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Show The Trey O' Hearts I A Novelized Ver.ion of the Motion Picture Drama of the Same Name 1 Produced by the Univereal Film Co. 9 1 - By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE Author " "The Fortune Hunter," "The Bran Bowl." "The Blade Bat," fc. 8 I IUutrated witi PhotojTephl from the Picture Production I Copyright, 18H, by Louis Joseph Vance CHAPTER I. The Message of the Rose. Lapped deep in the leather-bound luxury of an ample lounge-chair, walled apart from the world by the venerable solitude of the library of T An'n TVl-of O V ft 1 1 1 B 1 T 1 .lllH Ml. Alan Law sprawled (largely on the nape of his neck) and, squinting discontentedly dis-contentedly down his nose, admitted that he was exhaustively bored. Now the chair filled so gracelessly stood by an open window, some twenty twen-ty feet below which lay a sizable walled garden, an old English garden in full flower. And through the window, win-dow, now and then, a half-hearted breeze wafted gusts of warm air, sauve and enervating with the heavy fragrance of English roses. Mr. Law drank deep of it. and in epite of his spiritual unrest, sighed slightly and shut his eyes. An unspoken word troubled the depth of his consciousness, so that old memories stirred and struggled to its- surface. The word was "Rose," and for the time seemed to be the name neither of a woman nor of a flower, but oddly of both, as though the two things were one. His mental vision,-bridging the gap of a year, conjured' con-jured' up tha vision of a lithe; sweet silhouette In white, with red roses at her belt, posed on a terrace of the Riviera against the burning Mediterranean Mediter-ranean blue. Ht. Law was dully conscious that . he ought to bo sorry about something. But he was really very drowsy indeed; and so, drinking. deep of wine-scent of roses, he fell gently asleep. The clock was striking . four when he awoke; and before closing his eyes, he had noticed that its hands Indicated ten minutes to four. - So he could not have slept very long. For some few seconds Alan did not movs, but rested as he was, lncredu- lously regarding a rose which had ma-. ma-. terialized mysteriously upon the little table at his elbow. He was quite sure - It had not been there when he closed his eyes, and almost as sure that It was not real. And In that instant of awakening the magic fragrance of the rose-garden seemed to be even more strong and cloying-sweet than ever. Then he put out a gingerly hand end discovered that It was real beyond all question. A warm red rose, fresh-plucked, fresh-plucked, drops of water trembling and uparkling like tiny diamonds on the velvet of Its fleshy petals. : And when Impulsively he took it by the stem, he discovered a most indisputable thorn which did service for the traditional pinch. Convinced that he wasn't dreaming, Alan transferred the rose to his sound hand, and meditatively Bucked his With-Red Roses at Her Belt. thumb. Then he Jumped up from the chair and glared suspiciously round the room. It was true that a practical prac-tical Joke In that solemn atmosphere 'ere a thing unthinkable; still, there was the. rose. There- was no one but: himself in Hie library. . " - Perplexed to exasperation. Alan fled the club, only pausing on the way out to annex the envelope he found addressed ad-dressed to- him In the le'tter-rack. It was a blank white envelope of good quality, the address typewritten, the stamp English, and bore a London Lon-don postmark half Illegible. ' Alan tore the envelope open in absent-minded fashion and started as If slung. The enclosure was a simple sim-ple playing card a trey 'of hearts! As for Alan Law, he wandered homeward in a state of stupefaction. . He-could read quite well the message .of the rose. He would not soon forget for-get that year-old parting with his Rose of the Riviera: "You say you ' , love me but may not marry me and ve must part. ' Then promise this. If ever you change your mind. "oil end for me." And her rora- : "I will send you a rose." but the r 14 lapsed with atrroar a sign from her, so that he had grown accustomed to the unflattering belief that she had forgotten him. And now the sign had come but what the deuce did the trey of hearts mean? When morning came, London had luoi jiiao j,aw. no man of his