5 Detective Novels Magazine — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

COMPLIMENTS OF A FIEND from his lower lip was running down his chin. I took only one of his wallops; a roundhouse swing that caught me along- side the head. It made my ears ring and brought back my headache from the night before. I went backward faster than usual, and he charged in, panting, for the kill. But I was still on balance. I sank a right into the lower edge of his vest. He went “Oooof” and sat down. Not knocked out, just out of wind. He didn’t look in a hurry to get up. “You young fool, you” a dry voice said. It was Doc Reynard. I hadn’t heard him drive up or get out of the car, but he was walking briskly toward us. Ed Magnus got up slowly, his hands at his sides. He was through fighting. “*S all right, Doc,” he panted, and headed for the watering trough to wash the blood off his face. Doc followed him, and I put my coat back on and leaned against a tree to wait ro ue riveters to stop work inside my ead. FTER a minute, Doc and Magnus walked over to where the barn had been and I followed, to hear what Doc had to say about the skeleton there. Mut- tering under his breath, Doc waded into the ashes and bent over. “It’s Dave Otis all right. Besides that trepanning, there’s an old fracture in the right femur. And the teeth are— Yeah, it’s Dave all right. Incidentally, he’s dead.” “IT guessed that,” said Magnus. “What you’re.supposed to tell me is how?” Doc Reynard stared at him. “And just how am I supposed to tell that? Don’t be a dope, Ed.” “Can’t you perform an autopsy?” “How? I’ll make a stab at it and give you an official sounding report, but bar- ring miracles it won’t tell what he died from.” “What kind of a miracle?” “Well, there are a few poisons that would show up in a bone structure or in chemical analysis of ashes. That’s one possibility. Then again, when we sift the ashes under the skeleton, we might turn up a bullet or something, which wouldn’t prove he’d died of that. but it 113 would be a strong presumption.” “If he’d died of a torn jugular?” I asked. “If he did, all the angels couldn’t prove it now.” That was what I’d wanted to be sure of. I nodded and started walking for the road. “Where you going?” Ed Magnus called. “Town.” “Wait a minute. You can ride in with me.” “To jail?” “Not this trip. I’ll buy you a drink.” He left his deputy to help Reynard and he and I got into the car. On the way in, I asked: “Which way is it now? Am I under order to get out of town or to stay in it?” “Guess you'll have to stick around for the inquest. You found the body. Twice, if your story of last night’s true.” “You don’t believe it?” “Look, let’s start all over again. Doc told me you got a busted rib. If you had spunk enough to want to fight me this afternoon in spite of that, well—Oh, shucks, do I got to apologize? I don’t know how to.” “Just skip it,” I said. “We'll start over ee here. And now about this mur- Cha “Wait a minute,” he said, and swung in to the curb in front of a tavern. “I don’t know about you, but I want a drink.” “TI can use one,” I admitted. We didn’t get back to murder until one was under our belts and we were looking at the second. Then I started again. “About last night. Why don’t you believe, now, that I found the corpse?” “TI didn’t say I didn’t, quite. But look —you got to admit it’s a screwy yarn. Guy growling at you. Dave with a torn throat, disappearing and turning up a mile away, burned. Are you sure he was dead when you found him? I mean, it wouldn’t be so screwy if he’d been hurt. Look, tell me what you think of this: \ “Dave gets hurt, hit by an auto may- be. He’s unconscious and there’s blood on this throat. You find him, having let your imagination get away with you DOO) nn Connie iS