A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

A. MERRITT’S FANTASY your last lie to me, dear ‘uncle.’ As a =zatter of fact, I know very well who I am. My name is Granville Dennison, M.D., and every event since I came here is quite clearly fixed in my mind. Fur- thermore, let me say you are mistaken about this not being the end of the world. It is—for you.” Again the hum, the dart of steel. A moan broke from the wordless lips of Vecchio. Down he sank, his back still supported by the bole of the big pine. Off fell his big straw hat. Deep through his right shoulder the arrow had sped. Its gaily feathered butt quivered in the sun- light. “Yes, a good shot. I aimed at the notch in your Japel,’’ remarked Dennison with composure. “At this distance, | simply couldn’t miss, you see. I like to observe results. Like you, I have a scientific turn of mind. You have observed my symp- toms; now I watch yours. Fair, eh? ‘Please sit up, dear Uncle. As you are, I can’t do myself credit. You make a wretched target that way!” He waited. Vecchio writhing, held up a withered hand for mercy. “Really, I must thank you for your birthday gift to me. A spendid gift— none better !’’ The scientist, smitten unto death, lay motionless and bleeding in the grass. With an expectant air, mingled with im- patience, Dennison waited. “What so soon?” he queried. “Why, this will never do. You kept me six or seven months in torture. And shall I[ pay you off with fewer minutes? Come, come, Uncle; yet up! Give me my due!” No motion, no sign of further struggle. Dennison, with an exclamation of an- noyance, walked up tu the prone figure. He tried to stir it, but in vain. *‘Not all your science, nut all your su- per human knowledge helps you now.” said the child. “You lie there on a par with the most ignorant peasant on his death-bed. Listen! [Listen and hear me! You are still conscious, though you can- not speak. Dumb, helpless, dying, you can still hear and understand for a few minutes yet.” He paused, reflectively contemplating the wretch at his feet, then continued. “Oj man, in your unnatural, hide- ous experiments, your seekings after the forbidden and the unknowable, you have violated laws of man and laws of nature, both alike. “‘Murder by wholesale has been as nothing in your sight. That you might drag the inmost secrets of life from their mysterious hiding-place and _ fabricate your devilish Alkahest, you have used men, women, and children, without pity, as so much raw material Their blood and lives and breath, and all their pain and fear have been nothing to you—noth- in,z save sO many ingredients to compound your master crime, the crowning infamy of the whole world! ‘“‘Coldly you have kept records of your revolting crimes—records! Yes, yes; I know, I understand! Even though your cursed hieroglyphics have escaped my di- ciphering, yet I have plumbed their mean- ing. “Those ravaged, outraged corpses, all ticketed and labeled like so many speci- mens in a museum, you have preserved. Kept where, in yuur madness, you be- lieved no one could ever find them. But I—I found them, and I know! See! Look at these, old man!” From his pocket he drew the little box wherein for so long he had secreted the meta] coffin tags pried from the caskets ir. the cave. - He opened the hox. Betore the glazing eyes of the dying patriarch he held them Up. “Behold!” cried he. “Your sins have found you out!" Even im the approaching agony of death, I} Vecchio understood. His eyes grew staring. He struggled to rise. With a last upflare of strength he raised ‘1im- self to a lolling posture. He stretched out his hand as thonyh to implore silence. Dennison only smiled. Buck into his pocket he slid the damning tags. ‘*So then, you see that | know all,” he sneered. ‘‘And furthermore, 1 judge you justly. The wrong 1 did you was no wrong—to rob you of the fruits of vam- pirism and of impious murder! Yet, even had it been a wrong, I have already paid in jull. I have paid to the final drop of woe !”’ “Now, Vecchio, your time is close at COMICLOC|S (C(O)