DORIS MOORE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17139, 19 April 1919, Page 2 (Supplement)

DORIS MOORE.

BY GUY THORNE.

CHAPTER XlX.—(Continued.) There was ft shout of uncontrollable agony Iron. Mavrogodato, the recuriing thunder of pistol shots, a curious squeakii, noise like the cry of a frightened mouse, and then bofore he had time to turn round, something hit him a hswy T>low at thi) base of the siull. There thine warm and sticky. He was lying upon his face, but he found that he cculd turn and sit up. "No bonea broken, that's a good thing," he said to himself aloud. He began to feel around him with his hands, slowly and cautiously, dreading what he might encounter, For a moment or two he touched nothing but the marble of the floor, and then his fingers fell upon a square oWect which seamed to be of leather. He felt over it and his hand touched a little button of some hard substance. It was Mfivrogodato's powerful electric torch; Peter clicked the switch an immediately the beam of light tpread or- upon the floor like a pool of silver water running ove" it. A couple of yards away was a black mound. Peter tottered to his feet, reeling this way and that, and lifted the lamp. Two bodies lay there, one was tint of Msvrogodato, the other lying across it, he could not recognise. Then as the beam wobbled here'and there in his uncertain hands, it fell upon the goddess. Just at that moment something moved behind him, Pete; wheeled round like a shot with the light, and encountered the

fine of Esau which seemed rising from tie ground. For a second or two there w?,s no expression upon it at all, and then horror flooded into it lite red wine poured int«i a crystal vase. "Esau! Are you hurt? What has hajtj>ened?" A strango and stammering voice an«wered him. "I don't know, Peter, Peter, the Thing came. Did you eee it!"— last words came in a terrible hissing whiiiper. "I fainted, that's all I know." Peter ran to his friend's side. He lifted him to his feet and shook him. "Pull yourself together," he said. "Where is Daphne? Where is Daphne?" Now for the first time he flashed the light all over that accursed place.. Procoupides lay where he had first bees flung at the enterance to the vault. Not Lr from it, but nearer to Mavrogodatc, lay Profeseor Bmeed-Cox. His face wore a sickly smile and his head lay at an unnatural angle to his body. His neck hail been wrung like the neck of a pigeon. Of Daphne there was no trace at all, and the awful furry creature had vanished as if into thin air.

"Quick, let's get out of this," Peter yelled. He clutched the lamp firmly and caught Esau by the arm with the other hand and together they fled from the chamber of the goddess. Up the flight of narrow stairs into the room of green marble columns and up the slanting passage into the sweet night air. The moon had not yet risen, bat the sky was hung -stars, while a faint afterglow of day still lingered in th« western sky. Everything was absolutely silent. Esau remembered something. "Thasos! Where is Thasos?" he cried. "He never came down into that hellish place." "The encampment, quick! Daphne may be there. We must get brandy and water; Mavrogodato ia still living." Although their knees almost gave way under them and they tore ana bruised their handfi against the rocks, they scrambled somehow from the rocky crater and reeled towards the camp. Even before they came to the gateway of the citadel they saw the red glow of the cam]) fire beyond, and Peter shoutedly loudly. There was no answer, and the reason was plain enough as they emerged. This three men of Miliotis lay bound and gagged round the fire. A little way off was Tliasos in the same condition. Of Daphno there was still no trace.

Peter found a knife, and within a minute the bonds of the four men were cut and they staggered to their feet. "Miss Mavrogodato, the young lady, what has happened?" The men stared stupidly at him. Norm of them could understand a word he said. All of them bore traces of conflict and they seemed dazed. And now those ancient battlements, half as old as time, resounded to wild and fierce cries such as they had not heard since the fierce marauders of fifty years before had brought their Turkish captives there to die. Daphne! Daphne! Daphne! This words hurled themselves round the hill, echoing, rolling, and wailing, till the old brigand and the other three men understanding at last, joined their voices to Peter's in a volume of sound. It was useless, there was no answer whatever.