acquaintance ac-quaintance nor any woman had received re-ceived the least warning of his disappearance. dis-appearance. He was simply and sufficiently suf-ficiently removed from English ken. CHAPTER II. The Sign of the Three. Out-of-doors, high brazen noon, a day in spring, the clamorous life of New York running as fluent as quicksilver quick-silver through its brilliant streets. Withln-doors, neither sound nor sunbeam sun-beam disturbed a perennial quiet that was yet not peace. The room was like a wide, deep well of night, the haunt of teeming shadows and sinister silences. Little, indeed, was visible beyond the lonely shape that brooded over it,' the figure of an old man motion; less In a great, leather-bound chair. His hair was as white as his heart was black. The rack of his bones, clothed in a thick black dressing-gown dressing-gown with waist-cord of crimson silk, from the thighs down was covered by a black woollen rug. He stared un-blinklngly un-blinklngly at nothing: a. man seven-eighths seven-eighths dead, completely paralyzed but for his head and his left arm. Presently a faint clicking signal disturbed dis-turbed the stillness. Seneca Trine put forth his left' hand- ad touched one of a row of crimson buttons embedded In the desk. Something else clicked this time a latch. There was the faintest possible noise of a closing door, and a smallish man stole noiselessly noise-lessly into the light, paused beside the desk and waited respectfully for leave to speak. '.'': . "Well?" "A telegram, sir from England."' "Give It me!" The old man seized the sheet of yellow yel-low paper, scanned it hungrily, and crushed it in his tremulous claw with a gesture of uncontrollable emotion. "Send my daughter Judith here!" Two minutes later a young woman In street dress was admitted to the chamber of shadows. ' "You sent for me, father?" ' "Sit down." - " ' ; She found and placed a chair at the desk, and obediently settled herself In it. . "Judith tell me what day is this?" "My birthday. I am twenty-one." . "And your sister's birthday: Rose, too, Is twenty-one." "Yes." "You could have forgotten that," the old man pursued almost mockingly. "Do vou really dislike your twin-sister i so intensely?" The girl's voice trembled. "You j know," she said, "we have nothing in common beyond parentage and this abominable resemblance. Our natures differ as light from darkness." "And which would you say was light?" "Hardly my own: I'm no hypocrite. Rose Is everything that they tell me my mother was, while ' I" the girl smiled strangely "I think 1 am more your daughter than my mother's." A nod of the white head confirmed the suggestion. "It is true. I have watched you closely, Judith, perhaps more closely than even you knew. Before I was brought to this" the wasted hand made a significant gesture ges-ture "I was a man of strong passions. pas-sions. Your mother never loved, but rather feared me. And Rose is the mirror of her mother's nature, gentle, unselfish, sympathetic. But you, Judith, Ju-dith, you are like a second self to me." An accent of profound satisfaction informed his voice. The girl waited in a silence that was tensely expect ant. "Then. If on this your birthday I were to' ask a service of you that might injuriously affect the happiness of vour sister ?" The girl laughed briefly: "Only ask It!" "And how far would you go to do mv will?" "Where would you stop in the service serv-ice of one you loved?" pepera Trine nodded gravely. And after a brief pause. "Rose is in love." he announced. - "Oh. 1 know I know!" the father affirmed with a faint ring of satisfaction. satisfac-tion. "I am o!l3- a erlpple. prisoner of! this living tomb: but all things Ij should know somehow I come to know in course of time!" "It's true that Englishman she : scraped an acquaintance with on the i Riviera last year what's his name? I,aw. Alan Law." i ' ,.ln ti,e main," the father corrected ! ' mildlv. "you are right. Only, he's not i English. His father was Wellington ' Law. of Law & Son." She knew better than to Interrupt. but her seeming patience was belled ; by the whitening knuckles of a hand ' that lay within the little pool of blood- ! red light i And presently the dwp voice rolled la: "Law and I 'r ones frteolti then It came to pass that we loved one woman, your mother. I won her all but her