Adventure Magazine Cover — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

790 “You mean that you weren’t walking on the El-Biar road this morning with a na- tive? That you didn’t see me when I rode by and stopped to ask the way?” asked Holbrooke slowly. He spoke with lowered eyes. He could not bring himself to meet hers. It was as though he were offering her an affront. And yet he could not help it. ' “Of course I mean it,’ she replied quietly. ‘I’m afraid you’ve a touch of the sun. Or I’ve a double in Algiers.’”? She proceeded calmly to eat an entrée. “Tell me some more about it. I’m awfully in- terested.” ; “There isn’t anything more to tell.” Holbrooke spoke slowly, listlessly. He wanted to believe her. And he couldn’t. And she was very lovely, very compelling. She was the most interesting woman he had ever met. The conventional channels through which men and women drift to a mutual understanding or liking of one an- other were not necessary in this case. She was one of those women who can, without words, simply by their presence, inform us of a personality which puts its indelible imprint upon our consciousness like a warm human touch. That she was deceiving him deepened Holbrooke’s interest in her, and made it a complex one. His professional instinct was roused to its utmost. She fascinated him as a woman; she interested him as a sub- ject. The senses of the man, the training of the detective were enthralled, joined forces. Until that moment the former had the ascendency. With the intrusion of doubt came caution. He would assume belief in her story. He would neither do nor say anything to rouse her suspicions of his mistrust. He looked up, met her glance with an equally direct one. ‘““Miss Pellam, I ask your pardon. Of course I was mistaken. In fact I might have known, because when’I asked the way to El-Biar in English you, or rather, your double, made no reply. She might have been a German, or from North Italy, but she looked like an American. She was so like you that the resemblance is really re- markable. At any rate, her making no reply should have convinced me that it wasn’t—you.”’ - “You don’t think for a moment that I should have ignored your question? I should have told you the way to El-Biar gladly—if I had known it.” - | Adventure A group of French officers seated near a window were rising to go. ‘They pushed back their chairs and stood, their spurred boots clinking noisily against the legs of the chairs. A voice rang out from the street below—the street of the Old Town. It was a sweet voice, fulland inviting. The officers nodded to one another. One of them made a gesture of interrogation toward the window. ‘The others nodded vigorously and together they all trooped down the red and green tiling, their military heels tapping the floor regularly, their brilliant red jackets and mantles flashing arrogantly. ““They’re off to the Old Town,” observed Holbrooke. “THERE’S room for us, too, isn’t therer”’ asked Miss Pellam. She looked at a tiny jeweled watch pinned to her gown, just beneath the jas- mine blossom. “It’s late. And I feel the Old Town calling. It’s unlike anything I ever felt before. Africa is going to have a weird effect on me, Mr. Holbrooke. It’s all so terribly strange now, so mysterious— repellent, almost.”’ She looked at the frescoed walls, then went on without taking her eyes from them. “And yet, some day, I am going to love it and feel as much at home in it as I do now on Fifth Avenue or Twenty-third Street.” She turned, leaned across the table and met MHolbrooke’s quietly scrutinizing eyes. ‘Did it affect you that way—at first?”’ “No, not at first,” he answered. “It had more of a hypnotic effect. It put me to sleep mentally and physically.” ““Isn’t that rather unusual?’”’ murmured Miss Pellam. “No,” said Holbrooke again. “It’s the usual. After we’ve become acclimated, so to speak, we wake up. We become respon- sive when we begin to understand. By the way, another strange thing about your double was that she spoke Arabic per- fectly.”’ ‘‘Ah, you heard her?” asked Miss Pellam quickly—too quickly. There was an un- guarded note of anxiety in her voice. “T recognized it, but I could not hear what she said.” “You ‘understand Arabic? and—and interesting!”’ ‘““A fellow picks up a word here and there,” he said carelessly. ‘‘ Women don’t have the same opportunity. That’s what How odd C© MICLOOKS ©