King Turice for r ^y Vera Cas»^

EAm COBDRfy

^Ae •S^o^y Thus Far-W O R K I N G W th C - P - t : / ° i ? C-y ^ a T . ^ t e ^ ^ . " . firn, i„

r,"-„ o - ^^driiiii'p'a„"r L"' 3_ '''r CarpV„Te/°,:? ' ' ' ' ^ ' ^-^TuT''''^^^-' in ^? r - One Frfda?^,^"'^' P'an to h"'^ ^''^'^'y

- rirS'f .s?! ' ^ -^•Stft^ftels^n^n^ :7t^£S^^^^°'°^^--t i--t I' °rf;.-5 ^ ^ ^ fhen she h a / ^ r ^ " ' ''^d ruT^ K ''J'—dead. ^«ce and Mled'i''"^'^ *' ' d o o ? ^ w ' ^ " ' «"<!> Sated, the i • "^'"' with a „h ! ° ' ''«'' in the ^ . d P u ? V e ? ' a 1 r - ' '•" > 4 o t ° ? a b " r ' " ' - ™ -drmks, testifi^ /u*"" '^^y had fi^ F^rpenter a corner ! I ^ *at- as soon ''"'^hed their

>?iiS?^-:£«""•-a-Lydecfcer a L t r ' ' "'"^h more • "^^o tell' th ' '""•ant and sonh^' .' elated bv 8-"ius' b e « v ' o r i ~ ^ a k i „ 7 i " ^ ' - « t e d writer"^ ^"d conversation '^^^'^^binl cerL ^"^ '"^"tal P'-^sent but of wh' K'u^'^-^h he h«H '"'^'^^"ts cept.o„. . . "* "'h'ch he has a fair!v f"* ''^^n

T° Mark McPh ^ ''''''"• ™n-Portance tt, "^""son, an offi • . ,'ask o " 1 n d t ; S?i'^^ dep^,?«,^a' of some in,, t'on quietly f j* f '""'"derer. He* ^^ 'ffns the k"own eneSie^'heT"^ " ' ' ' ' the vfe°f^-"t° ac-and Lydecfcer Vn^ -t'"^ that both r? ^""^ "o J-ave alibis-!^;,AP°^^;'"e suspects K^'P^^ter that Carpe,^r''''^^";'e]y feeble on« °J""0"sIy) fi^?-thou?a"d ' L * " '"'"^ficiary o/' ' '" '^ar^^ "" ' ty that the unf ''/"'"'•ance cM,°/ "• '«"^nty-

^aura's funeri! ""'""ate girl hi "'*" ' " an an-'S?"^' Bess.e ; j ^^''^''^^ >3 he d %^.'='"T'ed. . . . Pherson t h « ' s h ^ \ ' " a i d , informf^J^^ a^er-*>* Laura Hunt's . " ' "°™''thin? t n ^ ' " ' ' Mc-™-Pany her""thlr:P-""-"t. ^ f agretsTo"' '"

We now see tt,, . to ac-

n

| = : r . t » - " r 3 iHsSF^^rSHss ss|SS-s£sH! 5S3^Ss?S2 ^?s:ss^£s£ _ ^P youVe been f '^^^ copsP" "murderer?" Mark. •5' '"^ *° shield fh °"^ Bessie!" ' ^ ^^'d. "That's danger'

. ' S ^ ? ; * ; She., , „ , „

S-^Sf"?'---"S- --SSi.f™"".S2^S'.^^;; " • ' H e a p e d . « . , *

'^«":^ssa-»-^^: ..-"^ Wiped tiiem r^rro

^ ^hat ain't ail ? - ^ < °od gosht" chuckled. "I H " ^ W'Ped off" W^'^ table ir, ii. cleaned off +K \ -oessie

''«xs r"" "*'"""-

^%^ ^his nTean^^^'^-om? Bessie, wh,-.t So help me " o

»-*sdS^''"-S4'tS ' ' ° "« to i t scau! r " ° " ' ° f « " p r o p ; ? .

y o u ' t S i f ^ ^ o w a bottle 'Wh

S^C£ i -he S ^ ^ ^ "i isl "--"" "-- ^ ^ ^ K:X\ ^ - -Eo?a?^ --

n^i"-srtt:te the g £ e T K ? ^''^ - Z ' a n d ' ' ' '•^• l-uckv r ''^^°^e the ^ n t "'^'^ed R " V •• come to m„ P^ got here Bfs,e sniffed " T t , ^ ^^"^es in H " „!; cabinet SO'Q VT' '' ^ bottle I nnf ''' tell you fh "° °"e would nnf? '" ^ ^ here botH '""^^' JWr McPh ^ - ^ can Frid?;.^>"^ - - ^ - " ^ h t S e r i T e f / ^ ^ ^ J ' - 'eeHoS.Ti" '" ' 'Oe boMe „