heart: too late she realized real-ized It was Law she loved. He never forgave me, nor I him. Though he married another woman, still he held from me the love of my wife. I could not sleep for hating him and he was no better oft. Each sought the other's ruin; it came to be an open duel between be-tween us, in Wall street. One of us had to fall and 1 held the stronger hand. The night before the day that w-as to have seen my triumph, I walked in Central park, as was my habit to tire my body so that my brain might sleep. Crossing the East drive I was struck by a motor-car running at high speed without lights. I was picked up insensible and lived only to be what I am today. Law triumphed tri-umphed in the street while I lay helpless; help-less; only a living remnant of my fortune remained to me. Then his i mif&t r Ml W ft 4 tM r If 1 V;7 We Both Loved One Woman. chauffeur, discharged, came to me and sold me the truth; It was Law's car with Law at the wheel that had struck me down a deliberate attempt at assassination. as-sassination. I sent Law word that I meant to have a life for a life. For what was I better than dead? I promised prom-ised him that, should he escape, I would have the life of his son. He knew I meant it, and sent his wife and son abroad. Then he died suddenly, sud-denly, of some common ailment they said; but I, knew better. He died of fear of me." Trine Bmiled a cruel'smlle: "I had made his life a reign of terror. Ever so often I would send Law, one way or another mysteriously always a trey of hearts; it was my death-sign for him; as you know, our name, Trine, signifies a group of three. And every time he received a trey of hearts, within twenty-four hours an attempt of some sort would be made upon his life. The strain broke down his nerve. ... "Then I turned my attention to the son, but the distance was too great, the difficulties insuperable. The Law millions mocked all my efforts; their alliance with the Rothschilds placed mother and son under the protection of every secret police in Europe. But they dared not come home. At length I realized I could win only by playing a waiting game. I needed three things: more money; to bring Alan Law back to America; and one agent I could trust, one incorruptible agent. I ceased to persecute mother and son, lulled them into a sense of false security, se-curity, and by careful speculations repaired my fortunes. In Rose I had the lure to draw the boy back to America: in you, the or.e. person I could trust. "I sent Rose abroad and arranged that she should meet Law. They fell in love at sight. Then I wrote informing inform-ing her that the man she had chosen was the son of him who had murdered all of me but my brain. It fell out as I foresaw. You can imagine the scene of passionate renunciation pledges of untying constancy the arrangement arrange-ment of a secret code whereby', when she needed him. she would send -him a single rose the birth of a grert ro-mjinre ro-mjinre ! " The old man laughed sardonically. "Well, there is the history. Now the rose has been sent; Law Is already homeward bound; my agents are watching his every step. The rest is in your hands." The girl bent forward', breathing heavily, eyes aflame In a face that had assumed a waxen pallor. "What Is It you want of me?" "Bring Alan Law to me. Dead or alive, bring him to me. But alive, if you can compass it; I wish to see him die. Then I, too. may die content." The hand of hot-blooded youth stole forth and grasped the Icy hand of death-in-life. "t will bring him," Judith swore "dead or alive, you shall have him here." CHAPTER III. The Trail of Treachery. But young Mr. Jaw was sole agent of his own evanlshment; Just as he was nobody's fool, least of all his own. The hidden meaning of the trey of hearts perplexed him with such distrust dis-trust that before leaving London, he dispatched a code cablegram to his confidential agent in New York. WTiftt do you know about the troy tf ee ru 7 newer inuBedllateijr. The answer forestalled his arrival in Liverpool: Trlne's death sign for your father. For God'a sake, look to yourself and keep away from America. But Alan had more than once visited vis-ited America incognito and unknown to Seneca Trine via a secret route of his own selection. Eight days out of London, a second-class second-class passenger newly landed from one of the C.