5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

72 “You learned that—how?” “I told her.” Assistant Manager Endicott came out of another room of the suite, steering his thin length through the tuxedoes. He glared at O’Hanna truculently. “Mike, this is dis- graceful! Disgraceful! An employee of San Alpa running around with a shiner!” O’Hanna sighed. “Go on, Mrs. Cobb.” Her breasts lifted. “Leland has an alibi. He couldn’t have been with that girl. I was with him myself, at that time.” “I understood,” O’Hanna pointed out, “the cocktail party started at four- thirty.” Charlotte Cobb nodded brightly. “It did, but I waited for Leland for twenty minutes. In our suite, where he’s sup- posed to have been murdering this girl. Then, on my way to the Palomar Room, I found him in the lobby. He was— well, he was ill.” She made her voice determined. “That delayed me more, getting him upstairs. You can ask the elevator operator. He helped me get Leland into the suite. It must have been nearly five then. I stayed quite a while longer. We had—well, an argument. I reminded Leland that we’d invited these people to dinner. I begged him to get some sleep, and then take a cold shower.” eae looked around. Her jet eyes blazed from face to face. “Isn’t that true, all of you? I came late to the party—didn’t I arrive about. a quarter past five?” “You were late,” Ward Tolan ac- knowledged, “but not that late.” Charlotte Cobb gave him a stormy, long-lashed look. “How do you know, Ward? You weren’t even there when I arrived.” Q’Hanna spun around to the large- jawed bond salesman. “What the hell, Tolan sulked. “The only table reserva- tion I could get was on the mezzanine. We were trooping up and downstairs all the time between drinks, to the dance floor. But I’m sure Charlotte came in by five o’clock, or even earlier. Even though I probably was dancing with another ladv at the exact moment.” FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE “Which lady ?” “{ wouldn’t remember. I danced with all of them.” | Q’Hanna asked, “Are you sure it was a lady? And not your big, blue-jawed friend you were waltzing around with?” That jaw of Tolan’s dropped like a trap-door. He gaped at O’Hanna in abrupt, doom-shadowed fright. “That sounds like Rocky Squale!” he choked. “But Rocky isn’t here!” In Tolan’s distress, he wasn’t aware that the door had opened. - . “Oh, yes, he is. Take a look.” There stood Fred Fencer, beaming. He wasn’t alone. .He had the big, blue- jowled man in tow. Tolan quavered,. “Rocky. Oh, my God!” 3 | “Yeah,” the agency dick sparkled. “The guy that socked you, O’Hanna. I caught him. It was simple.” In high good humor, he slapped O’Hanna’s shoulder. “I’m surprised you didn’t see through it. You’d been knocked out only a few seconds, judging by the way you acted. I hadn’t seen anybody getting: away when I came down the hall, so it was a cinch this guy was still there. He’d heard me coming, and dived back into the bathroom.” O’Hanna had taken the chance de- liberately, he reminded himself. He’d held pretty good cards in Room 637—~— a pair, in fact. And he’d thrown them in, tried to fill an inside straight in- stead. But he was damned if he was going to stand here and let Fencer play those.pasteboards. “Simple.” The agency dick grinned. “I merely opened and closed the door, as if I’d left, too. Rocky barged out unsuspecting—and there I was, with a gun and the drop on him.” The black Irish boiled in O’Hanna. “You dirty doublecrossing son of scum!” He reached, plucked the specta- cles off Fencer’s nose. His fist followed, crackingly. He socked Fencer, right in the eye. V 1 Gore: MANAGER ENDI- COTT fluttered like a nesting hen over the fallen Fencer. It was unthinkable— a San Alpa employee ‘swinging on an- CoOnniclooo S (C(O) mM