5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

120 It rolled over, face down, from the sprawl in which it lay, and then began crawling toward us. With awkward mo- tions, its dead eyes wide open and star- ing, it crawled, foot after foot, as though in great agony. As it crawled toward us, we all took a step backward. Waldo and I were in the center, Wegs on one side, and Pollock on the other. For just that frozen second before it occurred to me that Jan had bettered our idea, had used Scollini’s phonograph for the sound effect but had made him- self up instead of using Scollini’s wax figure, I was scared stiff. That idea of crawling, dragging himself toward us, was great. Only the thing on the floor wasn’t crawling toward Pollock. Zenas Wegs was backed into the far corner of the room now. The thing was crawling to- ward him, inexorably. Why would Jan do that? Then I saw Wegs’ face; and in it, I saw my own mistake. The crawling corpse came nearer, and Wegs screamed in terror, kept scream- ing: “Get back, curse you! You’re dead— I killed—” Aa then, Jan and I were having early breakfast—or late dinner, or some- thing—and between us, on the table, was Stanton Waldo’s check for five thousand, five hundred dollars. Both rewards in one neat package. Jan was pouring vinegar over his pan- cakes in the belief, soon to be abandoned, that it was syrup. “But, George,” he said, “how could I have got in touch with you to tell you? I just had to go ahead.” “I was goofy,” I said. “I went off half- cocked. The reward ought to be aill yours, instead of half.” “Rats. You solved the thing, only you picked the wrong guy. I’d never have figured out that motivation in a thousand YOU PLAY THE DETECTIVE FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE years. But after you left my place, I saw you were right, except that every- thing you laid to Pollock went double for Wegs.” “Sure,” I said. “I can see it now. Wegs is a lawyer, handled work for Waldo direct and wouldn’t have to work through a third party to milch him as Pollock would have had to do. Wegs has even less money than Pollock, so a mil- lion would look even bigger to him. Also, Wegs knew that Pollock was sending me to keep vigil at the Greene Street house that night. As head of the society, he was on the inside.” “And although Pollock was the one who introduced the medium, Irene Steiner, to the group,” Jan said, “Wegs could have engineered that easily enough. If she was his confederate, the last thing he’d want to do would be to sponsor her himself.” Jan took a bite of pancake—with vinegar—and his next remarks must re- main off the record. When things had subsided, I said: “But the thing that should have made me think again is that Pollock is under average size and not too husky. Wegs is a big guy. It took strength to carry that body upstairs, and it took strong hands to choke a man the way he choked Scol- lini at the seance when Scollini started to expose him.” — I sighed and said again: “Yes, Jan, I was a dope. But thanks to you, I’ve got half of fifty-five hundred —let’s see, that’s twenty-seven fifty—to back the agency. Watch my smoke from now on. Particularly with the news- papers apologizing. What are you going to do with your half? Jan grinned. “George,” he said, “I’ve had more fun the last three days than in the ten years before then. If we leave that check in one chunk, could you use a partner ?” “Could I?” I said and I reached for the salt and put some into my coffee. e@e@ @ (Answer to puzzle on page 51) If John Barrows; in passing Wilson’s home, had seen the latter commit suicide from the street at 7:30 P.M., the light in the room must have been turned on. Yet Barrows stated that he had turned it on when he entered the room. GoOmiGcdoo ©) S (C(O) mM