Adventure Magazine Cover — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

Men of the Night interrupted before he had really got started on the big, formidable safe which was camouflaged as a part of the wall and which had its face covered by paneling that could hardly be distinguished from the rest of the room’s interior surface. He swung the paneling back, shut off his electric torch and noiselessly retired behind a tall cabinet of miniatures that was set in the corner. As a good burglar will always do, he had first made sure of the nearest way out in case of a surprize; and next he had selected the most suitable place for concealment. By moving the cabinet a very few inches he had adjusted it nicely to the need that he had foreseen. Though Drount was a hearty bachelor he did not come into his-apartment alone; and he seemed pleased, intensely pleased, by his companion, who looked about her with the slow, studious appraisal and half- critical air of one observing the ees for the first time. Drount looked at her from the corners of his eyes; he looked at her full in the face; he looked at her continually. Though of an exuberant, talkative nature and inclined to make every woman feel that he would be greatly gratified by the least favor she showed him, Drount was plainly trying to be agreeable to the young, striking and rather supercilious lady that had come home with him, unchaperoned. “T can’t imagine where Tae | is. said Drount after ringing twice. “He didn’t expect me and must have gone out. These servants!” ; And poor Toino, all tied up like a goose for the roaster and wedged tightly into a closet where he could scarcely move and therefore had to be quiet, prayed in two languages and to all the gods he knew any- thing about. The main thing was to get out, for his muscles were cramped and they ached fearfully; and almost equal to the main thing was the wish that a certain unknown but black-masked person should have all of his bones broken and the marrow sucked from them. Drount gabbled. He put on his most pronounced Frenchiness and most charming manners. Drount was one of those people who wore manners much like clothes, and changed as occasion suited. He assured her of the pleasure he felt in having his lit- tle apartment—a big affair it was, with a living-room large as a small auditorium; a 137 prettv penny indeed he paid the landlord— honored. Wouldn’t—ah—just a little some- thing, would she like it? Cordials, wines, brandy, whisky. Very fine stock. What would be pleasing? “Whisky,” she said carelessly, un- interested. “Yes, ah.’’ Leela Cabron looked around the “‘little apartment”’ slowly with lifted eyebrows and a half-smile. There wasa kind of regal ennui about her; or as she was scarcely old enough for a queen, the air of a wearied princess who no longer got a thrill out of being told that she was beautiful. As if indeed any mirror would not show her as much. But the weariness did not conceal the tigerish alert- ness that she had. Her eyes might be half- mocking and a little, just a little flirtatious, but also they had the impact of one throw- ing a chalienge. Leela Cabron knew Drount and plenty of men just like him. She knew every thought and move, almost every vibration of his. She had felt his sudden realization that here was a pretty girl, one he had known for a long time; but only in the last day or two did it strike home that he would have to look far and wide, wear his legs a couple of inches shorter trotting around, before he found a more stunning and pro- vocative maiden than this daughter of notorious old Cabron. And of course a woman of her kind was like an apple on a fruit-stand—to be paid for and carried off. Some days before Leela had sought him out to renew an acquaintanceship; and her intentions were as innocent as a woman can have when she wishes to dispose of jewels that have been stolen. They had grown more than friendly, almost intimate. She made him something of a confidant, and got his merry congratulations on eve- ning her old score by looting loot from Black Wolf. Drount, especially this night, had grown rapidly in love with her, and showed it. Leela, erect, straight-shouldered, looked at him and smiled; but he was too much blinded by his own eagerness to see that there was cruelty in the turn of the lips. Almost every man she knew was in love with her, and she got a sort of pleasure in detesting them; not a genuine pleasure, of course, but the kind of gratification that contemptuousness always gives the person who feels it. NOOK C©@