THIS week we have an early story from the pen of Donald E. Keyhoe from the pages of the April 1930 Sky Birds magazine. Keyhoe started appearing regularly in the aviation pulps—Wings, Air Stories, Sky Birds, Flying Aces—starting in December 1929. His series characters started in August 1931.

“I can’t help shivering every time I see an ace of spades. It always takes me back to the wrecked Waco out there on the desert, and the poor devil lying in it with the black death card stuck in his stiff fingers. And then I remember all the hellish, crazy things that followed, all marked by the black ace, with a bullet hole through its center. . . .”

Somewhere in the ranks of the border patrol a spy was operating. Day by day fliers were being knocked out of the skies—and always beside the dead bodies there lay a mysterious ace of spades!

• Download “The Ace of Spades” (April 1930, Sky Birds)

And be sure to check out Keyhoe’s Mad Marines—The Devildog Squadron—in five Weird World War Adventures in The Devildog Squadron: The Mystery Meteor! And look for the fourth and final volume of the adventures of The Devildog Squadron this summer!