THE DOCTOR'S PROTÉGÉE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 496, 31 August 1912, Page 2

THE DOCTOR'S PROTÉGÉE.

(All Rights Reserved.)

By ALBERT LEE,

Author of " The Baronet in Corduroy," " The Key of the Holy House," King Stork of the Netherlands," •« The Black DiBC," &o.

Published By Special Arrangement,

! CHAPTER ll.—{Contined). No. There was not a sign either of her presence or of her departure, for the garden gate stood open at the angle at which she left it. I tried my pipe once more, standing on the hearthrug, English fashion, with my hands deep down in my pockets, my back to the fire; but the tobacco had no flavour now, and I put the pipe aside once more. Presently I made up my mind to satisfy my curiosity, and going without further delay into the hall I picked up a cap, quietly slid back the bolts of the front door, took down the chain, endeavouring by my stealth not to disturb my unsympathetic housekeeper, and went into the garden. It was bitterly cold. It seemed as if the wind would cut through one while it went screaming and whistling through the square, shaking the frost-white branches, and blowing up the dust in unpleasant gusts. But the house next door made one forgetful of the contrast between the warmth of the snug parlor and the biting cold of a \yindswept square, with ten degrees of frost to reckon with. I looked at it, but it was as it always had been; the windows shuttered closely, and the great white patches of paper fastened to glass with the legend on them: THIS HOUSE TO LET. Apply to Messrs. Worth and Raynor, 17 Denmark Street. I turned to go back to my room again, for my teeth had begun to chatter, and in the front doorway stood Mrs. Dawney. "Did you see anything?" she asked, half scornfully. "Nothing."

leave the mystery to work itself out withouf an y from me, or to hold itself without intrusion, so far as I was concerned. There was no earthly reason why I should run myself into possible trouble, so that the impulse was almost strong enough to make me return and go to bed, as Mrs. Dawney had advised.

There was, however, an inward

suggestion to go as far as the foot of the stairs and listen. There could be no harm in that, I thought.

I could listen a while and come away. But when my hand rested on the oaken baluster of the staircase, it dawned upon me seriously that my curiosity had brought me into what might prove to be not merely a disagreeab'e but possibly a perilous position. To stand alone at dead of night in a house which had a bad reputation—a house which was looked at askance by passers-by—-was not a pleasant .experience; and it was questionable whether the mere satisfaction of curiosity was sufficient compensation for a very possible danger. Yet, what harm could come to me, a man, when a woman had had the courage to enter? But bearing in mind Mrs. Dawney's suggestion, the matter assumed a different aspect. This stranger had probably gone to the | house more than or.ee —many a time, in fact—and had thus given rise to the rumour that a ghost-woman had gone in and out at night. It might seem contemptib'e to some: were I to confess that my courage failed me, as I really think it did at that uncanny hour, with the remembrance of the house's unenviable reputation very forcibly impressing itself upon me. I wished I had let well alone, and made up my mind to quit the house and go home again. Indeed, I had turned on my heel to walk away, and my face was towards the open doorway, through which I could see the moonlit garden, when I was startled by a cry, loud and piercing. Had I been in my snug par'our I must surely have heard it, and in that case I should have done what I now did. I listened for a moment or two, heard the cry repeated, and knew that it came from one of the rooms upstairs.

"Of course you didn't. Come in, and I'll tell you something." I went in meekly, and when she had shut the door and put up the chain, she followed me into the

room. "Of late, Dr. Carson, it has become a part of the story of the haunted house that a lady in black comes now and again, walks up the path, and goes inside. But it's a tom-fool of a story, such as always gets added on about a house like that, with neither rhyme nor reason in it." "But I saw her," I protested. "It was no fancy at all, for when I heard the click of our gate I jumped to my feet and looked out of the window, and saw the woman go away from our gate to the next. I heard it scream on its hinges when she opened it. Then she went up to the door. What was more, I sawhere face, and a very beautiful one it was."

Mrs. Dawney smiled, as if she would drive the idea out of my mind by her contempt; but I persisted, for I did not care to be thought a victim of ghost-play or stupid imagination. "Well, I can only tell you what people say, although I've never seen the woman myself; and it's so long since the thing was mentioned that I forgot it until I went back to bed."

Not stopping: to consider circumstances, since it was evident that someone was in trouble, I bounded up the carpeted steps, on into the darkness, one hand on the handrail, and the other stretched out as I reached the first bend in order to feel the door which was likely to be there. I found one, as I expected, since the house was built on the same plan as my own; but when I threw it open I could neither see nor hear anything. The room was dark and empty. Turning at the bend, I mounted the next flight of stairs. While I was doing so there came a third cry, and this time it was one for mercy and from a woman's lips. The cry served as a guide, assuring me that 1 must mount yet higher. Sliding my hand along the rail, I went up in hot haste into the darkness, and taking the second bend saw a streak of light along the bottom of a door. It must be there that something was happening which caused that woman's cry; and in a moment or two my hand was on the handle, and I flung the door wide open. CHAPTER 111. THE MAN WITH THE DAGGER. In spite of my excitement I found myself wondering at the unexpected beauty of the room into which I gazed when I stood breathless l in the open doorway, for it was furnished with a taste which not only gave token of wealth, but bore signs of habitation by one who believed in comfort, and, to all appearance, had provided it here. But it was not the furniture I had come to see. T had rushed up the stairs, heedless of danger and of everything else that might be harmful, to discover the reason for that midnight cry which told of terror, and pi-obably the extremity of peril. The peril was there, and told its own story. The woman I had seen walking up the garden path was m the room, no longer clothed in furs and bonneted, but in a handsome robe of dark silk. About her neck was a chain of gold on which hung .3 nnnrlnnt gof. ivifli Ai i mriTi q Tirln'nl-.