»e/'ri«-"X''""^''-s *g;c?«''e„,„„ s,'?"s»j sHfHl-»*'°^r^ r* ^0^tSm Si§2SfSf

,»' J fnd D'§:•/»"' "»^'ed°„'S

^A^^jg-^rir "- o s S?--t"S'f=l "und himself loath f *-°"tranly, M t

S b S e " ^ ^ ^ - - e \ r S / ^ e ^ , ; ^

zrr^^^'^'r^Zr'i^^^^^^^^^^^ t h i n k i ? r - - ^ e d t h e ' ^ ^ p t t e r r S " - -

•L'h^J "'ght, alone in th

SSSS-S'BITP''

fsH^i'i-'^ s:s i=?„fF «™*.if:-"

-L''rin?'i"tr£„, -" library Cd , " ;•*'"» j2, ' ' °°™ «

?Si;-5a='5E said, "If thJ^ ' 'nost oflicifl? , • -°om w i t ? r ^^« ^° '«eS lnTh ' ' t - "

°-t£r>-"-'°°"-^^^

'-triLn:-'". '--

-"''.'' rifs

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORGELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED

18

when the doorbell rang and she went to open i t?"

"I accepted that as the most prob­able explanation, considering the body's position." He crossed from the bedroom slowly, his eyes upon the arrangement of carpets on the polished floor. "If a man had been in the bedroom with her, he might have been on the point of leav­ing. She went to the door with him, per­haps." He stood rigid at the spot where the river of dark blood had been dammed by the thick pile of the carpet. "Perhaps they were quarreling and just as he reached the door, he turned and shot her."

"Gosh!" said Bessie, blowing her nose weakly. "It gives you the creeps, don't it?"

From the wall, Stuart Jacoby's por­trait smiled down.

/ ^ N W E D N E S D A Y a f t e r n o o n , ^-^ twenty-four hours after the funeral, Lancaster Corey came to see me. We wrung each other's hands like long lost brothers.

"Corey, my good fellow, to what do I owe this dispensation?"

"I've a great opportunity for you, Ly-decker." He twisted the ends of his white, crisp mustache. "You know Ja­coby's work. Getting more valuable every day."

I made a sound with my lips. "It's not that I'm trying to sell you a

picture. As a matter of fact, I've already got a buyer. You know Jacoby's por­trait of Laura Hunt . . . several news­papers carried reproductions after the murder. Tragic, wasn't it? Since you were so attached to the lady, I thought you'd like to bid . . ."

"How dare you?" I shouted. "How dare you come to my house and coolly offer me that worthless canvas? In the first place, I consider it a bad imitation of Speicher. In the second place, I de­plore Speicher. And in the third, I loathe portraits in oil."

"Very well. I shall feel free to sell it to my other buyer." He snatched up his hat.

"Wait!" I commanded. "How can you offer what you don't own? That pic­ture is hanging on the wall of her apart­ment now. She died without a will; the lawyers will have to fight it out."

"I believe that Mrs. Treadwell, her aunt, is assuming responsibility. You might communicate with her or with Salsbury, Haskins, Warder & Bone, her attorneys."

"The vultures gather," I shouted, smacking my forehead with an an­guished palm, and a moment later, cried out in alarm, "Do you know what arrangements have been made for her other things? Whether there's to be a sale?"

"This bid came through a private channel."

"Tell me," I demanded, "is your pro­spective sucker some connoisseur who saw the picture in the Sunday tabloids and wants to own the portrait of a mur­der victim?"

"I do not believe that it would be strictly ethical to give my customer's name."

"Your pardon, Corey. My question must have shocked your delicate sensi­bilities of a businessman. Unfortu­nately I shall have to write the story without using names."

Lancaster Corey responded like a hunting dog to the smell of rabbit. "What story?"

"You have just given me material for a magnificent piece," I cried, simulating creative excitement. "An ironic short story about the struggling young painter whose genius goes unrecognized until one of his sitters is violently murdered. And suddenly he, because he had done her portrait, becomes the painter of the year. His prices skyrocket, fashionable

Collier's ior October 24, 1942

women beg to sit for him, he is repro­duced in all the smart magazines. . . ."

My fantasy so titillated the dealer's greed that he could no longer show pride. "You've got to mention Jaco­by's name. The story would be mean­ingless without it."

