A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

62 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY over the body to look closely at the right arm and shoulder. He drew back again, white of face ; he turned to Gees. He said: “Two of them, and one at least was hu- man.’ In turn Gees leaned over the corpse and then drew back. ‘Yes, two of them,” he assented. “No animal made those marks That’s the grip of a hand without claws on it.” Tott lifted the corner of the sheet. “I've seen enough—haven’t you?” he asked. “Those wounds—quite -bloodless.” “Cover it,’ Gees urged. “This feels like sacrilege to me. They’ll have photographs and measurements, if you want them. | don’t.” Tott replaced the sheet, and _ they emerged from the shed to face the ser- geant as the constable replaced the pad- lock and turned the key. ‘‘The whole village has gone into a huddle over it, sir,” the sergeant said, “and I reckon you’ve seen enough not to wonder at it.”’ “T don’t,’ Tott agreed. “Anything bear- ing on it yet?” The sergeant shook his head gloomily “Not a thing, sir. Not a pad mark, not a footprint. Nothing. Pretty much every man in the village that’s got a gun is ~ out beating the woods. Mr. Perry warned ‘em of the danger, because if it is a leopard or a tiger as they reckon, shot guns’ll be ‘precious little use. But they reckon if thev keep together they'll be all right, and-+I suppose they will, too.” “Woods ?” Tott echoed. ‘Was the body found in these woods, then?” “No, sir—it was on the open ground betwixt here and Barnby, at the top of the hill, and the woods are t’other side of Hedlington from there. But they reckon it’s the only part where anything like that’d lay up after a kill. I don’t see it that way myself, nor does Mr. Perry, be- cause them animals don’t just.drain away all the blood lke this one did. From all I’ve heard of ’em, they go for flesh food.” Tott nodded in sober, thoughtful agree- ment. “The girl was out alone, of course,” he Suggested after a pause. “Children go all over the place here alone, sir,” the sergeant answered. “Not now, ‘of course—not since this happened. But they did. She went down to Barnby with some friends of hers after school. Then she set off to come back home, up here, and they were the last to see her alive.” ‘““Found—when and how?” Tott asked. “By me, sir. I’d walked my bicycle up the hill and the light from the lamp showed me something a good twenty yards back from the road, on the grass. So I wheeled the bike across, and found her. No tracks, no anything either!” ‘‘Do you know what time she left the other children?” ‘Somewhere close on five, sir. They say it was beginning to get dark, and she ran off in a hurry because she’d be late for tea. And I found out they were all late for tea, all five of ’em.” “And the time when you found her?” Tott persisted. “Three minutes to eight by my watch, sir. I checked it at once.” Listening, Gees reflected that at about that time, the evening of the Parkott child’s disappearance, the Gravenor door- man must have been helping Saleh ibn Nahor to get his trunks out to the car in front of Gravenor Mansions. OR a little while Tott brooded. “Well, sergeant, J think we’ll go along and wait for your Inspector Perry to turn up. I suppose he'll go back to your house ?”’ “Yes, sir, and | wouldn't wonder if he’s got there by now.’ They went back. The group in the road fell silent as they passed. They had al- most reached the garden gate of the sergeant’s house when Tott spoke again, to nobody in particular: “Absolutely real and solid, whatever it was.’ The sergeant said: “I beg your pardon, sir?” “Twas thinking,’? Tott said, “that fancies and foolishment don't fit into any case of this sort. Finding what or who did it can only be done by sticking to hard, everyday facts.” ‘Why, yes, sir, and that’s what the in-. spector and me are doing.” A gravelv cheerful, middle-aged man, Inspector Perry, and rather above the average of a provincial police officer, in ee mes Rather more a man of comi And next to no _ blood, cbooks.com — ~ : a ‘ =". “Deeg ete See ey