For the first time in my life I had to face out my belief or disbelief in ghosts, and the disbelief, in spite of my housekeeper, was decidedly in the ascendant. Mrs. Dawney wanted me to go to bed at once, but I said I would go presently. And so I sat on. I heard the heavy footstep overhead, and then there was silence, and I once more had the house and my thoughts to myself. "I'll have a look at the back," I said after a spell of further wonder, and going into the hall I passed down the passage quietly, drew the bolts of the kitchen door silently, took down the chain with the stealth of a burglar, and, turning the key, was presently in the garden behind the house. There was not a' light in all the houses which stretched to right or left, so that the house next door looked no different from any of the others. Now that I had begun to search for satisfaction to my intense curiosity, and assure myself that I had not been the victim of some freak of the imagination, I determined to see

whether the house bore any sign of habitation, and whether there was something more than mere gossip concerning the black-robed lady who went in and out. The wall between the gardens was low, so that it was a very easy matter to climb over and drop into the garden of the empty house. Pausing on the frozen lawn for a little while, I turned over in my mind the best method to pursue. Should I go round to the front, and boldly knock at the door to see whether the lady who had passed through the gateway would come, or should I enter silently through a window, the latch of which could be slipped back? Not far from where I paused was a door, which, when I went to it and lifted the latch.

into the passage which was in dense darkness. Not a sound could be discerned, save that of my own breathing, and the scraping of my foot upon the doorstep. For a while I hesitated. There was a gruesome story told of this so-called empty house —one which filled me with a curious interest so long as the thing was spoken of from a distance, but which seemed to have an indefinable horror about it now that I stood in the silence of the night, when there were none to speak to, and no one, not even a dog, to bear one company. The first impulse was to return, and

A cross of rubies was in the centre of the pendant, which was beautiful, and must have been of groat, worth. Rings glittered on her fingers, and n heavy bracelet was on her right

wrist. All this I saw as I stood in the open doorway ; but. I saw much more. A costly dress, and still more costly jewels, were as naught just then, nor was her dark beauty a matter for thought at such a time, for there was that before me which filled me with horror, and which, for a moment or two, robbed me of the power of action. I seemed to be rooted to the only able to watch, when I saw that the woman was standing with her back to a cabinet, her delicate, bejewelled hands resting on a large, round table, her body bent forward slightly, and her eyes set in watchfulness on a man who leant across the table exactly opposite to her. Neither of them had eyes for the stranger who had thrown open the door abruptly, and was looking on

this unwonted scene; for the man's

gaze was fixed upon her at whom he slashed with a dagger, the keen blade of which gleamed whenever he sought to reach her body with it. His

strokes were frequent and vicious,

and had he struck her the weapon must have gone deeply into her flesh. Now he moved to the right, now to the left, changing his position when she successfully avoided him, always endeavoring to keep the full table breadth between them. Once he bent forward suddenly, and struck the dagger, downwards, hoping to drive it into her hand ; but she drew herself back, and the weapon buried itself in the wood.

"Have mercy, Andrieno!" the woman cried after that vicious blow, and her mellow voice was full of pleading which should have disarmed the angriest; but the man's response was cruel: "You shall die !'•'

"But I am your wife," she pleaded, speaking like the man, in Italian. "I care not. You shall die." The words were followed by another slash of the dagger. It was time to shake off my wonder, for Andrieno, having failed to reach his wife across the table, began now to clamber on it. Indeed, one knee was already resting on it. There was no time to speak; and had I spoken I doubt whether the man would have heard me, for his whole thought wasi centred on that murderous endeavour to get nearer to the woman, and strike her effectively. What was worse, he was doing it with such cold-blooded persistency. A chair was close to my hand, and it suggested itself to me as a weapon. I caught at it, and, swinging it about my head, brought it down with a crash upon liim. There followed from his lips a scream of pain, then, with a moan, he rolled off the table, falling heavily to the floor, where he lay bleeding. The dagger slid across the polished table-top and tumbled at the woman's feet, and she, with a ready presence of mind, seeing a stranger, and not knowing whether I came as a friend to help or with some evil intent, bent down quickly, took the weapon in her hand, and stood alert. "I heard you cry for help," I exclaimed, in answer to the question I { read in her face. "And you came?" she asked, wistfully. But before I could answer the dagger fell from her fingers. She jalaced her hands on the table, as if to save herself from falling, but she fell to the floor, and lay there motionless 1 .

When I knelt beside her and spoke, no answer came, for she had lost consciousness. I lifted her in my arms, and carried her to the couch, where she lay helpless, and in a deathlike stillness. As for the man on the floor—this woman's husband, but her would-be murderer—■ I suffered him to lie where he was. Why should I endeavour to bring him round, so that he might renew his cruel attack ? I could not resist the temptation to kick him when I passed by to look for something which would serve to restore the lady to consciousness. But my search proved fruitless.

I stood and thought the matter out. If I left her while I went to my house for a restorative, the husband might come round, and, seeing her, might kill her where she lay in her helplessness. If I carried him away to prevent a crime so horrible But that was too great a task, since he was big and heavy. He lay there, bleeding, his arms spread out on the carpet, and his eyes closed, and as I stood over him I watched his face. It was dark and handsome, the face of an Italian without a doubt of high degree. Beyond all question he was an aristocrat, accustomed to wealth, and, judging from the manner, even while he threatened to kill his wife, a man of culture. {To be Continued.) D.P.—2.