10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

rar ; 36———-——10-STORY DETECTIVE walked over to a closet to which he had transferred his stock of liquor. He swung the door open and glanced at the array of bottles. A low exclamation leaped from his lips. There stood his wife’s last gift to him, a bottle of pre- war stuff from the Garner’s private store. The irony of it! It would bolster him.-up for the final ordeal on the mor- row. If he had ever needed the conso- lation of strong spirits Belden felt that he needed it now. Walking back to the table he re- moved its leaden cap and reached into his pocket for the corkscrew that was fitted on the end of his watch chain. The sound of the popping cork a mo- ment later was like a rifle shot in the unearthly silence. Belden coughed nervously and poured a full glass of the amber liquid. He drained this in a gulp. Followed another—still an- other. Then he sat down with a sigh of relief as the warm liquor flowed like liquid fire through his veins. He snapped out the light and walked over to a leather couch near the fireplace in which a log glowed bloody red. Everett Belden slumped down on the cushions preparatory to stretching out for the rest of the night. Sleep was impossible but—an agonized gasp split the stillness of the room. Belden sprawled back on the couch, his fingers crooked convulsively, the eolor ebbing horribly from his face. His body writhing in the throes of a stabbing paroxysm, he fell to the floor. After several tortured moments, Bel- den drew a choking breath and started to craw! desperately toward the tele- phone in the hall just outside. With death agony written on his face, his eyes wide open and staring like a basilisk, the dying man wormed his way across the carpet. After what seemed an endless nightmare of pain he reached the little mahogany tabie and tried to lift his body from the floor. Just as clammy fingers clutched at the table top another violent con- vulsion seized him and sent him writh- ing to the floor, a horrible sound issu- ing from his throat. With a crash the telephone and table on which it stood clattered down on his prostrate body. Belden was dead. From the tomb-like silence of the room beyond came a low, mocking laugh. Or was it the dry rustling sound of the wind-tossed branches against the leaves outside? No one would ever know. But if that inani- mate thing of glass containing the lethal fluid, which had wrung a man’s soul from his body, could have spoken, it might have warned Everett Belden that it had contained the death planned for him by a wife whose love had long since turned to a lust for gold. <<>> saiety razor. 4 for 10¢. @ The master minds of shaving are using Star Single-edge Blades, Keener, long-lasting, more uniform than any other blade selling at any- where near this price. 1830 by the inventors of the original py ws o : “ - . <4 mi, oe z 4,6 hiade since Star Blade Division, Brooklyn, N. Y¥. FOR GEM AND EVER-READY RAZORS G@ (eo)