10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

68-——_____——_-10-STORY DETECTIVE Cyrus is sleeping in the ground over at the Markham estate. He died last August.” “And that was the end of the fam- ily?” Slade asked. “According to the lights of the men, I reckon. There’s just the Markham girl left. Her that’s living over in the tenant house on the old estate. They went broke, I heard tell.” “Where’s the Markham estate?’ Slade demanded sharply. “On the Woodbury Road — ’bout half a mile beyond the Stardale Golf Club. Round an hour’s driv: from here if you make it right smart.” T was already dark when Slade pulled up at the tenant house in the Markham estate. The small frame cottage was set back in a grove of locust trees. The moonlight, filtering through their leafy branches, splashed a patchwork of white against its clap- board exterior. A faint amber light glowed through the windows to the right of the doorway. Slade found the bell and pressed it. He heard the buzzer sound inside, and then light footsteps approaching. The door swung open and he saw Dale Markham silhouetted against the light from an oil lamp on the hall table. Her red hair gleamed brilliant against it. She looked at him with large, inquir- ing blue eyes. “Your family vault was broken into last night,” Slade said. “Yes, I read about it in the papers.” Her voice was low, throaty. Storm liked it. “Y’m a eop. I want to ask you some questions,” he said. “Come in.” She swung the door wide open. “I’m glad you’ve come.” He followed her into the living- room. She motioned toward a morris- ehair and seated herself on the couch facing it. Silent, she waited for him to speak, Slade sank back against the cushion of the chair, and looked into her cool, intelligent eyes. “Have you any idea what it’s all about ?” he asked. “T’ve read the lurid newspaper story, that’s all,” she answered. Fan-shaped wrinkles spread out from the corners of Slade’s eyes. “I found a crucifix broken into four pieces and scattered around the crypt. Could that have any special signif- icance ?”’ Dale Markham’s large eyes grew larger and brighter. She moved for- ward toward to the edge of the couch. “The Markhams are always buried with a crucifix. They always had queer ideas about death. They all died of cancer, generation after generation. Always the males seemed to be afflict- ed with it, and a little mad, at that. The women were ostracized—perhaps, because they weren’t tainted. But father had a different intellect. He de- voted his life to research. I worked with him until he died a few months ago. Another year of work and we might have rid the world of the great- est curse known to mankind. But now! Well, there is no money to go on.” “You rent the old mansion?” Slade asked. “Yes, the rental almost pays the taxes. Father had a big practice and a big income. He spent it all on our cancer research work. He trained me to carry on. But there’s nothing to carry on with, except this mortgage- burdened estate.” “Tell me about these ancestors of yours,” said Slade. “They were very rich once?” “The first Cyrus,” said Dale, “was fabulously rich. It was he who bought this property in 1820. But his fortune mysteriously disappeared according to the legend. The family has lived in proud respectability ever since. The Markhams alternated the names of Cyrus and Aaron, between father and son. But what’s this got to do with the violation of my ancestors’ vault?” Slade leaned forward and ran his long fingers through his hair. “Miss Markham,” he said, “this is deadly serious. I need your help. The Eomichbooks..com