Adventure Magazine Cover — page 92: what you’re looking at

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

Sorcery and Everhard thrust a prepared gag into her wide- stretched mouth. Her hands, of course, clawed at my fingers about her throat; and in such a circumstance the party always opens the mouth as wide as possible, so that I prepared for it in advance. She was an extremely pretty little maid, and when she realized that she was not being murdered her eyes flashed fierily at me, ac her slender little waxen fingers had a cat-like ferocity. Her toy-like slippered feet might have made a racket on the floor, for she was all energy and determination, but with a certain necessary roughness and expediency that were not nearly so brutal as may seem, I quieted her noiselessly and entirely, so that she could do nothing but wriggle slightly after being bound and put into a chair. She probably thought my apology was ironical; but it was not, as I rather admired her spirit. Had she had the use of her tongue she would not have pleaded with me. Her eyes said as much. I do not like to be pleaded with anyway. It is irritating, particularly in women, who are something like children in their readiness to whimper when caught and held, yet when released will instantly torment you to catch them again; and if again caught and held will whimper and promise, yet if released will at once insist upon being caught still again. - That pretty little vixen wanted to scratch my eyes out and used no dissimulation about it. I wonder if in her wildest specu- lation and guessing she ever came near the truth regarding the fine—and I estimate fineness in things of the sort solely by the cost—set of furs which eventually came to her with a card that told her nothing except: From a real admirer, by nomeans un- known to you. I perhaps should not have spent so many words in describing that incident, for while carefully going from room to room I located another person moving about beyond a door at which I listened. The footfall was that of a woman, but not, I became sure, that of Zoronna. I might have known that Zo- ronna could not do with less than two maids. I then did a quite simple and entirely effective thing. Since I must take this woman entirely by surprize, and could not hope to do so by slipping into the room where she was, it was naturally necessary to get her to come entirely unprepared and OI without suspicion into the room where I was. I glanced about for a suitable object and located a fragile blue vase—worth, I discovered afterward, something over fifteen hundred dollars, the present of a foolish connoisseur in knick-knacks—and I merely dropped the vase so that it struck just beyond the rug, on to the bare floor. The attention of the person in the next room was instantly attracted. She paused, listened, spoke the name of the maid I had - just disposed of, then came to the door to investigate. She opened the door behind which I was concealed, at once saw what had happened, stepped inside, was throttled, lifted clear of the floor so that the beating of her feet would not set people in the room below wondering. : She did not begin to have the temper and courage of the little French girl. This woman was hysterical, or would have been if I had given her the opportunity for showing it. Kp SO IT was that with little effort and &5/) no real danger to speak of I was in possession of the apartment of Zoronna Symondi: Sorceress; and for no other reason at all than that I wished to surprize Miss Symondi into an interview which I was determined to make quite con- fidential, on her part at least. I was curious to look about at my ease and see what I could find; and though I may use some of their methods, I am neither a burglar nor a blackmailer, but there is nothing sacred to me about anybody’s secrets if I think that they are connected with my own. So, having disposed of my two prisoners in the pantry where they were, I thought, least likely to be located by accident if any one came into the apartment unexpected, I set about going into drawers. I uncovered an incredible amount of jewelry and trinkets that looked valuable; I peeked upon neat pile after pile of silken garments—I call almost all expensive- looking cloth silk—and in closets came upon long rows of filmy and heavy-textured gowns; I found a bewildering array of feminine things—including the astonish- ingly vast mirror that covered almost com- pletely one side of the wall. Its frame was at least two, perhaps twice as many, feet wide, and made of ebony with scrollwork of Conmmicelooo <SEiGO