Pulp Fiction, 1946 · page 19 of 84
10-Story Detective Magazine, April 1946 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page 17 of "Merchant of Vengeance" This is a prose fiction page from what appears to be a pulp magazine. The text describes a dramatic nighttime scene where a detective pursues a suspect across snowy rooftops during a snowstorm. The protagonist follows footprints in the snow, chases a fleeing figure named Slawter across buildings, and observes acrobatic movements along rooflines. There are references to police involvement and a character named Vale. The passage emphasizes atmospheric details—the falling snow, moonlight, the difficulty of visibility—as the chase intensifies. The narrative style and content suggest this is hardboiled crime or detective fiction typical of early-20th-century pulp magazines.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
She said, “There’s something wrong at that number. It seems someone has left the receiver down.” He took time to tell Rodney and Betty, “You wait here, I'll get in touch with you @ little later,” then grabbed his hat and coat and hurried into the street. @N OW had started falling since they'd gone inside. A thin, dry layer of it _ eovered the sidewalk. He hailed a cab as he reached the curb. The people over the hall were out. Their entry light was burning. It was aways burning when they were out, other times it was turned off. His own door was locked. He fumbled the key in the lock, calling out, “It’s I, Vale! Tom- may ff Té was silly for him to call out like that, but he thought maybe she'd absent- mindedly left the receiver off the hook gud gone te bed. She was extra careful about auch things, but he could hope for some innocent neglect like that, It kept him from believing the worst. The apartment was dark, Vale always left the hall light turned on. She dreaded darkness. The darkness was significant of what waa to come, He switched on the hall light. Listened — a, moment, heard no sound. He saw that the phone receiver was down and re- eradied it, Then he called again, “Vale! Valet” 3 No answer. “Oh, Vale, darling! What is it? What's happened ?’ He made it fast into the bedroom. The bed was smooth, unmussed. He raced iufo the living-room. No one there. He rau down the hall, into the kitchen. Stopped. Her wheelchair. Empty! A cold breeze touched hia face. . The breakfast-nook!” he vasped. The windows ... Theroofs.. . A breakfast-nook window was open. He was through it in a twinkling, out on the roofs. The snow was coming down faster now. A nice, dry snow. If layered the roofs thinly. There was a hard, blue-lipped moon overhead, There were man-tracks in the snow! He followed them swiftly, The snow mate it impossible to see very far ahead —the snow and the uncertain moonlight. ‘The teacks rounded a chimney, went —_———-_MERCHANT OF VENGEANCE-_—— —_———1 on, There was another chimney. A chim- ney? No! That squat, crouching thing was no chimney! The knife came again, Just as it had three years ago. Whistling, splitting the snowflakes, He: dodged quickly and neatly let it go by. In the next instant he leapt at Masser Fane, Then he saw Vale, lying crumpled ia the snow, a white and dark heap, mo- tionless, As Fane had sworn, so it was coming to pass. He’d taken oath to come back and finish if—to come again and fling her from the roofs. He’d laughed back at Slawter that other time, laughed while the police poured onto the reof from the apartment windows, arrived in time to drive him off, laughed as he’d used hia acrobatic skill to roll off the roof’s edge, to slip down the water-spouting to safety. “I'll come again. I swear it!” he'd called back, Now he was running again, heading for that same spot at the roof’s edge, making for the place where the spouting led downward. Again that laugh drifted back, thin and shrill like the cackle of screech owl, “Come on, Slawter,” he said, “Come and get me,” Then, “I’ll come again.” He was scrambling down the water- - spouting when Slawter looked over the building’s rim. Watching him the de- tective was forced to remember how he’d seen the little beast perform at Comet Park on the trapeze, how expertly the crooked one had gone through his grisly routine, holding the trapeze with his teeth, swinging back and forth above the crowd, clicking his little body out of joint, legs, arms, hips and shoulders. A gruesome, fascinating sight. ‘4 He was getting away again, maybe laving Vale a corpse behind him. Slawter was no acrobat, so he made no attempt to follow down the spouting. He’d let a bullet do the work for him. His shooting ability, he believed, would favorably compare with any of Fane's fancy gymnastics. He let the sights of his Police Positive rest & moment, following on the top of Fane’s head, and was just ready te squeeze the little monster into eternity, when the moon slid behind a big bank of clouds. It was as if Tommy’d instantly gone stone blind. : ComicloookKks (CO)