-P. steamships, he walked the streets of Quebec and dropped out of sight between dark and dawn, to turn up presently in the distant Canadian hamlet of Bale St. Paul, apparently ap-parently a very tenderfooted American woods-traveler chaperoned by a taciturn taci-turn Indian guide picked up heaven-knows-where. Crossing the St. Lawrence by night, the two struck off quietly Into the hinterland of the Notre Dame range, then crossed the Maine border. un tne second noon mereauer, trail-worn and weary, as lean as their depleted packs, the two paused on a ridge-pole of the wilderness up back of the Allagash country, and made their midday meal in a silence which, if normal in the Indian, was one of deep misgivings on Alan's part. Continually his gaze questioned the northern skies that lowered portentously, porten-tously, foul with smoke a countrywide country-wide conflagration that threatened all northern Maine, bone-dry with drought. Only the south offered a fair prospect. pros-pect. And the fires were making southward far faster than man might ! hope tojiravel through that grim and stubborn land. Even as he stared, Alan saw fresh columns of dun-colored smoke spring up In the northwest. Anxiously he consulted the impassive impas-sive mask of the Indian, from whom his questions gained Alan little comfort. com-fort. Jacob recommended forced marches to Spirit lake, where canoes might be found to aid their flight; and withdrew into sullen reserve. They traveled far and fast by dim forest trails before sundown, then again paused for food and rest. ' And as Jacob sat deftly about preparing the meal, Alan stumbled off to whip the little trail-side stream for trout. Perhaps a hundred yards upstream, tlio tiorl-.lQQh rf a nrplpRq rant hv his weary hand hooked the state of Maine. Too tired even to remember the appropriate ap-propriate words, Alan scrambled ashore, forced through the thick undergrowth un-dergrowth that masked the trail, found his fly, set the state of Maine free and swinging on his heel brought up, nose to a sapling, transfixed trans-fixed by a rectangle of white pasteboard paste-board fixed to its trunk, a trey of hearts, of which each pip had been neatly punctured by a 22-caliber bullet. bul-let. He carried It back to cpmp, meaning mean-ing to consult the guide, but on second sec-ond thought, held his tongue. It was not likely that the Indian -had overlooked over-looked an object so conspicuous on the trail. So Alan waited for him to speak and meantime determined to watch Jacob more narrowly, though no other suspicious circumstance had marked tl)e several days of their association. The first half of the night was, as the day, devoted to relentless progress prog-ress southward; thirty minutes of steady jogging, five minutes for rest and repeat. No more question as to the need for - i 1 1 J U SUCU UlgeUL litt&LC, UTCJICdU LUG 111 wind muttered without ceasing. Thin veils of smoke drifted through the forest, for-est, hugging the ground, like some weird acrid mist; and ever the curtained cur-tained heavens glared, livid with reflected re-flected fires. By midnight Alan had come to the bounds of endurance; flesh, bone and sinew could no longer stand the strain, j Though Jacob declared that Spirit lake was now only six hours distant, as far as concerned Alan he might have said 600. His blanket once unrolled, un-rolled, Alan dropped upon it like one drugged. The sun was high when he awakened awak-ened and sat up, rubbing heavy eyes, stretching aching limbs, wondering what had come over the Indian to let him sleep so late Of a sudden he was assailed by sickening sick-ening fears that needed only the briefest brief-est investigation to confirm. Jacob had absconded with every valuable item of their equipment. Nor was his motive far to seek. Overnight the fire had made tremendous tre-mendous gains. And ever and anon the wind would bring down the roar of the holocaust, dulled by distance but not unlike the growling of wild animals feeding on their kill. " Alan delayed long enough only to swallow a few mouthfuls of raw food, gulped water from a spring, and set out at a dog-trot o the trail to Spirit lake. For hours he blundered blindly on, holding to the trail mainly by instinct. At length, panting, gasping, hnlf-bllnded, hnlf-bllnded, h? siagwed