10 Story Detective, July 1942 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

22—_—_____ something.” Gordon started for the door. “I’m pretty good with cars and I think I'll be able to rig something to start one of them. Coming, Ker- rigan ?” Kerrigan practically flew out of the house. Stuart sat down slowly. He picked up the ropes which had bound Bates, wondering if Gordon had pur- posely tied them so that the prisoner eould get loose. But if so, why had Gordon done his very best to obliter- ate the Alaskan guide? Stuart went upstairs to Kerri- gan’s private study. He opened draw- ers in a big desk, studied papers and letters. Finally he looked out of a rear window. There were lights in the garage, Kerrigan and Gordon were doing their hest to repair a car. NE thing Stuart had found out. Perhaps those granite idols taken from an Alaskan mountain, proved there were no valuable miner- als there. But the mining combine now operated by Kerrigan and Gor- don was extremely valuable. The ores brought forth from the several mines were priceless for defense work. Ker- rigan’s letters and notes proved that. Stuart’s mind reverted to the dis- appearance of the two bodies. Neither Gordon nor Kerrigan could possibly have arranged that—so there was someone else. Bates, probably, and he had a method by which he could enter the living room and disappear almost instantly. 3 Stuart went to the back door, opened it cautiously and saw the little piece of paper he’d placed there, float to the porch. Baces hadn’t entered the house via the back door then and cer- tainly not the front door, because Stuart had been crouched close to it every moment. The front door slammed suddenly and Stuart drew his gun, whirled and raced to the hall. The door was closed, but he knew it had slammed. Some- one had entered and vanished quick- iy, pausing only to snatch a drink of brandv from the decanter. In his 10-STORY DETECTIVE ae nes tee haste the intruder had spilled liquor carelessly. Stuart looked toward the cellar door, also leading off the hallway. He opened it, threw the beam of his flash down the steps and saw a smear of blood on the white-washed wall. He hurried down to it. The blood was wet. There was a couple of more drops on the cement floor. They didn’t create a good trail, but Stuart saw one more gory stain near the west wall. A sub-cellar was there, equipped with a narrow door. Stuart opened this cautiously, fin- ger tight against the trigger of his gun, Nothing happened. He noticed that this sub-cellar was built right out beneath the ground under the hv- ing room windows—the spot where the freak storms always originated. The detective’s flash illuminated the dirt floor of the sub-cellar and ae saw marks indicating that someone had either been dragged, or dragged himself, across the floor. Stuart squirmed through the small door and followed those marks until they end-_ ed very abruptly in the middle of the floor. He scratched into the dirt with his fingers, found a hard ridge and then a tiny, extremely well-concealed iron ring, colored to match the earth. He tugged at this and a trap door opened. Instantly a blast of cool air came out to greet him. The same kind of air that existed in the system of caves beneath the cliff. Stuart’s eyes widened. Here was the answer to the vanished bodies, the methods by which Bates entered the house and now, very likely, had made good his escape from the estate. Heavy footsteps on the floor above indicated that Kerrigan and Gordon were back. Stuart would rather they knew nothing of this, but it was too late. He’d left the cellar door open and both men were making their way cautiously down the stairs. “In here,” Stuart called out. “The sub-cellar. I’ve found how our ghost enters and leaves the house.” MIGoOo (C(O) S (C(O) im