SERIAL STORY. “The Gorgon”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 151, 29 June 1932, Page 10

SERIAL STORY. “The Gorgon”

BY

J. LINDAY HAMILTON.

•YNOPSIS. Colonel Dainton is concerned about the disappearance of his brother-in-law, Jim Rowson, the vagabond millionaire. He consults Dr. Farrar, an eminent nerve specialist, who describes how Rowson called on him six weeks ago in a state of nervous collapse, leaving in his care a remarkably hideous mummy. Colonel Dainton confides in his daughter Helen and her friend Peter Southwark, and tells them his fear that Rowson has met with foul play, as it is known that he drew from the bank £BOO,OOO prior to his disappearance. During the night the Colonel s manservant, Jenkini, is found brutally murdered. Andrew Eden, o( the Foreign Office, is secretly working to destroy a criminal organisation ruled by a mysterious being known as “The Gorgon.’’ He believes the latter to be responsible for Rowson’s disappearance and the murder of Jenkins. A cable advises the Colonel that Celia, Rowson’s daughter, is on her way from America. Eden insists on the importance of meeting her at Southampton. While waiting at the landing-stage, the Colonel’s attention lb drawn to a nervous little man. CHAPTER XVII. Dr. Farrar’s Demonstration. The room in which Dr. Farrar proposed to make his unique experiment was a long, rathe” narrow room with two windows. A large oriel window occupied almost the whole of one end. The other, no more than a yard in width and reaching from the ceiling to within two feet of the floor, was on the side opposite to the door at the end of the room furthest from its more elaborate fellow. Against the end wall stood a massive sideboard of early Jacobean period. Dr. Farrar placed a chair in the centre of the room. “Who will volunteer?’’ he asked smilingly. “There is nothing to fear. The subject will be conscious of all that is going on and will afterwards remember all that has passed through his rnind. You, Mr Eden?” “I should be a poor subject,” Eden demurred. “I’m too deuced aggravating for words.” He looked at Celia with a challenging grin. “Not me,” Helen objected hastily, “I might come out with something awful.” “Perhaps Miss Rowson then,” the Doctor suggested. Celia had half risen when Eden cut in with a careless laugh: "Try Peter, here. You're game for anything, aien’t you, old man?” “Hum! I suppose you think I’ve got the most vacant mind,” he retorted lazily. “All right, anything in the cause of science.” He seated himself in the chair and awaited the coming ordeal without much sign of interest. Dr. Farrar clearly treated the business seriously in the light of science rather than of entertainment. He dispensed with all that might serve to make his experiment outwardly the more impressive.

Seating himself opposite Peter, knee to knee with him, he placed his hands lightly on his head, thumbs touching in the centre of the forehead, long fingers extended around the lateral curve of the skull. “Look at me,” he commanded and gazed piercingly into Peter’s eyes. Gradually the light of intelligence in them faded. A stony soulless stare took its place. Dr. Farrar described his condition in twm words. “Personality sleeps,” he said. “So far we have the condition of ordinary hypnotism. He is unconscious. Wait.” He had withdrawn his hands from Peter’s brow and now sat forward peering deeply ir/o* the expressionless eyes. He was speaking in a low, impelling voice. His hands gripped the arms of his chair fiercely in the tensity of thf* mental strain he had put upon himself. The magnetic force of his personality impressed itself upon the silent watchers. There was indeed something in the atmosphere that could be felt, some sense of a presence unseen. Eden noticed most particularly—the sensation that pulls one up sharply in the darkness with the consciousness of an unseen object within touch. It set his nerves tingling with the clamouring alarm of danger. His eyes remained fixed on Peter. Slowly and painfully, it seemed, a glimmer of consciousness flickered in the staring eyes. Imperceptibly it greVv. They lived again, blit thisEden noticed mos particularly—the eyes were not the eyes of the Peter he knew. It was as though he were looking at a complete stranger. Peter stirred and looked around with a queer smile that was almost a leer. Helen shuddered. “You are all right?” asked the doctor. “ Yes,” Peter answered. “ I know where 1 am. There’s Eden, Helen and Miss Rowson.” His arm moved jerkily in the direction of each in turn. “Now we can proceed to the real part of this experiment,” said Dr. Farrar. “ First, 1 want you to go back into the past and tell us what you see.” He turned to Eden. “ Ask him any question you like on the past history of the human race; something as obscure as possible yet open to verification.” Eden pondered for a moment. He was about to put a question relating lo Rowson when the awful change in Peter’s face struck him silent. The very soul of stark horror convulsed his features. A terrible cry burst from his quivering lips. Dr. Farrar leapt forward. “My God!” he gasped in anguish, “ I’ve lost control.” Beads of perspiration came out on his brow and trickled slowly down his haggard face. It, was as though lie were fighting, fighting something for possession of Peter’s soul. “ It's coming. It’s coming,” shrieked Peter’s voice, distorted out of all recognition. “The Mummy I The Mummy!” tlis arms fought, the air frantically • as though to ward off an unseen asI ila h t. CHAPTER XVIII. A Startling Interruption. i To the helpless onlookers it was iikr Romp hideous nightmare 11. was • more terrifying than the sight,, of a

