Pulp Fiction, 1938 · page 66 of 116
10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 66: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis This is a **story prose page** from a pulp fiction magazine, specifically page 64 of a hardboiled crime/mystery story titled "Return from Hell" by Arthur Flint, featuring Detective Jim Gardner. The visible text describes a January construction scene at a Detroit motor company site where workers discover what appears to be a human body frozen in newly poured concrete pilings. Labor foreman Tim Egan and general superintendent Big Ray Emerson react with alarm, with Egan whispering to the gathering crowd that "it's a corpse" embedded in the concrete. The passage establishes the mysterious death that appears central to the story's plot.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The only way Detective Jim Gardner could solve the ghastly cemeit murder mystery was to allow himself to be buried alive and then... . Return — ns \ RBccANL AX SELB van $ 2 NIN ( : yay Cindaen nn “A Deliberately he ager into his coat and he up a pair of havea T was a desolate, de- serted section which The Atlas Motor Com- pany had selected for the site of its new plant. And the bitter cold wind which swept down the Detroit River that morning in January made paulins and warmed by coke-burning construction a lot tougher for the Me- salamanders beneath. After a short Gann Contracting Corporation. The struggle with a knot Egan lifted the heavy snowfall of the night before tarp over the third pier, then dropped covered the big job in a vast and dis- the rope as if it were hot. “Saints pre- couraging white blanket. sarve us!” he yelled. A group of pick-and-shovel artists, Big Ray Emerson, the general chattering about a bonfire, fell silent super, lumbered up as Tim con- as little Tim Egan, labor foreman, tinued shouting and waving his arms. came up to them briskly. “Start Spurts of vapor puffed from Emer- throwin’ out the snow from thim son’s mouth as he jerked out a holes, boys,” he ordered bruskly. question. “Tony, come along! See if thim piers “Did that concrete frgeze? A man is friz.” would think somebody was killed—” Tony left the cheering warmth with “A corpse, it is indade, Mr. Emer- reluctance. The newly poured con- son—shure,” Tim Egan whispered as crete piers were covered with tar- the curious came closer, “an’ it’s no- 64 com (9) *books m