into a little natural nat-ural clearing and plunged forward headlong, so bewildered that he could not have said whether he was tripped j or thrown: for even as he stumbled a I heavy body landed on his back and j crushed him savagely to earth. j In less than a minute he was overcome; over-come; his wrists hitched together, his j ankles bound with heavy cord ! When his vision cleared, he found Jacob within a yard, regarding him : with a face as Immobile as though It had been cast In the bronze it resembled. resem-bled. Beyond, to one side, a woman in a man's hunting costume stood eyeing eye-ing the captive as narrowly as the Indian, In-dian, but unlike him with a countenance counte-nance that seemed aglow with a fierce ex.ultancy over his downfall. But for that look, he could have be-Herred be-Herred hers the face that had brought him overseas to this mortal pass. Feature Fea-ture for feature, even to the hue of her tumbled hair, she counterfeited the woman he loved; only those eyes, aflame with their look of inhuman ruthlessness, denied that the two were one. He 'sought vainly to speak. The breath rustled In his parched throat like wind whispering among dead leaves. Thrusting the Indian roughly aside, the woman knelt In his place by Alan's head. "No," she said, and smiling cruelly, shook her head "no, I am not your Rose. But I am her sister, Judith, her twin, born in the same hour, daughter of can you guess whose daughter? But see this!" She flashed a card from w ithin her hunting shirt and held it before his eyes. "You know it, eh? The trey of hearts the symbol of Trine Trine, your father's enemy, and yours, and Rose's father and mine! So, now, perhaps you know!" A gust of wind like a furnace blast swept the glade. The woman sprang up. glanced over-shoulder into the forest, for-est, and signed to the Indian. "In ten minutes." she said, "these woods will be your funeral pyre." She stepped back. Jacob advanced, picked Alan up, shouldered his body, and strode back into the forest. Ten feet in from the clearing he dropped the helpless man supine upon a bed of dry logs and branches. Then, with a single movement, he disappeared. CHAPTER IV. Many Waters. Overhead, through a rift in the foliage, a sky was visible whose ebon darkness called to mind a thundercloud. thunder-cloud. The heat was nearly intolerable; the voice of the fire was very loud. A heavy, broken crashing near by made Alan turn his head, and he saw a brown bear break cover and plunge on into the farther thickets forerunner forerun-ner of a mad rout of terrified forest folk, deer, porcupines, a fox or two, a wildcat, rabbits, squirrels, partridges a dozen more. . . . Two minutes had passed of the ten. Something was digging uncomfortably into Alan s right hip the automatic pistol in his hip pocket, of which Jacob had neglected to relieve him. Then a sharp, spiteful crackling brought him suddenly to a sitting position, posi-tion, to find that the Indian had thoughtfully touched a match to the pyre before departing. At Alan's feet the twigs were blazing merrily. It would have been . easy enough, acting on instinct, to snatch his limbs away, but he did not move more than to strain his feet as far as their bonds tr - $u Sawed the Cords Against the Razor-Sharp Razor-Sharp Blade. permitted. Conscious of scorching heat even through his hunting boots, he suffered that torture until a tongue oi name lu.Keu up. wiiippeu neii round the thick hempen cord and ate it through. Immediately Alan kicked IiIh feet free, lifted to a kneeling position, and crawled from the pyre. As for his hands Alan's hunting-knife hunting-knife was Btlll In ItH sheath belled to the small of his back. Tearing at the'helt with his hampered lingers, he contrived to shift it round until, the I sheath knife stuck at the belt-loop over his left hip. Withdrawing and conveying the blade to his mouth, lie gripped it firmly between his teeth, and sawed the cords round his wrists agnlnst the razor-nharp blade. Before Alan could turn and run he saw a vanguard of flames bridge f,0 yards at a bound and start a dead pine blazing like a torch. And then he was pelting like a madman mad-man across the smoked-filled clearing, and in less than two minutes broke from the forest to the pebbly shore of a wide-bosomed lake, and within a few hundred feet