10 Short Novels Magazine — page 61: what you’re looking at

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

a= ‘yy Hell Trocks o f the Dragon — fringed by flame-crested ocatillas and tall, towering sahuaros. At the right of the flat-roofed dobe was a stack of fire wood, lying as though just unloaded from a truck whose tire tracks were still plain in the yard. Flint jabbed the pushbutton just below the brass plate that was etched, Alexan- der Kane, Psychic. No answer. He circled the house. The professor’s car was in the open garage. He returned to the stone slab at the threshold. An- other futile ring. Then Flint went in. For a moment the cool dimness of the spacious room was too much for eyes daz- zled by the outdoor glare. It was not until Flint had passed the table at the center that he perceived the thin, sallow-faced man who lay sprawled on the Spanish tiles. He had fallen, struggled to his knees, then slumped to his right. Life had ended with that last effort. The flow from the dark splash on his gray coat, just below the shoulder, had made little progress across the tiles. His thin, pain-raked face was a mask of fu- tile wrath, made grotesque by the froth that had drooled from his lips as he gasped out his life. Dried, blackened blood—he had been dead for hours. Flint knelt beside the body, deftly probed an inside coat pocket and found a wallet. A glance at the contents identi- fied the corpse as Alexander Kane. “He might have been psychic,” mut- tered Flint, “but not enough to keep from turning his back to the wrong guy.” Death had sought Kane with a smile and a knife. No mistaking that vengeful grimace; and the table runner, jerked awry, confirmed Flint’s opinion. The psy- chic had died trying to reach his tele- phone. Another step, another moment of life, and he would have lived to speak a familiar name into the transmitter. None of the living-room furniture had been disturbed. Then Flint noted that the trail of blood led to the rear. He followed it down the hallway. At his right was a door that opened into a room whose stuc- co walls were hung with astrological charts. In the center was a broad, flat- topped walnut desk on which were set, between brazen sphinxes, half a dozen occult books. Without entering, Flint continued tracking the blood splashes in the hall- way. They led to the kitchen, and came from a trapdoor opening into a cellar. He i =) py > : & e A = . . 3. ~ descended a short flight of aoadca stairs, found and snapped a switch. “Hell’s bells!’ he exclaimed, noting the open door of a wall cabinet. On one shelf were ten five-tael tins of Silver Dragon. On a table were sev- eral inner tubes, slit to receive their cargo. LINT, examining the hot-patch kit use in vulcanizing the cans of opium to the inner tubes, saw that the psychic had been preparing to conceal fifty five- tael containers. Forty were missing; and if it was hijacking, why leave ten? Flint retraced his steps, but this time he paused in the kitchen. It was large, neat, but scantily furnished—a shelf stocked with canned goods; a refrigera- tor and a gas plate. In an alcove were two chairs, and a dinette table. The latter had not been cleared. There were two plates, both coated with a greasy, congealed, reddish brown gravy; and cups that contained coffee dregs. A bowl at the center was a third filled with frijoles and chill con carne. Beside it lay a heel of bread and a square of butter. He sniffed the chili. Home made. The real article. But before he could look for some def- inite trace left by the unknown guest, Flint heard a muffled groan, as though some one, handicapped by a gag, were making an effort to call for help. He turned. It was repeated, choked and gurgling. It must come from the mystic’s study, but he could not be certain. No— it orig- inated in the basement. The silence of the thick walled dobe had an uncanny trick of distorting sound. He paused, waiting for a recurrenee of that deceptive cry of distress. He heard a sharp click as though a latch had either opened or engaged. No doubt about its origin. Regardless of prisoners, some one was on the prowl. Flint, pistol in hand, stretched long, stealthy strides toward the study door. Weapon leveled, he halt- ed, peeped warily into the room. It was empty. Nevertheless he sensed that he was by no means alone in that sinister dobe. The groan was repeated. Flint was certain now that some one must be beyond the door which opened from the study into an adjoining room. Pistol still ready, he cleared the thresh- old; but as he bounded forward to reach <S CORMICLOOO© (E@)