10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

70 110-STORY DETECTIVE “It is pretty gruesome,” she as- serted. “You live here alone?” Slade asked. “You see, I’m going back to Long- wood Cemetery, and I hate to leave you without—” “Oh, I’m all right,” Dale inter- rupted. Her head held high, she looked at Storm through clear blue eyes. “It was just unexpected, that’s all. ’m really not given to fainting spells. Anyhow, the man got what he wanted. So there’s no reason for him to come back.” Her matter-of-factness was too genuine, Slade thought, to admit of any bravado or play-acting. He took his Colt automatic from his pocket and tossed it on the couch. “T’d feel more comfortable if you had that around,” he said. “Can you use it?” “Oh, yes,” Dale laughed, “though I’m better with a shotgun. I hold the local record with clay pigeons.” WAS eleven o’clock when Storm Slade parked his car near the en- trance of Longwood Cemetery. He made his way cautiously up Serpen- tine Drive, keeping within the shelter of the darkness beneath the ancient elm trees. As he approached the Markkam vault he swung back farther from the road. Carefully he worked his way on hands and knees to within a hundred feet of the entrance. He parted a hedge of rhododendron bushes and crept through noiselessly. The grilled gate- way was clearly visible, its iron scrolls outlined against a pale green-blue light that came from within the tomb. Slade crept forward. Something was moving inside the vault. He saw a shadow, weird, distorted, against the inner wall. The shadow slowly took the form of two enormous hands hold- . ing a crucifix. A sudden snap broke the breathless stillness of the night. The monster hands held two pieces of a broken cross. Slade’s hand struck a loose stone. It rattled down onto the cement walk. The shadow and the blue-green glow disappeared. He advanced quickly to the entrance. Drawing his flashlight from his pocket, he slid its catch for- ward and tossed it into the vault. Slade bounded forward two seconds behind the electric torch that filled the crypt with a white light. His muscles were tense as he glanced about the silent, empty tombs. Staring at the black caskets lining the walls, he saw that now three shelves were empty. Dimly, beneath the shaft of light from the torch he perceived on the floor at the back two coffins beside the one he had examined in the morning. Their lids were lying near his feet. “Cyrus Markham. 1845-1895,” he read on the brass plate of one. The second was inscribed “Cyrus Mark- ham. Born 1868. Died 1912. Requies- cat in Pace.” Slade edged forward noiselessly. He peered into one of the lidless cof- fins. With a sharp intake of breath he saw a skeleton glowing with a strange iridescence. From the large eye-sock- ets came a greenish luminousnegs. The entire skull seemed to radiate an eerie light. Its jagged teeth formed a lip- less mouth that grinned at him with hideous mockery. Inside the coffin Slade heard the faint sound of a hiss—the liquid sibi- lance of a snake. He leaned closer. A jet of yellow vapor shot upwards and licked across his face. He was conscious of the smell of de- eayed fruit. An odor of something rank, putrid, filled his nostrils. The skull appeared to grow smaller—to shrivel until it was about the size of an apple. No, it was not that the skull was shrinking, he thought, it was getting farther away. The whole coffin seemed to him to be sinking down into the ground. Slade forced his fingernails into the palms of his hand. He was faintly _aware of pain—or the sickening scent of decay. His knees suddenly buckled. Gomichbooks:ecom