Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

ty JUNGLE LOVE. At this juncture Julie stopped thinking. She could not open the door. ~~ “I’m locked in!” — Unconscious that she uttered the words aloud, Julie stood staring at the door. She knew from the pictures she had seen pass- ing over the screen what other girls did under like circumstances in, the pictures. Some beat their clenched fists against the unyielding door panels and screamed for help. Some clutched at breast and threat, and following a spasm of terror-stricken, futile panic, crumpled helplessly on the floor. } It was no uncommon incident for a girl to be locked in a room, the only thing about it was the fact that it was a new, unsettling experience for Julie. It was un-— pleasant. There was no-ehjoyable - thrill about it. This was something vastly dif- ferent to gazing upon the filmed actions of others. A queer sensation tingled in the roof of Julie’s mouth. About it was the suggestion of an odd taste of tarnished steel, and although she tried to convince herself that she was not frightened, her palate and lips gave physical evidence to the contrary. Julie remembered that some of the girls in the pictured stories had been rescued right away. Julie paused, listen- ing. She waited, but heard no sound of a rescuer’s approach. She remembered an- other filmed and thrilling story. The girl had died. She had been strangled to death by a masked man -with clutching, talonlike hands. To several of her office companions Julie had recommended this particular picture. “Tt’sa dandy fillum,” she had rhapso- dized. ‘“ The last part’s fine. It made me go’ goosey all over. You see if your eyes don’t pop out when the feller gets the girl by the neck. I’m crazy about pictures with murders in ’em, ain’t you?” So say 4 good many of us, but our point of view concerning situations dramatic and creépy with mysterious evil, is likely to change when we figure as one of the prin- cipals in a real tight corner. A crawly, horrid sensation came over Julie. She turned and looked behind her, but there was no masked and crouched fig- ure creeping upon her. She was alone. It 615 then occurred to her-that she might try to batter the door down with a chair; but al- though she went so far as to lift an ornate, upholstered affair with a thick back and heavy, clumsy legs, she only succeeded in raising her unwieldly battering-ram about & foot from the ground. Her hands were weak. Trembling. Her movements awk- ward. The chair leg scraped her shinbone before she carefully put it down and sat on it. What next? Nothing was to be gained by sitting there staring at that door. Yet, the feeling had come over her that she must not make a noise. She wanted to scream and dared not. An overwhelming desire to run, to hide, to cower in some corner, gripped her; but the bright glare from the cluster of lamps pendant from the ceiling revealed to her in one hasty, furtive glance of investigation, that the only places of concealment were under the table or be- neath the couch. Chilled and shrinking with a dread of she knew not what, Julie hunched her shoulders, clenched her hands together on her lap, and tucked her feet under the-chair. The close-pressed con- tact of her legs caused a sharp, smarting twinge, and she remembered she had knocked herself. The sequel would have provoked a smile from any watcher pos- sessed of a sense of humor; but to the girl there was nothing at all funny about the discovery she made when she thrust out her damaged leg. “My new stockings!” she gasped. “Done for! That tear’ll run right down to my foot. Ain’t I the lucky girl now. Two bucks gone smack, and all through some horrid beast locking me ih this filthy room.” For a moment this mood induced by deep concern for her silk hose, seemed like- ly to lift the girl out of her spell of sub- mission to her predicament; but it was not long ere the importance of her stockings failed before the greater horror of her im- prisonment. Fear was stronger than in- dignation, and a quivering whimper of growing ebandonment to despairing thoughts marked the beginning of a period of hysterical suffering. For close on an hour she had been in that room, and ex- “CORNICLOOO© S CO