5 Detective Novels Magazine — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

46 bered 920-928. It stopped as I entered. There were two men seated at desks, making like they were working. Miss Alice Rose sat at her desk. She had on the same tight marcel, the same straight lips, the same black dress, but the detachable collar was clean and freshly ironed. She went to a lot of trou- ble to save a few nickels at the cleaner’s. Old age security, maybe. She had a heart like a turnip and had to think about herself. “Where have you been for the past five days?” she wanted to know, and stuck three memo slips in my hand. “Getting over a binge,” I said lightly, glancing at the memos. The first said, “Call Millrose 9, 8764, about a suit you left at the cleaners.” The second said, “A Mr. Adelton called, urgent.” There was a second notation on this slip, in Miss Alice Rose’s handwrit- ing, and it said, “He called again yester- day so it couldn’t be urgent so I didn’t underline urgent.” I didn’t bother to look at the third memo. It might mean more work. “__and I just sit here all day and work,” Alice Rose was saying bitterly. “You gad about the countryside making THE MORNING A Brand New Mystery Novel FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE ‘money and having fun and I have to sit here. So it wasn’t hat pins below the occidental bulge this time, but a .22.” She read the papers. It had been a two-day sensation, and somehow I had come out unscatched. I started toward my desk, and she called out, “There’s a special delivery letter on your desk, Mr. Darling. I signed for it.” I nodded to the slaves at their desks, sat at my desk and picked up the special delivery. It was post-marked Ridge- wood, New Jersey. I slit the envelope, and a wheat-colored check slid out. It was made out to bearer, in Mrs. Lester Joseph Macon’s scrawl, and it was for one thousand dollars. I put my feet on the desk, stared out the window. It was a gray, nasty day. The rain finger-tapped lightly on the pane, like death’s fingers. Death’s fin- ger’s—with a .22 gun. “Right over there,” Miss Rose was saying. “The tall man by the window, the one with the scowl on his face, Mr. Adelton.” I glanced up. A little man wearing a rain-soaked hat and dripping raincoat walked to- ward my desk, a smile on his lips but no smile in his eyes. = % h : \ hs — y Z - K ae ; NG \ SS it . Q r < . ree | a UE errs eads \ \ Sans JS ; F Ny \x a4 XQ ‘ ’ NN { \ San oe MS AFTER MURDER bY William ir ish —AND FOUR OTHER GREAT NOVELS! CoOnniclooOokks