Startling Mystery Stories, Winter No. 7

This issue of Startling Mystery Stories (Winter, Volume 2, Number 1) features supernatural and weird fiction stories. The lead novelet, "The Bride of the Peacock" by E. Hoffmann Price, involves a woman named Diane Livaudais haunted by persistent dreams in which she attempts to open a grave, awakening with broken fingernails and verdigris stains. Pierre d'Artois, an aristocratic investigator, hypnotizes her and discovers she is being compelled by a disembodied voice in Persian to locate something—revealed to be the buried body of Etienne, a marquis supposedly dead in Morocco. Additional stories include Dona Tolson's "Nice Old House," August Derleth's "Those Who Seek," Ambrose Bierce's reprinted "John Bartine's Watch," Robert Barbour Johnson's "The Pet of Mrs. Lilith," and Paul Ernst's novelet "The Man Who Chained the Lightning." The issue includes reader feedback and notices of forthcoming stories.