A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

. THE NINTH LIFE 25 “Philip Vincent, eh?” he reflected. “Well, Philip Vincent is going to get it and get it good. Oh, yes! I’ll attend to him myself, shortly. P’m very sorry, Miss Brandon.” “And all of it so absolutely futile!”’ she exclaimed bitterly. —“T’d say, very far from futile!” he dis- sented. “Two things stick out, to me. One, that Tony and Cleo Kefra had a sae of a row, from what you tell me of is exit. quite. But the evening papers may tell.” She gazed up at him, questioningly. “Tell what, Mr. Green: 2 “Little Ernie, you say, was missing since four o ‘clock, with only one available way out from the caretaker’s quarters. _ They'd have their own entrance some- ‘where round the side or at the back, natur- ally, and he might have got out that way, but on the scrappy evidence you got it’s not likely. Apparently that door ‘on the jar’ let him into the entrance hall, where this Philip Vincent was on duty.”’ “And therefore must have seen him, if he had gone that way,” she pointed out. “The entrance hall is absolutely bare, and ‘it was quite impossible for the child to appear in it without Vincent seeing him.”’ “The child is so small that Miss Kefra took him up in her arms and kissed him. Just over two years old, according to your Eileen. Could a toddler like that push one of those metal and glass doors open?”’ “No,” she said decidedly. “ Hus: some- body might have—”’ “Let him out, you were going 6 say,” Gees finished for her. ‘One of the tenants there? They all know the child, apparent- ly, and the worst sort of moron would not efetetete se) satelet ately The other—well, I don’t know, let a two-year-old into the street alone. “Even then, kidnapping in the street is practically out of the question—small kids aren’t such valuable commodities in these days that people risk picking ’em up on sight and running off with ’em. Also, that square in the middle of the afternoon has got taxis on a rank nearly opposite the Gravenor entrance, I happen to know, and | there are chauffeurs with cars waiting about—somebody would have seen the child if he had been snatched up in the street, and since the police are on to it they’d have got information about it.” “You mean—little Ernie is somewhere in the building?” she asked. He shook his head. ‘Not now,” he said very gravely, and, unfolding his news- paper, put it down before her. “Take a look at that.” He put a finger on a staring headline and, after a glance up at him, she read: GHASTLY DISCOVERY ON WIMBLEDON COMMON Shortly after. midnight, P. C. Ambrose Wright discovered a fiber suitcase, half- hidden among some gorse bushes on Wim- bledon Common, nearly opposite the pond beside the Kingston Road. On opening the case, he was horrified to discover the nude and terribly mutilated body of a male child, apparently about two years of age. The child’s throat was fearfully lacerated, and this and other injuries made it appear that the tragedy was due to an attack by some large, carnivorous animal of the cat species. P. C. Wright, at the time of the discov- ery, was patrolling from Kingston toward the top of Putney Hill. The point at which he found the case is within a dozen yards of the main road, which, even at that late hour, is far from deserted. Three cars, Wright states, passed him, going in the direction of the Kingston by-pass, between the entrance Elementary!” says Watson CAIRO, ILL.—Calvin Watson, Cairo business- man, says it’s easy to pick today’s best whis- ise buy. “Judge taste, lightness, mildness, flavor—and you'll switch to Calvert. I did. Elementary!’ _ CALVERT RESERVE BLENDED WHISKEY— 86.8 PROOF—65% GRAIN NEUTRAL SPIRITS. CALVERT DISTILLERS CORP., N.Y. C. cComicbooks.com