Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, December 1956 — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

ae - I hope to introduce in these pages each issue a brand- new writer—one who never before has been printed. ( This story I chose from a dozen manuscripts by new writers because of its unusualness. 1 trust you will find it as intriguing as I did. by Henry Peterson HB: sroop in the center of the thatched hut and surveyed the scene about him. The soft light of late afternoon drifted through a window-like aperture in another room and reflected on the=dust particles that floated in a state of suspended animation. The door to another room was closed. He walked over to open it, his boots kicking up little clouds of dust as he went. The door creaked as it was opened. The oppressive silence was not broken by his footsteps. He wondered how long it had been since this place had heard a sound. Sunlight streamed through an- other crude aperture in the thatch and in the distance the sun rested gently atop the main-mast of his frigate. He turned and started back . 136 six and two make nine into the room and thought how curious it was that his boots seemed to make no audible noise on the floor. There. was something foreboding about. this place. He wished now that the others who were waiting. for him in the dory had accompanied him. “Too near night,” they had said. A supersti- tious pack. He strode across to the first room he had observed and stopped in his tracks midway. On two cots lay two human skele- tons covered only by a blanket of dust. _ They lay as if their owners had died asleep. The room was barren except for a. dust-covered hatchet on the floor. He picked it up and looked at it—much the same as any other hatchet. He walked back into the main room and lit his torch that he might see better in the darkening corners. There was ‘a table on which rested a book. He picked it up and brushed off the CORMICLOOKSs€O