Yes, it does!!
Oh man, I suspected this of being a shop because it’s literally only visible on social media, but if it is it’s a really good one, I can’t find any seams or artifacts in the image itself. Even the pattern wear on the “UKULELE” is different for the two Us and the two Es.
I googled and this is credited with being from Master Detective Magazine, July 1941, but I can’t confirm from any source that isn’t pinterest or tumblr. I can’t find a copy of it online or even on eBay/Amazon, and the pulp collector listings don’t have a table of contents for this particular month. The issue, at least, does exist; I found its cover art.
I hopped on Worldcat and even most libraries only have scant holdings of Master Detective, which makes sense given it was a pulp. UC San Diego might have it, but they don’t list volumes which suggests to me they probably don’t have a full holding.
MK Arnold was a real pulp writer; they had a story published in the November 1940 issue of True Detective, “Five Faces to Doom”. They might be Myrtle K. Arnold, who wrote “An Accusing Conscience” for the March 1921 issue of Mystery Magazine.
I’m going to poke around and see if possibly this comes from a library collection made public – lots of libraries are putting their image collections online now, but there’s no central searchable databse, so we’ll see.
In any case I’m totally gonna print it out and hang it up somewhere 😀
GUYS. GUYS.
I FOUND A COPY.
Okay, I didn’t find it, Interlibrary Loan did and I emailed them to thank them profusely, but how clutch is it that ANYONE found it? I couldn’t even find it combing WorldCat.
So I can confirm that the image is in fact real and it is a five page story of murder and (presumably) ukuleles. I hope to read it tonight and share the plot with all of you.
THE POWER OF LIBRARIES IS MIGHTY INDEED.
Mooncustafer 