Show ADV CLUB L e deaths messenger by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter P PUT UT on your shudder bumpers fellow adventurers heres a yarn yam so weird and terrifying b that you halt half expect old doctor fu manchu himself to come walking into the picture you might look for something of this sort to happen in oriental fiction but not to a south boston housewife and tier her children in their own home but take my word for it boys and girls it did happen happened to mrs kathryn V shine of south boston and here she Is to tell us all about it the shine family had just finished their evening meal one evening last august when the doorbell rang kathryn shine opened the door and was confronted by an old man who asked her if she had any chores he might do to earn a nights lodging and when kathryn told him she have any chores his face took on such a pained disappointed expression that she told him shed see eee if she put him up tip for the night it was a queer old duck they sheltered kathryn asked her husband about it and he told her to do whatever she aha thought best so kathryn asked the old man in and prepared him a hot meal for which he thanked her almost too profusely after the dinner dishes were cleared away they all went into the I 1 living iving room to listen to the radio the old man by this urne time seemed to have made himself pretty much at home lie ile even took off his shoes a thin thing that kathryn like very much but she said nothing for the old fellow was obviously tired As the evening wore on it developed that the old man was something ot of a religious crank ile he talked ramblingly gly and incoherently on religious subjects and took especial interest in the youngest of Kath kathryns ryus seven children a fair haired little boy i the old fellow kept repeating over and over again that he was I 1 marked for god in fact he said it so often that kathryn began to be disturbed by it and drawing her husband aside told him to lock the man in his room when he went to bed that night along about 11 kathryn had to leave she had a job that occupied her from midnight until morning and it was time to start tor for it it kathryn gets an unusual scare As she was leaving she picked up a card she saw lying on the kitchen table she look at it then think of it until after she had arrived at the place where she worked when she did look at it though she almost screamed aloud for crudely printed on one side of the card were the words messenger of death back to her mind then came the queer old nans mans repeated assertion that r e Z cc b 1 I za crudely printed were the words messenger of death her youngest child had been marked for god she had to get back home immediately med lately to protect her baby from this mad fanatic but how to do it that was the question there was no telephone in her house bouse the street cars running at that time of the night and she had no money with which to hire a taxi the only thing left to her was make the long journey afoot she started out on a dead run only slowing to a walk when she was too winded to run another step shed she had gone but a few blocks when more trouble arose to add itself to her already crushing burden As she was nearing columbus circle two rough looking men in a sporty baby blue roadster drew up and accosted her she thought she was going to have trouble with them at first and asked them not to bother her but one of the men looked at her sharply and said look here youre in a jam aint you well get in here and well take you wherever YOU want to go kathryn still tike like the looks of the men but she just HAD to get home she climbed in the car and it started off hurriedly the she told the men what it was that was worrying her and to her dismay saw one of them pat his chest where the bulge of an automatic showed under his armpit lady lie said it if that guy has done anything to your baby you wont need to call no pollee police well take care ot of him pro pronto uto this anticlimax anti climax was almost too much it was just too much for kathryn first the life of her baby in danger and now to be thrown in with a pair of gangsters who threatened to turn her house into a shambles when they arrived at her home she pleaded ath them to wait outside 61 while she went in to see if everything was all right they agreed with tier her heart in fit tier her mouth kathryn hurried into the house to her intense relief the baby was sleeping peacefully in his crib the old man safely in bed in ills his room kathryn locked him in and resolved that she leave the house until matil he was safely on his way the next morning she went outside then told the gangsters that everything was all right and added that she hoped god would bless them for the good turn they had done her both the thugs looked sort of stunned when she said that finally one of them smiled a bit out of one side of his mouth and said lady its a long iong time since anybody asked god to bless us but thanks anyway maybe well be needing it before the nights over and says kathryn mabbe they did too because the next nest day I 1 read of the gie holdup of a island bank committed by two men who got away in a baby blue sport roadster 0 service |