sharply on the side of his head. He staggered, fighting hard to hold his balance, almost blinded by the force of the blow. There was an open sidewalk elevator behind him, where men had been un- loading canned goods for the restaurant. He staggered backward, his clawing fin- gers reaching for support. They touched the girl’s arm. She tried to jerk away. His hand slid down her arm and clutched the small package in her hand. The next instant, his foot slipped over the edge of the open elevator, and he tumbled backward into the shaft. At least ten feet below, he landed on a pile of sacking on the elevator floor and lay there, too stunned to move. He hadn’t seen his assailant, but now he had a confused impression that a man and a woman were peering down at him from above. Then two men in overalls ran out of the cellar and helped him up. One of the men was big and worried. He kept saying over and over, “I told the boss to have that guard rail fixed, that someone was going to fall down. Now he’s in for it. If this guy wants to sue—” Prentiss was shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. He found he wasn’t hurt, that the fall, due to the cushion of sacks, had not even bruised him. He insisted he was all right and that there was nothing for them to worry about. (2 TEEUn the big man _ stooped, picked up the brown paper parcel, and thrust it into Prentiss’s hand. The other took the detective’s arm and led him toward the elevator, though Pren- tiss insisted he was uninjured. The boss turned out to be a Greek— short, with a close-coupled body and the thick neck of a wrestler..He was worried and his English wasn’t good. But he in- sisted that Prentiss be examined by a doctor and sent for one who had an office in the building. Prentiss’s mind was still fuzzy, and he wasn* thinking clearly. He submitted to the doctor’s examination because it was easier to do so than to argue. Finally MICLOOKS (”) (C(O) (C@)