5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

DANCE, PRETTY MAIDEN of his still soggy coat. He thrust a hand in, and his fingers closed on an object - that was hard, cold, sharp. Without looking, he knew that it was a curious knife with a handle of bone- hard sapote wood, carved like a ser- pent’s head and with a leaf-shaped blade of black glass-sharp obsidian in its Jaws. It was an aztec sacrificial knife from his collection. But how did it happen to be in his pocket? . “You seek, fallow?” It was the voice ‘Son, | find | can give you a bigger allowance than usual this week.” of the wooden-faced waiter, who ap- parently was not so unobservant after all. “You want créme de menthe? May- be settle stomach?” Kern nodded, only vaguely aware of the other’s words. Now he was going to have to face something and he knew it. Dodging, evading, running away, would not erase the shadow that lay across last night. He’d have to find out, and the sooner the better. Tl Pror C. P. SIDDINGTON of the history department of Frontera College, was a wiry man with a thin face and frosty eyes. Confronting Inspector Ol- 35 lin across the big desk in his book-lined study, he spoke like a man who is in mortal pain but.is determined not to show it. “We've been expecting you, of course.” He paused to glance at the slender, brown-haired girl who sat rigid at a small typewriter desk, her pretty face, with its wide-spaced eyes and somewhat prim lips, as stiff as a death mask. “We—Miss Ferry and I—are about as near a family as Hilary Kern has. l’ve known him since he was a freshman here, and Edna, well, she and Hil were once quite close, so—” Ollin saw color flame along the girl’s cheekbones and subside, but she kept her lips tight. Siddington went on, “So I’m glad you came to us. No matter how bad things may look, we still have faith in Hil, and I hope you'll withhold your own judgement until you know more about him.” Ollin said bluntly, “1’ll try. But he was keeping this girl up; he was there last night. She’s murdered, and he’s skipped—” Siddington nodded. “So to all appear- ances, he killed her. But Kern is a man whose conduct often belies appearances, a bit of a genius, perhaps, but a good part screwball, too. You may have noticed that his own apartment is as plain as a scholar-monk’s. Nothing of the playboy there. The fact is, that to begin with, his relations with that girl, Liria, were not what one would suppose at all.” Edna Ferry turned and faced him then. “You needn’t try to spare my feelings by pretending she wasn’t—” “I’m not,” Siddington said quickly. “T am saying that to begin with, Liria Baeza was only a part of his research project. A full-blooded Indian, with the making of a magnificient dancer, she was to be merely the interpreter of the ancient music he collected. What their relations became later, after you allowed your jealousy to drive Hil away, I’m not prepared to say, and I doubt if it’s per- tinent to the problem.” “Tt usually is,” Ollin said grimly. “Go on about his work.” “First,” Siddington said, leaning back and folding his hands, “you must pic- ture Hil Kern as I first knew him—a Conniclooo <S) (C(O) im