Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

that harasses pretty ladies? a 116 these gallant knights conquer the ghost Look, they are afraid—these gallants. There. Don’t I sound exactly like Janet? I can talk like a novel, too—and I insist on playing ghosts.” The duchesse, in the enjoyment of the others’ nervousness, had forgotten her own. “Mr. Wheelwright I exempt, but from you others I crave a boon. Mr. Tal- ley, Augustin de Loret, and my husband, will one of you not lay this ghost for me?” De Loret rose from his chair with a bow. “Duchesse, I should be delighted,” he said. The duchesse shook her head. “You shall draw lots. Let fate decide. Remember, madness or death may wait for him who enters that room.” From the fringe of the red Spanish shawl draped about her shoulders she pulled three threads and went to the great table with them held tightly in her closed fingers. “ Here are three threads!” she cried in mock se- riousness. ‘‘ Draw, and he in whose hand kismet places the longest thread shall to- night confront Emanuele Effizzi.” The three men, laughing a little, now rose, and each one took from her hand a red thread. “Tt is not I,” said the duc, and he held up his thread, which was but half the length of the fringe on the shawl. “ One of you, then!” cried the duchesse, and, taking the thread from De Loret’s hand, she held it to the light. Talley held up his beside it, and the two little red threads were measured. The duchesse turned to De Loret with a deep curtsy, holding the long thread in her hand, and cried: | > “ To you the honor, prince!” at, THE room in which Emanuele Effizzi had died was invested with none of the tradi- tional horrors or discomforts with which the haunted rooms of fiction are so liberally sprinkled. There was no dirt, and no cob- webs hung from the walls, and no grim stone floors to echo with a hollow ring. The hangings were not old or torn or woven by a crazy hand into horrible devices of demons ~ ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. = and were-wolves; on the contrary, it was a very bright and pleasant room, hung with a gayly flowered brocade, furnished with old, softly faded gilt furniture, swimming in the light of dozens of wax candles and per- fumed with roses instead of the legendary odor of rust and decay. When Janet and her guests, the escorts of De Loret to the dainty room of his vigil,- entered, the duchesse looked about her with some disappointment, and the others with some relief. De Loret, eying the box-spring mattress on the old bed, was exceedingly content, for he had pictured himself forced into spending a very disturbing night in- . deed, and although for the sake of pos- turing as a hero in Janet Wheelwright’s eyes he was more than willing to spend a week in a damp cell with spiders, vermin and rats playing over his prostrate form, he drew a great sigh of relief when he saw that no greater test of his devotion was to be offered him than a night’s sleep in that very comfortable-looking bed. “But this is charming!” he cried. “Here I can welcome Signor Effizzi with all due respect for the proprieties. No dungeon, no cold underground cham- bers, no dismal rags piled on the cold floor for a couch. Monsieur will enjoy himself hugely!” “Have you everything?” asked the duchesse. “I offer you a pistol, a Colt automatic, and my husband will be glad to lend you a rosary.” De Loret laughed. ** No, dear lady, your weapons are no protection against this ghost. One’s only protection against it is a pure heart.” Janet looked at him with a new admira- tion in her eyes. To her, Prince Augustin de Loret had always been a title with a man unfortunately attached to it, but at his cheery defiance of a grim legend in the face of the fear which had shaken them all so short a time before, she was proud of him. “The plan is this, Augustin,” she said; “the old stories all say that the ghost appears between twelve and two to the man or woman with an evil heart who sleeps in this room. You stay here then and we will wait in the little boudoir that adjoins. oO GCoOmichbooksnco