_This was the Devil's boast: "Without me, you mortals
would be in trouble. Your whole world would go to hell!"
And he proved his point. Before long the world was
crying: "Come back, Lucifer! All is forgiven!"_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic January 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Illustration: Beautiful women were Satan's main weapon. They made sin
look so attractive.]
"Joe! There's a burglar in the house!"
Joe Emerald grunted and pulled the sheets over his head. "Lemme sleep,"
he muttered.
"Wake up, Joe!" This time his wife's fingers dug into his shoulder. "I
tell you, somebody's in the house! For heaven's sake, wake up!"
"Let him," mumbled Joe again. "What d'ya want me to do, get up and make
him a cup of coffee? Go to sleep, Pearl, there's nobody...." He began
to snore.
Out in the living room, a lamp fell to the floor with a crash, Joe sat
erect, startled, awake. "Whassat!" he exclaimed.
"I _told_ you there was a burglar in the house," said Pearl.
"In a private dick's house?" asked Joe. "And what could he find
here--except bills?"
"He could be a kidnapper!" said his wife in a frantic whisper. "Joe,
please get your gun and go out there, before I do it myself!"
A door opened somewhere in the house.
"He's going into the children's bedroom!" gasped Pearl. "Oh, Joe...."
She leaped from bed, fumbled for her bathrobe.
"Stay right here!" said Joe, almost savagely. He was out of bed now,
and his fingers closed around his gun in its shoulder holster hanging
over the chair. He opened the bedroom door, stepped out into the
darkness of the living room beyond. A few quick steps took him to the
door of the children's room, which was closed. He laid a hand on the
knob, then whirled swiftly as a door shut softly somewhere at the rear
of the house.
"Basement door," he muttered. "He's going down in the basement; must
have heard Pearl yakking. Well, he won't get out that way!"
He made his way swiftly to the kitchen, halted an instant at the
basement door. Beyond it he heard a queer scurrying, clicking noise.
Then silence.
The basement had no outlet other than the door at which he stood, and
the windows were merely glass blocks set into the concrete wall, and
did not open, except for small ventilators built into them. Whoever was
down there would have to come up this stairway if he intended to leave
the house. But Joe did not intend to let him leave.
He opened the door, slid his hand inside in the darkness, flicked on
the light switch. The basement was instantly flooded with brilliant
light from the hundred-watt bulbs Joe had put in. Up at the head of the
stairs it was less glaring to Joe's eyes than it must have been to the
intruder. He had an advantage, and he followed it up quickly. He leaped
down the stairway, halfway, and brandished his gun. "Put 'em up!" he
snarled. "Don't make a move, or I'll put lead in your liver!"
There was no sound.
Slowly Joe advanced down the stairs, crouching to get as early a view
as possible of the entire basement, until his head came below the floor
joists. Nothing was in sight, but he heard a slight sound behind the
oil burner, which was the only place in the basement beyond view.
"Okay," he said. "You're behind the oil burner. Just step out with your
hands up, and don't make any false moves. And don't think you can pot
me--I'm the best pistol shot in this state, bar none. When Joe Emerald
shoots at something, he hits it."
There was no answer. Cautiously Joe stepped down the last two steps to
the concrete floor, then walked toward the oil burner's square bulk. He
approached it from the end that offered the widest passage between it
and the wall, eyes alert for the slightest sign of a protruding gun.
But there was nothing.
He took the last step that gave him a clear view of the space behind
the burner and stopped dead in his tracks.
"Oh, my beer-guzzling aunt!"
"A commendable habit, if done to sufficient excess," said a deep,
hoarse, almost animal-like voice.
Joe Emerald stared at the creature confronting him, and the creature
stared back.
"The devil!" he gasped.
"Are you swearing, or simply making an observation?" asked the hairy
creature, eyeing him intently with its slanted, lidless eyes.
Joe swallowed hard. "You are _green_!" he said, in startled tones.
"So you're _observing_," said the creature in disappointment. "Yes, I'm
green. What of it?"
"I'd rather expected you to be red."
"And with a forked tail?"
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