All-Story Detective, October 1949 — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

114 All-Story Detective bird. Which wasn’t quite the impression Lola Maderos gave out. She was tall, and you would have called her stately except for the sinuous way she walked. She certainly had what the Vic- torian novelists called raven tresses; the blackest, glossiest hair I’ve ever seen. In- congruously, she wore it putlled tight against her head and gathered into a hard knot at the back. I wondered what she looked like when she took her hair down; but one look at her eyes, as black and hard as patent-leather shoe buttons, made me wonder whether she ever did take it down. Barnaby, standing behind the desk, motioned her to the chair across from him. She smiled faintly and glided across the room. She was wearing a long, black gown, something like those things Chinese wotnen wear. On most women it would have been shapeless, but she had the kind of figure that would look good in a gunny sack, With each step you saw the smooth glint of silk through the skts that came half way up the skirt. She sat down and crossed her legs in a manner that allowed me to concentrate most of my attentton on that glint of sifk. Barnaby said, “You were Mr. Mac- Gregor’s secretary, and you were known in the—er—organization as the Raven. Is that right?” I half expected some sort of exotic accent, but it was just a nice, cultured American voice, a trifle remote. “Yes. T handled the correspondence and most of the business affairs. The Ea—Mr. MacGregor didn’t like to be bothered with such matters.” From somewhere under the black gown she took an onyx cigarette case, lighted a cigarette from a lighter on the desk. She blew a stream of smoke on the parrot that held the microphone. “I assume you've put the talking bird to work?” Barnaby blushed, looked confused, and stammered, ““Well—yes.” I knew he was putting on an act, but I don’t think she did. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, of course, but there has been a murder, and we have to ask some ques- tions. You understand that?” “Perfectly.” Her tone implied that she understood that, and a good many more things that Barnaby would never under- stand. “What make you so certain it’s murder?” “We have our reasons. you think it wasn't?” “T didn’t say that. But The Eagpte hasn’t been altogether himself recently.” Barnaby snorted. “You'll never make me believe that if an old showman like that decided to take the Dutch way out, he’d use rat poison.” She shrugged. “You’re very mistaken if you think he was nothing more than a showman.” “T don’t think that, not by a long shot. Just what was the racket?” I wouldn’t have thought a dame as diamond-hard as that could look naive, but she did. She said, “Racket?” as though it were some word in a strange foreign language. “Let it go,” satd Barnaby. “It'll aff come out. Tell me—just what was the routine around here? What did Mac- Gregor do? What was the outfit all about ?”’ Her look pitied htm for not having been next to the inner secrets. “Mr. Mac- Gregor’s mind was as far above the ordinary human’s as the eagle is above the sparrow. He had mastered the workings of the subconscious mind. He could con- tro! it completely—his own, or anyone else’s.” “Regular Svengali, huh?” “Not in the least. He was a master of hypnotism, of course, but it was unneces- sary for him to use it.” There was a lot more cross-examina- tion, but what it boiled down to was this: The Fagle ran a one-man show. To What makes COMiIiclooe S (©