I -> a* Suddenly Pev«r stopped, his roice had changed in that instant, gaiety of youth ' had passed away and left a stern, set roast in which tho eyes smouldered like live coals. "Get the of brandy," he said to Esau, authoritatively, " and towels, and a water-skin. We must go b'ack to Mat. rogodato. The Lordoß Mavrogorato," he • said to Thasos, who nodded. ! Esan threw himself upon the ground, ' ' half-closed his eves, opened h'> mouth and ' breathed painfully. Then Tfiasos under- ' ■ stood; He picked up a hatchet which they had used for cutting wood, ami bur- ' ried with them to the entrance to the pas- • i sage. They lit torchesthe fear of the ' I passage seemed to have I.'[ 'J l-.uios —ar.d hurried down again into the chamber of doom. ( It was just as they had left it. May. r rogodato was still breathing and moan- ! ing. though quite unconscious. The three j bodies lay as they had fallen. i "That is the man who attacked him," ' Esau said, with & shudder, pointing to 1 the corpse nearest to Miivro^dato. . "Look, his skull is crushed in at the . I back. It must have been dune W'th one i of the professor's bullets." I Thasos stepped forward and tvr i the ' body over with a great heave of Ir.s foot, holding a torch to the face. ; It was covered with a b'ack m; *!> such as people wear at carnival time?, and the brigand tcre it off with an oath. Something l'Ve a blinding flash of lightning passed before Peter's eves He heard a little snap—so ho said ,fterwards—as if some nerves or arty i f 'he 1 brain had broken. A realisation ? s.< ft and awful, so unspeakably horrible -,n] foul, that all that had passed before - at nothing to it. seemed to strike at the very roots of life itself. The face of the dead man was the face of Willstack Bottom. ' At last Peter knew! CHAPTER XX. "Sadie, I guesa that's some foreign prince." " My! Pearl, you put me wise. Some 1 gad, isn't he?" " Probably pressed with the cares of (the State," replied Miss Sadie Van Op- , penheimer Fisn. I "And the little feller sitting b> him. I What do you fijpre on him, Sad: ' " Gentleman m attendance. In F,u-" rope every big toad his a little toad to mollow'm." These remarks were made by two wealthy AmericaD'girls who were "running rtund the old ruins." The Calais-Dover boat wan just kicking its way' into harbour. 1. very one was collecting their hand baggage—the Americans had a courier who performed that _ office for them—and they ha<j remarked • tall young man who sat ttaring at the white cliffs of Dover, with a snorter, but no less intent person by his 6;de. Ten minutes later the porters had Bwanned on board. The two American girls, leaving everything to their courier, were walking up and down th Quay station. Their man came up to them. "We go right off now?" asked Miss Van Oppenhimer Fish. , „ , • " Not for a few minutes, madam, the man replied. " There is a special train to go first." "Myl" said Pearl. "In front of the boat express?" " Yes, madam." They walked dowr the lone platform, to see an engine and a siigle first-class coach shunted on to the nils before the barrier gates which divided the boat tram rails from ordinary traffic"This'll boost up in front of us ail the time. I ponder who it's forhuh!" . v ~ She polled her companion by the arm. Two men were hurrying towards them, accompanied by the stationmaster. _Thii two climbed into the first coach. There was a momentary cpnfsrenoe between them and the official. Then a wave of the hand, the opening of the gates, and the little train glided away towards .ho tunnels. , Sadie clutched the stationmaster by the arm. "Say, here," .ihe cried with a ehrfll, excited scream, "who are th«e two who have gone on in advance of the boat train?" , The Btationmastw was equal to the occasion. , „ "I cannot mention any names, madam, be said. "The matter has been arlittle more than the inquisitive American ladies. Orders had come from the traffic manager. That was "Whoever they are," the stationmaster said to himself, as he hurried back to see the boat train off, "this little stunt can't have cost them less than two hundred pounds." The special train rolled through the I leafless woods of Kent. ; Two men sat at a table in the saloon, talking together with great intensity. Their words were clipped and sharp. "... This is good news, Esau. The' telegram was waiting directly we landed. Mavrogodato will recover, the King of Greece sent his surgeon to him. Four ribs were broken by the bears hugging Willstack Bottom, but the.brute h.w not time to crush the poor old chap to death, before the professor's bullet crashed into his brain." Esau unfolded an early edition cf the Pal. Mall Gazette. He laughed bitterly. "Columns of it!" he said. "The whole world in beginning to ring with the discovery of the Aphrodite of Praxiteles. A'l round the globe, the cables are throbbing with the news. The Villa havrogcdato in Athens is guarded by a cordon of soldiers." ~ Peter made an impatient gesture with ai 9, hand. "Chuck it away," he said. ' What does that matter now. Eeau, I can t stand this much longer, the suspense is driving me mad." "Keep up heart, dear old chap. We are nearly at the end now. We shall know soon and I am certain it will be all right. _ "We wasted too much time in Greece, Peter answered. "That was a fatal mistake." "I don't see how it could have been avoided. We had to trace out the men that Willstack Bottom had emploved. otherwise we should have known nothing whatever. Jliliotis was invaluable there. How should we have ever known that Daphne had been taken out of Gre;ce at ail if we had not made all those enquiries?" "Perhaps you are right, but I tremble to think what may have happened. You must remember, Esau, that we are dealing with a bad woman of such cunning and resource that we can barely guess at it." "We don't know even that with certainty," Esau answered. "Yet I am certain, and that it should be someone of my own blood is a horror unspeakable." "But the motive, the motive, Peter?" "I cannott sav, it is a profound mystery. It is undeniable that this devil-woman has no Chalkis blood in her veins, I know enough of ray family history to be sure of it' "We have no absolute proof to connect Miss Ross with the murders and the long persecution of the) Mnvrogodatos, juri as we have no actual proof that she has kidnapped —I must say it, Petermade away with Miss Daphne." "There's only a moral certainty, I adI mil, that's all. But you have not seen ! th? woman, I have. She is more like a I man than a woman, intensely strong and I active. Her outburst of hatred against uw father at the beginning of my interview with her, showed me in some sort, what she was. It was a maniacal fury, nothing less. Then, yon must remember the sudden change in her manner when 1 mentioned that Doris Moore was going to act at the Waterloo Theatre. She was all interest and gave me the cheque at once. Subsequently Willstack Bottom," he shuddered at the name, "referred a great deal to Doris Moore. Then there | wat the instance of that blood-thirst* - I assassin following me to the Cafe Royal on the first night that I met Mavrogodato. Oh! it all fits in very well!" "She must be mad certainly," Esau said ■ in a voice of loathing, "but what method and what grotesqui horror in h<* madness ! She must have searched all America for a man like Bottom, strong Miough i to crush an ordinary man to dea h and 1 lost to all human feelings of pity. "If a hair of Daphne's head nan been hurt," he said suddenly, and there was deadly purpose in his tones, "I will kill that woman with my own hands, sister lof my father, though she is." (To b* concluded on Wednesday 84$!^