A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

THE LITTLE DOLL DIED 121 The Ex-Marine captain grunted. “If anyone told it to me I wouldn't believe it, so I. don’t expect you to.’ He didn’t understand my expression. “What I don’t see,” I explained, “is how Peabody came back a second time. I mean, if McCoy’s shots didn’t kill him—just wounded him slightly, and he was up there in the mountains all the time, not dead at all—well, where did his mummy come from? The shrunken littlke mummy of Peabody that McCoy found and brought back from that mountain cave?” Glennon shook his head, somber-eyed. “To begin with, he didn’t find that mummy up in that cave. He took it up there with him, see? McCoy had been stalemated. Here he’d gone and killed Peabody—or thought he had=so’s he could get Jenny Lou and her money. Then instead of falling into his arms at word of her husband’s death, the way McCoy’d expected, Jenny didn’t ‘give him any time. “Huh! She turned into stone and refused to budge out of Morne Noir, in- ‘sisting her husband might come back as a zombie. That must’ve got on McCoy’s nerves plenty. Her carrying on, declaring she wouldn’t move till she’d seen her hus- band’s body have.a Christian burial.”’ Glennon interjected an oath. “No won- der McCloy was anxious to find the body. Can you imagine his feeling when he went up to that lake to get it and it wasn't desperate killer, By ROBERT MARTIN™ e® @ ® SHEATHE YOUR CLAWS, HELLCAT! Detective Jim Bennett played cat and mouse with a "BLOOD ON THE MIDWAY Live-wire Scott O’Hara Crime Noveletie there? He was stymied. Scared too, I'll - bet. Murder-guilt on his soul and Haiti full of spooks, he must’ve been on ten- derhooks to get out from there. He had to put an end to that zombie talk and take Jenny Lou out of Morne Noir. With Peabody missing completely, he was stuck. So he made that mummy—” “Made a mummy!” I gasped. Glennon nodded, grim. “That Irishman was a clever scoundrel. What’s more, he was a taxidermist—knew how to stuff animal skins and preserve hair. Remem- ber Peabody calling him a greater artist than Akeley? He was an artist, all right. A genius. Well, he had his tools there ‘in camp and a lot of scraps around to work with—bits of animal skin, tanned leather, stuffing and whatnot. Probably cut off and bleached some of his own hair for the wig. What he really made was a dum- my, not a mummy.” “George!” I gulped. “And pretended to go out and find it so he could bring it back to Mrs. Peabody to convince her her husband was dead!” “And she could give him a Christian burial,’’ Glennon said. “Can you beat that for brutal deviltry? That Irishman was a rattlesnake. I’m convinced he didn’t give a whoop for Jenny Lou, either. Not until he heard Peabody tell the woman he had (Please continue on page 128) and others in the high- ree April issue, on sale now! Comicbooks-com é £ twenty-thousand for her in the bank and.