"You'd Say I've Just Discovered the Real Secret of Ductility"

"Death Trail."

By Ray Cummings (1887-1957; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

First appearance: Crack Detective Stories, May 1949.

Short short story (5 pages).

Online at Comic Book Plus (HERE; go to text pages 76-80 and 98).

   "Crooked, like all your thinking, like everything you do as a matter of fact."

IT was a lucky thing for Theseus that Ariadne just happened to have that ball of string lying around to get him out of a jam, but for the killer in today's story Ariadne's rescue aid, or something very like it, will prove to be anything but lucky . . .

Principal characters:

~ George Barrington ("A gossamer metallic thread, yet so strong you couldn't snap it with your fingers"), Bruce Arton ("You told her everything was fixed, I suppose? And when she found it wasn't—"), and Johnson ("There's the end of it!").

Typo: "stength".

References:

- "ductility" (HERE).

- "in burlesque" (HERE).

- "to angel a show" (HERE).

- "E. H. Southern" (sic) (HERE) "or like Maurice Evans" (HERE).

- "a heavy retort" (HERE).

Resources:

- Our last meeting with Ray Cummings was "The Clue Outside" (HERE).

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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