Show D ex V ouis jose V a nce auf hor of the false fa ces the lonc etc by s coper 1920 by the authora PRISCILLA synopsis vaguely conscious of a double personality but without any idea of its meaning the girl leonora males makes her accustomed way into the street of 0 strange races thoroughly at home in the underworld of c new york leonora takes her course to her appointed rendezvous marlo joins her greatly in love 1010 and seeing the fine qualities which the girl really possesses marlo mario seeks scelia to turn her from the path of 0 inevitable destruction she promises to marry him but quickly leaves him at cafe gathering place of 0 criminals leonora meets her partner red carne han and his associates and to la ac caged of 0 betraying a fellow criminal to the police she savagely defends herself one ot ol the gang says he has seen hr her on fifth avenue all dressed up 1 I 0 0 IV continued etter better tell ern em kid red counseled cisily ei un uneasily you got to corne corae clean like h b I 1 I 1 havel have once more the flames of rage leapt high 1 I dont owe this gang any thin much less nn an account of everything I 1 do the slices shoes on the other foot you all know me you all kno ehnow v im on the level most alost of be up the river today it if it for me and you know that too how far do you think get if my brains work for you tell you what to do and how bow to get away with it without the bulls tumbling who planned the raid on ernsteins Ein steins hock shop did any of you get pinched for that who figured out how to get those bonds away from the chemical trusts messenger was anybody lagged for that and because I 1 take the trouble not to lead a compla guns right up to you toni tonight ht and because the nut saw sowe somebody body that looked like me all dolled up on fifth avenue yesterday or he did it was you all right harry affirmed coolly their i glances met and clashed A the girls hot with challenge and resentment the mans cold nith mth malice for the first time she recognized in this creature an enemy then her intelligence grappling with the problem of how bow to confute his implicit accusation experienced a flash of memory followed by a stroke of intuition it if you wart want to know who squealed she suggested suggested deliberately why dont you give harry the office ask him what lie he does with all his time where he be gets the coin for all ills his swell clothes ho he be talks to when hes bulging up to the bars of the big hotels ask him why the cops always look the other way when they see him forcing why lie he aint never pinched with an oath harry thrust back his chair which overturned with a crash and jumped up guilt stamped upon his countenance of sudden pallor glinting fearfully in his furtive little eyes but in the same instant the door left negligently unlocked after the en entrance t rance of leonora was hastily opened find and slammed the first to identify the man who had slipped in and now stood fumbling with the key english addle cried out in shrill dismay leo the company turned simultaneously and with confused cont used cries and questions got to its feet slight and under normal height panting sv sweating eating haggard his face livid eyes terrified hatless and with clothing disheveled leo Bi Ef elinsky alias leo the blood sank back against the door one liand hand pressed to his side just jt below his laboring heart the other holding an automatic pistol described a gesture of supplication red snapped over shoulder a profane demand for silence leos broken phrases es became audible croaked a bull down the street coming out ot of bennies Benn les place corbin and ennis tried to jump me corbin got it ile he gesticulated with the pistol ennis took after me looks look 8 like a frame up cops everywhere I 1 turned red demanded furiously what in h id you come here for no place else to go cornered I 1 tell you listen I 1 the russian held up a hand and bending an ear to the doer heard sounds below inaudible to the colliers ol of liers there they come bowl now I 1 for gods sake get me out of this I 1 fire escape red indicated with a jerk of his head somebody thrust open the shutters of one window the murderer pulled himself together reeled across the room and lurched out upon ao aa iron platform grating immediately he disappeared now ane rumor was loud in the hall below the shrill protestations of the walters waiters rising above yet dominated by the deeper voices of the police after brief but violent altercation heavy feet came pounding up the stairs then then panic fastened upon the wits of all ilioiu la Is the tb private dialog room and stampeded them toward the fire escape primitively in their fright men fought with women aomen for tor first place at the window stilled stifled screams of pain and anger mingled win gleI with muttered blasphemies but the noise of milling feet alone AN would have been enough to betray them not more than two had managed to fight out to the iron platform before the police were clamoring and hammering at the door leonora thrust brutally to one side saw the futility of trying to escape before the maddened men and resigned stood clear of the crush watching the panels of the door tremble under a storm of kicks and blows F fear ear was absent from her temper but she was shaken by impotent