of a substantial dam, through whose spillway a heavy volume of water cascaded with a roar rivaling that of the forest fire ItHelf. Two quick glances showed Alan two things: -that hla only way of escape was via the dam; that there was a solitary canoe at mid-lake, bearing ' awlftly to the farU ihor. judltn 1 Trine and the Indian- the latter wielding wield-ing the paddie. fn the act of turning toward the) dam he saw Jacob drop the paddle. The next instant a bullet from a Wtir-chester Wtir-chester .30 kicked up a spurt of pebbles peb-bles only a few feet 1b advance of Alan. He quickened his pace, but the next bullet fell closer, while the third actually ac-tually bit the earth beneath his running run-ning feet as he gained the dam. Exasperated, he pulled up, whipped out his pistol and fired without aim. At 'the same time, he noted that'tha distance between dam and canoe had I u A Tremendous Weight Tore: at Hit Arm. lessened perceptibly, thanks to the strong current sucking through Mia spillway. His shot flew wide, but almost . i-stinctively i-stinctively his finger closed again upon the trigger, and he saw the paddle pad-dle snap In twain, Its blade fallim; overboard. And then the Indian fired again, his bullet drorting past. Alan' ear. As he fired in response Jacob started, start-ed, dropped his rifle and crumpled up in the bow of the canoe. ' '" ' Simultaneously earth and' heavens rocked with a terrific clap of thun- i der. ! He turned again and ran awl"" along the dam, toward two heavy ltf-bers ltf-bers that bridged the torrent of f to 1 spillway. '.:' Then a glance aside brought with a thrill of hornv; the buck of the overflow had drawn the canoe within a hundred yards of the spillway. spill-way. The dead Indian In vs bow, tne living woman helpless in Its stern, it swept swiftly onward to destruction. destruc-tion. ' Ills next few xctlens . were wholly unpremeditated. He was conscious only of her white, staring face, her strange likeness to the woman that he loved. , He ran out upon the bridge.' threw himself down upon the innermost limber, lim-ber, turned, and let his body fall backward, back-ward, arms extended at length, and swung, braced by his feet beneath the outer timber. With a swiftness thnt passed conscious con-scious thought, he was aware of the canoe hurtling onward with the speed of wind, Its slrarp prow apparently aimed directly for his head. Then hands closed round his wrists Him clamps; a tremendouH weight tore t his arms, and with an effort of Inconceivable Incon-ceivable difficulty he began to lift, to drag the woman up out of the foaming foam-ing ja ws of death. Somehow thnt Impossible feat was achieved: somehow the woman gained a hold upon his body, shifted It to hla belt, contrived Inexplicably to clamber over him to the timbers; -and somehow some-how he In turn pulled himself up to safety, and sick with reaction sprawled prone, lengthwise upon that foot-wide bridge, above the screaming abyss. I-ater he became aware thnt the woman had crawled to safety on th farther shore, and pulling himself together, to-gether, Imitated her example. Solid enrth 11 n rterfnnt hrt rnwe Hnrl (Mnrl swaying, beret by a great weakness. Through the gathering -darkness - a ghastly twilight In whlcii the (laming fori'Sts Tm the other shhre burned with an unearthly glare he dineovcred the, wan, wrlthen face- of Judith Trino close to his and he heard her voice, a scream barely audible above the com mingled voices of the conflagration and the cascades: "You fool! Why did you save tin? I tell you, I have sworn, your death!" The utter grotesqueneFs of It all broke upon his intelligence like the revelation of ome enorniouH fundamental funda-mental absurdity In Nature. He laughed a little hysterically. Datkness followed. A flush of lightning light-ning seemed to flame between I hem like a fiery word. To Its crashing thunder, be lapsed into' unconsclouH-ness. unconsclouH-ness. When he roused. It was with a shiver shiv-er and a shudder. Jtnln was falling In torrents from a sky the hue of slate. Across the lake dense volume of steam -enveloped the fires that fainted beneath the deluge. A great hissing noise filled he world, muling even the roar of thk splllwty. i He was alone. But In his hand, tattoied nnd bruls4 by the downpour, he found--a ros. HO HE CONTINUE X .4 |