5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

CANDID CAMERA tree? He hadn’t been there when Sulkas made those shots, yet— For the first time Sulkas noticed the stranger’s limp. He leaned heavily upon a black malacca cane, hobbling as if one of his feet were deformed. A puff of breeze snatched up the long black cloak, raised its hem un- til it seemed to flutter like the wings of a giant bat. The sun was sinking like a stricken ship into the tossing sea of cloud-rack in the west. Suddenly it disappeared. With its going, shadows closed down on the world like an extinguisher upon a guttering candle. A gust of wind came keening through the almost leafless trees. The feel of it was like an icy spray against his face. Sulkas shivered as he turned up the collar of his topcoat. There was no moon. Everything around him appeared dim and indistinct, unreal as ghosts are unreal or objects on a foggy night. ... LL NIGHT the stranger’s mocking advice stood out in his memory like the afterimage of a flash-bulb’s brilliant glare upon the retina. “A paltry prize from some newspaper. That’s mediocrity. . . . He who would succeed must dare to defy convention.” His ambitions of yesterday seemed childish. Why should he work to win a paltry prize from some newspaper? Fame and fortune waited for the man who dared. Well, why not? There was Hajos, rich and famous for his camera studies, and Carmody and Fischbein, hardly less well known. Why shouldn’t Sulkas force his way into their select company ? Why should he seek no higher goal than honorable mention or a miser- able five dollars for his artistry ? It was a lovely autumn morning, cool and brisk, with sunlight sparkling on the tiny pools left by the melting frost. The sky above the half-bare trees was as blue as a china plate. A high-key day, he mused, almost too much light. The shadows would be sharp and harsh. He’d have to watch out for halation, keep the shutter closed down to a mere pinpoint— “Oh, I’m sorry, little girl!” he ex- claimed as he lurched against the broken picket fence before the vacant house. Sunk in his thoughts, he had walked, un- seeing, into a small child who occupied 121 the center of the sidewalk, with a kitten clutched against her threadbare jacket. Sulkas looked at her carefully. Every- thing and everybody came within his range of possibility for camera study. The day before he would have snapped her picture as she stood there with the kitten in her arms. Probably he would have called it “Pals” or “The Little Mother.” The child was photogenic, no doubt of it. Her large eyes and her little pointed chin, the slim, small throat and the brush of straight black hair made her ideal photographic material. The decent poverty of her dress, worn coat, patched skirt, and several-times patched shoes, the pinch of malnutrition in her cheeks —there was pathos in the love of a slum child for her pet. “Why not?” he asked himself. Plainly as if they were spoken in his ear, he heard the stranger’s smooth, persuasive words: “Fame and fortune for the man who can depict the ultimate in sorrow, delight, and terror... .” He slipped the lens cap from his cam- era, swung the instrument before him as an army officer hangs his binoculars. “Let me see your kitty,” he said as he held his free hand toward the child. “What’s her name?” The little girl dug one scuffed shoe into the bare earth bordering the foot- path. Childhood’s innate suspicion of the good faith of grownups made her clutch her pet closer to her. Head bent until her chin was resting on the kitten, she looked obliquely up at him. “Give me that cat!” With a snatching grasp he dragged the kitten from the grimy little hands and held it high above his head. “I’m going to. kill it.” The child went suddenly rigid. Her lower lip began to quiver, then dropped and curled up like a frosted flower petal as her mouth squared with a quick retch of agony. Tears came to her eyes, rolled in big, slow drops down her thin cheeks. Her hands were clasped before her in a piteously entreating gesture. Sulkas flipped the trigger of his cam- era. The light had been just right, he had maneuvered the child into just the proper position. Lighting, distance, tim- ing—everything was perfect. He had made an ideal shot. COMmiclboo @ <) (C@)