I spoke bitterly: "Your point of view, Corey, is painfully commercial. The inclusion of Jacoby's name would re­move my story from the realms of pure literature and place it in the category of journalism. In that case, I'd have to know the facts. To protect my reputa­tion for veracity, you understand."

"You've won," Corey admitted and whispered the art lover's name.

I sank upon the couch, laughing as I had not laughed since Laura had been here to share such merry secrets of hu­man frailty.

As soon as I had got rid of the vulture, I seized hat and stick and bade Roberto summon a taxi. Hence to Laura's apart­ment where I found not only Mrs.

1 knew she suspected the reason for my presence.

I took direct action. "Perhaps you know, Mrs. Treadwell, that this vase did not belong to Laura." I nodded toward the mercury glass globe upon the mantel. I'd merely loaned it to her.

She threw up her hands in horror, but before she had time to protest vocally, I s. ted, "That vase is part of my col­lection. I intend to take it. That's quite in order, don't you think, McPherson?"

"You'd better leave it. You might find yourself in trouble," Mark said.

"How petty official of you. You're acting like a detective."

"LTE SHRUGGED as if my good opin-•'••*• ion were of no importance. I laughed and turned the talk to inquiry about the progress of his work. Had he found any new clues?

"Plenty," he taunted. "Do tell us," Mrs. Treadwell begged,

clasping her hands in a gesture of rap-

"There's been a last-minute change!" REAMER KELLER

Treadwell, whom I had expected to find there, but Shelby and the Pomeranian. Laura's aunt was musing on the value of the few genuinely antique pieces, Shelby taking inventory, and the dog sniffing chair legs.

"To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?" cried Mrs. Treadwell who, in spite of expressing open disapproval of my friendship with her niece, had al­ways fluttered before my fame.

"To cupidity, dear lady. I have come to share the booty."

A KEY turned in the lock. We as­sumed postures of piety as Mark

entered. "Your men let us in, Mr. McPher­

son," explained Mrs. Treadwell. "I hope there's nothing wrong about our . . . our attempt to bring order. Poor Laura was so careless, she never knew what she owned."

"I gave orders to let you in if you came," Mark told her. "I hope you've found everjrthing as it should be."

"There's nothing of great value," Mrs. Treadwell remarked. "Laura would never put her money into things that lasted. But there are certain trin­kets, souvenirs that people might ap­propriate for sentimental reasons." She smiled so sweetly in my direction that

turous attention. Shelby had climbed upon a chair so that he might record the titles of volumes on the topmost book­shelf. From this vantage point, he glanced down at Mark with fearless cu­riosity. The Pomeranian sniffed at the detective's trousers. All awaited reve­lation. Mark said, "I hope you don't mind," and took out his pipe. The snub was meant to arouse fear and bid us mind the majesty of the law.

I seized the moment for my own. "It might interest you to know that I've got a clue." My eyes were fixed on Mrs. Treadwell, but beyond her floating veil, the mirror showed me Mark's guarded countenance.

"Do you know there's an art lover connected with this case? As probable heir, Mrs. Treadwell, you might be pleased to know that this little museum piece," I directed her attention to the Jacoby portrait, "has already been bid for."

"By someone with money?" quivered Mrs. Treadwell.

Mark used the pipe as a shield for self-consciousness. Behind his cupped hand, I noted rising color. A man gird­ing himself for the torture chamber could not have shown greater dignity.

"Might there be a clue in it?" I asked mischievously. "If this is a crime pas-

sionnel, the killer might be a man of sentiment. Don't you think the lead's worth following, McPherson?"

His answer was something between a grunt and a sigh.

"It's terribly exciting," said Mrs. Treadwell. "You've got to tell me, Waldo, you've just got to."

I was never a child to torture butter­flies. The death agonies of small fish have never been a sight that I witnessed with pleasure. I remember blanching with terror and scurrying across the lane when, during an ill-advised visit to a farm, I was forced to watch a decapi­tated chicken running around and around its astonished head. Even on the stage, I prefer death to follow a swift, clean stroke of a sharp blade. To spane Mark's blushes, I spoke hastily and with the air of gravity: "I cannot betray the confidence of Lancaster Corey. An art dealer is, after all, some­what in the position of a doctor or law­yer. In matters of taste, discretion is the better part of profit."

Mark's next move, I thought, was meant to divert the talk, but I learned later that he had had a definite purpose in meeting Shelby here this afternoon.

"I could use a drink," he announced. "As chief trustee, Mrs. Treadwell, would you mind if I took some of Miss Hunt's liquor?"

"How stingy you make me sound! Shelby, darling, be useful. I wonder if the icebox is turned on."

Shelby went into the kitchen. Mark opened the corner cabinet.

