Pulp Fiction, 1939 · page 87 of 116
10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 87: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of story prose from a pulp fiction magazine titled "Satan's Shackles" (page 85). The text depicts a dramatic moment in a crime story where a sheriff confronts a man named Dave with evidence—Dave's initialed watch—found under the body of the victim Aaron, proving Dave threw him down a well. Dave confesses and agrees to show the sheriff where he hid a disguise used to stage a false alibi. The page ends with Dave's emotional realization that his carefully laid plans have unraveled, with the landscape outside appearing ominous.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SATAN’S SHAURLES ly. “You could’ve removed all the prints and traces after throwin’ Aaron down the well, but you couldn’t have done it in the space of time it took Jed to drive around the bend. Aaron was alive when you left, so he must’ve fell down that hole hisself.” The messenger came with the new rope just then. Dave had no desire to watch the gruesome job of recover- ing the body. He went on into the house. HERE WAS a vast relief in his mind as he stood there looking out one of the windows to the east. Somewhere in that direction lay Paris, the city where dreams come true and memories live again. Only a few short weeks now and he would be on his way eastward, with the nightmare of the house of hate for- ever behind him. The light spray of clouds in the eastern sky seemed like the efferves- cent bubbles in a limpid glass of champagne. A white-limbed syca- more on the far hillside flung one great branch out like a silvery beck- oning arm. Dave was aroused abruptly from his pleasant revery by the sheriff’s voice behind him. There was a new and grim look on the sheriff’s face, as well as on the faces of the little group of men clustered behind him. “We got Aaron’s body up, Dave,” the sheriff said slowly. “He was dead, all right. And we found something else, too. It was layin’ under him. Here it is.” He thrust out his hand abruptly, and Dave nearly cried aloud at sight of the object in the sheriff’s palm. It was Dave’s watch! No need to try to deny the ownership. The initials 85 “DD. F.” were inscribed on the case, as half the village knew. “Aaron must’ve grabbed it out of your pocket just before you threw him over the edge,” the sheriff went on grimly. “Aaron never carried no watch and it’s a sure thing he’d never ask to borrow yours. Eli says you had your watch when he left for town be- cause you shoved it in his face, tryin’- to hurry him up. “The watch is stopped at five min- utes after one. So that must’ve been the time you threw Aaron down that well to his death, then went back to the porch and did your play-actin’ for Jed Turner’s benefit.” For an instant the room swam diz- Zily before Dave’s eyes and the sher- iff’s voice became a meaningless hum as full realization came to Dave of the utter wrecking of his carefully- laid plans. He knew the keen mind of the sheriff too well to doubt that it would be only a matter of a few hours be- fore the cistern and every other hid- ing-place would be ransacked in the search for the disguise that obviously must exist if Aaron were killed at five after one, twenty-five minutes before Turner believed that he saw him sitting on the front porch. “All right,” he broke in wearily upon the sheriff’s droning accusation. “{T killed him. Come back to the cis- tern with me and I’ll show you how I set the scene to fool Jed.” As Dave turned he took a final glance out the window to the east, but the scene had subtly changed. The cloud scum was now suggestive of the bitter dregs of sour wine. And the beckoning branch of the sycamore had become terribly like a gaunt white gallows. GOmichdooks (C@