10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

“Easy, now, easy,” he said genily. In a weak voice she continued. “An arm came out of the vault. It swung up and then it struck. I fainted. I was unconscious. I woke up there. I den’t know anything else. They tell me my husband is dead. I can still hear him seream. Oh, f£ can still hear him seream !” Slade put his hand on her damp forehead. “Kasy, now, easy,” he repeated. For a moment her eyelids fluttered. Then they slowly closed. Mrs. Gil- more had sunk into a merciful sleep. “Where is Doctor Gilmore’s body ?” Slade asked the old servant. Without answering she led him to a bedroom on the other side of the bungalow. She pointed at a door and seuffled off toward the rear of the cottage. Slade entered the room. Rigor mortis had stiffened Dr. Gil- more’s body by the time they found him that morning doubled up on the gravel path before the Markham tomb. His body, propped against the headboard of the bed in a sitting po- sition, looked like an animated cadaver. The sight of him jolted Slade to a stop. The corpse gazed with eyes that seemed alive. They were opened wide. The huge pupils seemed fixed on a vision of unspeakable horror. They gazed straight ahead with sightless perception at something diabolical, loathsome. The top of his head was truncated, a crimson oval. Slade felt nauseated. He wheeled and left the room. E loped down the cement walk and vaulted into the roadster. It shot forward and passed under the archway into the cemetery. The wheels erunched as the car swung onto the gravel of Serpentine Drive. The grilled doors to the Markham crypt were open. The lock had been smashed beyond repair. Slade stepped inside. Through the dim light within he saw the side walls lined with double tiers of caskets, eight on each side, MAUSOLEUM MISSION —_\ 67 three on the single tier at the back. The bottom shelf was empty. Its bur- den had been dragged to the center of the vault. Slade pressed the button of his flash- light and directed the circle of light on the coffin at his feet. The lid had been forced off, splintering the wood where the screws had fastened it down. The hollow eyes of a skull stared up at him. Storm flashed the light about the interior of the coffin. A leg and several ribs were missing. He aimed the shaft of light at the floor of the vault. Several bones lay scattered about. In the midst were pieces of a broken crucifix. Slade gathered the pieces, fitting them together. They assembled into a cross about fourteen inches long. He replaced it in the coffin and strode out of the musk-scented dampness of the tomb into the warmth of the late af- ternoon sun. Storm Slade, back in the green roadster, headed for the stone house of the caretaker, Briggs. Jeff Briggs, sixty, bald, toothless, sat in a rocking chair, half asleep, under an elm tree near the side door of the cottage. His eyes blinked open as Slade approached, “Lo, sergeant,” he said. “Listen, Briggs, I want to know what you can teil me about the Mark- - ham outfit.” Briggs sucked his thin lips into his mouth and looked sharply at Storm. “Queer business, ain’t it?’ he said. “Guess you know more’n i do.” “Anything queer about the Mark- hams?” Slade asked. “Nope! Only it ain’t normal—just males being buried in that vault. Cyrus Markham, Aaron Markham, Cyrus Markham, Aaron Markham, eight generations of ’em. And I seen four of ’em stowed away meself.” “You mean only the male Mark- hams are buried in the vault?” “That’s the truth of it, sergeant. Women didn’t count for much to the lights of the Markhams, I guess, The last Aaron was put away fifteen years ago. No room for more. So the last Eomichbooks.com \