"What do you drink, Mrs. Treadwell? Yours is Scotch, isn't it, Lydecker?"

He waited until Shelby returned be­fore he brought out the Bourbon. "I think I'll drink this today. What's yours. Carpenter?"

Shelby glanced at the bottle, deco-Eated with the profiles of three noble steeds. His hands tensed but he could^ not hold them steady enough to keep the glasses from rattling on the tray.

' 'None—for—me—thanks.'' The softness had fled his voice. He

was as harsh as metal and his chiseled features, robbed of color, had the mar­ble virtue of a statue erected to the honor of a dead Victorian.

MARK asked me to dine with him that night. He carried a book in his coat

pocket. I saw only the top inch of the binding, but unless I was mistaken, it was the work of a not unfamiliar au­thor.

"I am flattered," I remarked with a jocular nod toward the bulging pocket. "And do you still consider me smooth but trivial?"

"Sometimes you're not bad," he con­ceded.

"Your flattery overwhelms me," I re­torted. "Where shall we dine?"

His car was open and he drove so wildly that I clung with one hand to the door, with the other to my black Hom-burg. I wonder why he chose the nar­rowest streets in the slums until I saw the red electric sign above Montagnino's door. We passed through a corridor, «, and Montagnino led us to a table be­side a trellis twined with artificial lilac.

Through the dusty wooden lattice and weary cotton vines we witnessed a battle between the hordes of angry clouds and a fierce copper moon. The leaves of the one living tree in the neighborhood, a skinny catalpa, hung like the black bones of skeleton hands, as dead as the cotton lilac. With the flavors of Montagnino's kitchen and the slum smells was mingled the sulphurous odor of the rising storm.

At my suggestion we drank that pale still wine with the magic name, Lachry-ma Christi. Mark had never tasted it, but once his tongue had tested and ap­proved the golden flavor, he tossed it off

(Continued on page 66^ PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG

ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED

aiil

Sergeant Sirelok plodded toward the dead German, who lay on his back in the water. The forward end of the tank loomed above him

REAR GUARD AT DEREVUSHKA BY FRANK DORSEY I L L U S T R A T E D BY J O H N P I K E

*rhe odds against the man were formidable. On the one hand there was a tank, on the other a lone Russian. But the man had a brain

Tw o enemies faced each other on the Russian plain—a man, a ma­chine. The swastika stood out black

on the tank's iron turret as the machine lumbered along the cart track to Dere-vushka. The man stood on a small log bridge spanning the brook a hundred yards west of the village. Burned-out

houses under the early morning sun cast jagged shadows nearly to his back. He was alone. There was no one in the vil­lage nor in the sprouting wheat fields beyond.

The man leaned on the unsquared log rail of the bridge and watched the tank crawl toward him. Maybe five minutes for it to reach him—a hot flush of blood mounted to his throat and his heart pounded violently, but his wide, half-Tatar face remained impassive. His thoughts arranged themselves slowly, with the precision of a man who knows what he wants to do. No motorcycles ahead of the tank, he noted, no armored cars nor trucks of infantry behind it. One to one—even odds. He grinned.

The funnel-shaped muzzle of his Degtarev was cold in his hand. He lifted the light weapon to the crook of his arm and tugged at the strap by which the extra cartridge pans were slung over his

shoulder. In a minute the tank would be close enough to see him. He felt the warm sun against his back, sighed, and slid down the muddy bank to the cold bed of the brook.

A lone infantryman does not fight a tank—not and live. Sergeant Strelok knew this as well as he knew the bolt action of his Degtarev. But he was tired of running away, and he had run for months now. This was his country, not the country of the black swastikas.

His heart contracted with a sudden memory of great red flags and people crowded in the town square on holidays. If anyone had asked him why he fought he would have mentioned the new trac­tor on his collective farm and the fact that there had been no famine in Voronezh since 1921. But he thought now of the parade of factory workers and farmers marching through the streets of Voronezh, the ranks solid from

house-wall to house-wall, carrying the awkward standards with portraits of Lenin, of Stalin, the slogans—"Long live our socialist fatherland!" and the beautiful red flags. That was patriot­ism.

Telling himself sullenly, "It is my country, not theirs," he had fought and run and fought again, each time holding out with his light automatic rifle until the flanks were gone, and the enemy on wheels had cut the roads to the rear, and half the men in his platoon were dead. Each time, Sergeant Strelok, drawing on some private store of luck and physical endurance, had lived to trudge back with a handful of others through the gaps between the German tank columns, leaving the dead, leaving the wounded, carrying out only his precious Degtarev to fight again another day.

This time he was tired with a mental (Continued on page 82J

19 PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORGELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED