5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

THE GHOST BREAKERS den, with that dummy and the phono- graph that Scollini used there, at, say, eleven o’clock this evening.” “You mean you think you can get Pollock there tonight and startle him into a confession or something?” “IT can get him there,” I said, “through Waldo. If he’s guilty, having a ghost fall down those stairs is going to give him the screaming meemies for a moment or so, isn’t it? If I jump in with both feet at the right moment, he might talk.” “It might work,” said Jan thought- fully. “And it might not,” I admitted. “But what else is a better bet? We’ll be con- fronting him before Waldo, and his re- action may convince Waldo even if Pol- lock doesn’t crack. I’ll have Wegs there, too, for a witness.” “That’s figuring the angles pretty fine, George.” “You be in that house around eleven o’clock, ready to duplicate the trick Scol- lini pulled. I’ll take care of the rest.” EN I left Jan, I realized that it was too early to start pulling strings for the eleven o’clock date on Greene Street. I knew that Waldo would cancel anything else to go there with me, and Pollock and Wegs would go, too, if Waldo wanted them to. But I didn’t want to give Pollock time to think about why I was getting him there. So I killed time until a little after ten o’clock and then I phoned Waldo. “IT want to collect that five hundred dollars you offered me for proof of whether or not that business on Greene Street was genuine,” I told him. He sounded excited, all right. ‘‘Which is it, Rice?” I stalled.’“I’d rather show you. Can you meet me there, and bring Pollock and Wegs with you? They’re interested, too.” “Why, yes, I can come. And I believe they will, too.” 3 “T’ll meet the three of you in front of the house in question at eleven, or as soon after as you can all get there.” “All right. I'll leave now and pick up Wegs and Pollock on my way.” I walked from downtown to Greene Street, thinking I had time to get there a few minutes early to check with Jan. 119 But the walk took longer than I figured it would, and Waldo’s car, with the three men in it, was pulling up to the curb when I got there. But I could count on Jan, even without a check-up. He’d had five hours since I had left his room, plenty of time to get the paraphernalia and establish himself in the house. Again I managed to avoid answering a direct question from Waldo. I led the three of them into the house and along the hallway into the room across from the foot of the stairs. I had two flash- lights with me, a bright one and one that I had doctored down to be very, very dim. The latter was in my pocket, ready for use at the right minute. I kept the beam of my flashlight care- fully away from the direction of the double doorway and the stairs beyond. Jan would be placing the dummy there now. I was talking without saying any- thing. “,. and this is the room I waited in, three nights ago. It was just about this time that I got here, and of course I made a preliminary search of the house and then sat down.” I couldn’t have kept it up much longer, but I didn’t have to. The crashing noise of a fall down- stairs, right behind us—a familiar sound to me now, for this was the third time I had heard it and I was expecting it. But the others jumped, and I pretended to jump, too, and dropped the flashlight, flicking off the switch as I let go of it. I pulled the dim flashlight out of my pocket and switched it on, swinging it around to play on the dummy that was laying at the foot of the stairs. In that dim glow, it wouldn’t show up as a dummy. It wasn’t one. Scollini’s or any other. It was the man, the tramp, the corpse I had seen there three nights ago when this whole ghastly mess had started. The tramp whose reek of alcohol had nearly knocked me down when I had bent over him and felt for his heart beats. The gray suit, the white hair, the huge, ugly bruise on the face— I should have been watching Pollock’s face, but I wasn’t, because the corpse was moving! COMmMiIcloo® @) (C(O) mM