cruel death lo stand so 1 helpless before the revelation of such agony. That inhuman voice rising in a scream of horror was more than flesh and blood could endure. Those wliirlinj arms fighting off something. What was it? The Mummy—there was nothing to be. seen—or some foul thing from the pit conjured up by the devilry of the black ages? The tortured man's hands lore at his throat. His tongue hung out and saliva trickled from his mouth From side to side he jerked and swayed. and his eyes seemed the windows of a soul in torment. Great choking gasps burst from his throat. Eden sprang forward, but Dr. Farrar, who was the neare", seized Peter's wrists and fought with all his strength to drag the throttling hands away. “Water,” he commanded urgently. “Try the syphon on the sidebo.u"!— spray it over him." Eden's eyes took on. a strange, hard glitter. A white-hot storm of passionate anger was raging hi him. He was alert, expectant. One quick glance round the room showed him Helen standing rigid, both hands to her head, like some waxen figure, the functions of her mind and body temporarily arrested. Celia lay back in her chair dazed, unaware. She had the appearance of a somnambulist Turning his glance flashed from the sideboard to the long narrow window. He took three quick strides. His hand reached out for the syphon. Simultaneously came a high-pitched demoniacal laugh and the whole window was shattered with an appalling crash of splintering glass—the sharp crack of a revolver and Eden pitched forward among the debris. Two more shots followed in quick succession. The room was plunged in darkness. A moment, of dead silence, broken al last by a dull thud as of a heavy body alighting with a bound in the room. There was a low groan from the Doctor.

Celia, vainly struggling to rouse herself from a sense of unreality fell a huge hairy arm flung around her. She was picked up as though she were a child. An evil-smelling hand, clapped to her mouth, stifled the scream she tried to utter. Holding her in a grip that drove the breath from her body, her assailant crossed the room silently and with a sureness in the dark that was almost uncanny. Now they were through the door. The passage too was in darkness.

She was no longer capable of fear or even curiosity. It was all a dream, and as the scenes of a dream will suddenly fade and new scenes take their place, so it was now. From miles away—or was it near at hai|l? She could hardly say—came the sound of a dull crack and the grunt as of a wounded animal. The Skipping arms around her relaxed. She was falling, falling as it seemed through an.eternity of space. Now she was caught up, held poised in black oblivion. Arms were around her. A voice whispered in her ear, a voice she knew well. Yes she knew it, yet whose voice? Irritating that she could not recall it at once.

“Celia,” the voice was saying, I’m taking you out to Jhe car.” "You’re all right now. It’s Eden. .She sighed with relief. Eden's voice of course. How stupid not tc have known it. But what was she doing here in the dark? He was carrying her. Slowly the clouds began to clear from her brain. She was not, dreaming then. This was real. Some dim -consciousness ol horror awoke in her. She shuddered and for a moment clung to him. A cool wind caressed her face and her strength and will revived. “I think I can stand,” she breathed faintly. He lowered her and she stood, leaning a iltle against the arm which still encircled her. Eden blew two sharp blasts on a whistle. There was the purr of an engine starting up and a moment later his rakish little car drew up in front of them He swung open the door and helped her In. “You will be as safe as houses here," he assured her. “Hardy is a perfect lion. And here comes Stevens I’ll send him out with your wrap." ’ "A youngish looking man cams running towards them from the rear of the house. Eden questioned him. The report of both Hardy and the young man were short and to the point. “I -must leave you for a moment,” said Eden returning to Celia. “You’re sure you won’t be alarmed?" “I feel," she Smiled and deliberately used his own words, “as safe as houses." ‘Ye Godsl" he muttered. “Was ever such a wonderful—here, take this.” She felt something slipped into her hand and he was gone. It was his revolver he had left with her. The hall was now brilliantly lighted and a babel of sounds greeted Eden's ear as he entered. The crash of the window and the three shots had thrown the household into a state bordering on hysteria. Outside the room a few spots of blood on the parquet floor was all that remained to mark the place where a few moments before he had felled a man with the butt of his revolver. “Drawn blood at any rate," was his inward comment, “What a skull—must be made of iron.” A man servant had brought lighted candles into the room. Peter, he saw with intense relief, was sitting up apparently none the worse for his terrible experience. Indeed Doctor Farrar seeemd to be the greatest sufferer. The tremendous strain had evidently :old on him. In bis shaking hand he held a tumbler of brandy. A thin trickle of blood ran down from one ear. Helen had plucklly overcome her own distress in concern for Peter. “All well and safe, thank heaven," said Eden in a business-like manner, "Miss Rowson is walling in my car I'll take her straight home. Will you two follow as soon as you’re ready ’’ "I’m all right," said Peter rather testily. “But what about Dr. Farrar. He’s had a nasty biff on the ear. Besides it. hardly seems right lo leave him in the lurch." Dr. Farrar waved a protesting hand and smiled weakly. 4To be continued.)