Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

62 well-known a man as myself, had unexpect- edly come after a quarrel—all of those things and others had given me a mask- like control and immobility, but had not made mé quite saclogdlee so nerveless, as rumor would have it. 7 I would not believe it was accident that had made her mention Hurgronje to me, and yet I could not believe that she knew Hurgronje was the one name which would set mein motion. My thoughts were caught up in a whirlwind and raced along, but I looked at her coldly with my face scarcely more than half-turned toward her. For all that I could tell the name “Hurgronje’”’ might have slipped from her. ‘“Hurgronje?” I repeated as if the sound were strange to my ears. “Ves. Hurgronje. You know of him?” It was entirely a question. “Hurgronje? The name sounds foreign. These foreigners are always threatening suicide on a woman’s doorstep. I can understand.” “T doubt it,” she flashed a little mali- ciously, conveying—or seeming to convey— that my veins were too cold to understand what men maddened by love might do. ‘Who is Hurgronje?” I asked a little sympathetically. I knew that he trapped women when he could, robbed them, murdered them if his ingenuity could make it seem safe. Per- haps he might love, cor show the emotional- ism that in fiction and criminal courts passes for love, toward so flaming a woman as this; but more likely, I guessed, his real love would be for the gems she wore, for the others she was reported to own. r BUT a very large and suspicious ae thought demanded attention. This woman was what might be called a theatrical “splendor,” artful in stage mys- teries and “supernatural” scenery through which was threaded a wild plot. Hurgronje was a professional magician, but kept off the stage. It was not inconceivable ethat she should be allied with the men who were likely to find their deaths crouching in the chambers of my guns. ‘True, she sought publicity. They seemed after secrecy and got more than they deserved. I would have given almost anything, everything, I owned at that moment to have had the truth from her; but I would not have believed her, no matter what she Adventure told. She might be a victim or a lure. There was only one way to find out, and that was to do whatever she proposed. ‘Personal danger?” I asked when she had declined to answer further as to who Hur- gronje was. “If it isn’t too personal I would be interested to hear just what it is.”’ It was apparently with much hesitancy that she told me. As a woman can simu- late hesitancy, boldness or anything else she wishes, I had no way of knowing how much was art and how much was fact. Had she known who I was and all about me she could not have conceived of a more effective story for getting me to do as she wished. © As she talked I looked at her closely. That nebulous resemblance to something or some one whom I could not identify, though I had the feeling that long before I should have done so, persisted. She said briefly that Hurgronje was com- ing to her rooms between twelve and one o’clock that night; and that she was afraid to be alone with him; that she had counted on having Lord Bob behind a screen as a sort of guardian in reserve. To my inquiry again as to who Hurgronje was she gave no answer except that he was a man of whom she was afraid. I men- tioned the_police and she shuddered. That would be worse, she said, than Hurgronje. “What do you fear from him?” I asked. “Anything. He might do anything.’” “Why a visit at such an hour?” “Tt pleases him to have it so,” she said. ‘And his pleasure is placed above your own?” Her eyes seemed rather indignantly to tell _ me that if I were as bold in action as I was in questions I must be a courageous person. I insisted that she should tell me who Hurgronje was, not so much because I wanted to hear what she would say as be- cause I knew it might seem queer to her if I did not insist. : ‘“‘He put me on the stage. I am Zoronna Symondi.” I nodded slightly as if her name meant little or nothing to me; and an angry color came into her face, for she had looked in- tently, expecting that I would show some surprize, admiration, or at least something by way of tribute. An angry little exclamation in Frencl escaped her, but I did not pretend to under- stand. If she wanted to call me a cold beast I could hardly feel offended. COmicloo CN Wp) CO