5 Detective Novels Magazine — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

66 that you had arrived and were too snooty to attend any but the “best people.” That didn’t scare me, though. I kept pressing the button, knowing Tanner would fix me up because I had been in- troduced to him at Withersteen’s party. He opened the door finally, his courtly figure wrapped in a silk-embroidered dressing gown, his eyeglasses glittering and his smooth pink face bland as lard. I could see the luxurious furnishings of his office behind him and the hallway to his apartment beyond that. He didn’t recognize me at first. I was pale and red-eyed and unshaven, and with my hat off and the bloody handker- chief around my head, I must have been a sight. Then finally he figured out who I was and nodded. “Mr. Thatcher! It looks as if you’d been hurt.” “T have. Sorry to get you up so late, doc, but I bumped into something.” He nodded again. “We doctors expect to be called any time, day or night. It’s part of our job, you know. Come in.” He made me sit under a light, pulled my home-made bandage off and clicked his tongue. “A nasty scalp wound. It must be painful.” “It is. I’m seeing stars right now, Doc, shooting stars.” “What did you say you bumped into?” “IT didn’t say—just something—a hunk of lead, maybe.” “Lead? You mean you’ve been shot?” “It looks that way, Doc.” He felt around the edges of the wound and I waited to see if his fingers would tremble, but they didn’t. They were cool and steady, but the touch of them made me shiver. “You newspaper men,” he said, “must get into all kinds of tight places. If it’s a bullet wound, you know, I’m supposed to report it to the police.” He touched my scalp with some kind of antiseptic that smarted like Old Har- ry and began to apply gauze and tape. I gripped the arms of my chair and looked FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE up at him. . : “Are you going to report it, Doc?” “Perhaps not. It’s up to you. You probably know your own business.” “T hope so. Sometimes I’m not sure.” I looked him full in the face then. His eyes, magnified by his glasses, looked in- human, like a frog’s eyes. “How well did you know Ron Wither- steen, Doc?” I asked. “As well as a doctor ever knows his patients. Mr. Withersteen wasn’t often ill. He called me only a few times. Why ?” “How long had you known him?” “Let me see—three years, ever since his third play became so successful.” “And you didn’t know him at all be- fore that?” “No. Not at all. Why?” “Just this, Doc.”’ I took the picture that Louie Claus had made for me out of my pocket. It was still slightly damp. “Ever see that?” I said. His pupils contracted a little as he looked at it. That was all. “No, I haven’t. That seems to be a young picture of Mr. Withersteen in the front row.” “And the third row, Doc—recognize the guy sitting there?” “No,” said Tanner coldly, “I don’t.” “IT do. It’s you, Doc—you under an- other name, your real name, back in col- lege days.” “Are you out of your head, Mr. Thatcher?” “T hope not. I’m lucky I still have a head—after that shot you slung at me.” “You are ill, Mr. Thatcher.” “No. Keep your hand out of your pocket, Doc—the right one. You might have that little gun on you still. In fact, you probably have.” E SPREAD his hands in a show of innocence. “I have no gun. I don’t know what you're talking about. Will you please explain ?” “Gladly. You shot Scott tonight and MICLOO (C(O) <=)