exasperation and sad ad with regrets this meant an end to everything not alone to these associations which barely an hour since she herself had planned to forsake but to all her hope of happiness with marlo mario for she had not the remotest doubt but that she with at least a majority of the others would be arrested jailed and on on the evidence of complicity in past exploits which bich the police spy harry the nut kut would bo be able to lay before the district attorney sentenced to a term of years in one or another of the state penitentiaries aries and lone orie before she had sered out her term mario alario would forget her or even it if lip he did not would never never by any chance make a woman with a criminal record his wife and this was what hat came of indulging her keen delight in excitement and adi adventure denture if only she had listened to mario alario in time seconds dragged like minutes and the door still held she began to catch at straws of hope only three now remained in the room charlie the coke already with one foot across the sill whimpering and mouthing mout hiag curses because of inability to crowd into the press upon the fire escape red and herself the hammering on the door stopped she wondered why charlie contrived to jam his terror racked body out through the window red caught leonora by a shoulder roughly enough it if in a rare impulse of chivalry and tried to thrust her out after charlie but the crush on the platform wa was S still too dense site she heard a dull crash and swinging round saw the door Us its lock shattered by the impact of a brawny shoulder slam back against the wall the policeman aho vho ho had broken it in stumbled and sprawled full length upon the floor the plainclothes man ennis leaped in over his prostrate body her ears were deather IL Z ears were deafened with reds profane Pro faie instructions ened with reds profane instructions to get herself out through the window without more delay she made a vain attempt to obey and had halt half succeeded when a rattle of shots sounded and looking back she saw the ina man ennis pitch forward on his knees then fall prone the policeman scrambling up pistol in hand ban received the balance of the clip in reds automatic and sank slowly down upon ills his side screaming with horror the girl fell back from the window rod red shouldered past her climbed out turned and caught her by the arm and dragged her after him still screaming scream Irig like a madwoman she tripped gripped her head struck heavily against the bottom of the window sash and the lights dimmed weirdly and burned out leaving only darkness impenetrable and a strange husn hush pierced by thin echoes of eldritch shrieks CHAPTER TWO the antagonists 1 I PRISCILLA rousing on an elbow priscilla maine found herself awake with a racing heart a throat swollen with a strangled cry of horror and a mind in nd through whose painted murk the reflection rk of a comans womans oman screams ran like a thread of purple ight yet here was only darkness with silence absolute ah blute with a low gasp of relief that was halt half a sol of fright as well she sprang up from the divan stumbled to the wall and after a moments groping flooded the studio with milky radiance from an inverted dome and ami in a passion of oe gratitude she embraced the reassurance inherent in the atmosphere of 0 that richly furnished spacious and silent studio her fathers workshop till his death and ever since her own it was true then she was safely restored to her own Iriti intimate mate environment where nothing resembled even remotely that frowsy drowsy room where murders had been done she had merely dreamed a dream one more of those amazingly real dreams which she had learned to accept without protest as phenomena of slumber unavoidable singularly harmless and on the whole rather amusing so at least they seemed till this night when for the first time stark tragedy had stalked unbidden and unheralded rending with ruthless hands the alie flimsy texture of illusion and rendering the dream more fact to her than this awakening more true and so much the more terrible pressing palms to temples that throbbed and burned intolerably with their content of thoughts awl with fright and horror she made her way to the bathroom and bathed her face f ace with cold water then with cologne till in the sensory reaction of stimulated flesh and nerves she began to teel feel measurably more calro and self possessed more priscilla llla maine than leonora A twittering telephone recalled her to the studio receiver ne celver to ear she said yes who Is it and heard the agitated cries of the elderly kinswoman whom she called aunt and with whom she had bad her home priscilla llla I 1 where have you been all evening ile ie been halt half frantic why you let me know 1 I been anywhere dear only asleep here in the studio please dont be cross aunt esther I 1 go to do it honest I 1 mrs morey left in the middle of the afternoon she had a tea on or something and about half after five I 1 stopped painting and thought id lie down and rest a little before coming home do hurry ill send arthur with the car at once please she donned hat and cloak before a mirror in whose insusceptible depths she saw set in her own hat and individual coiffure the face of the girl whom in her dreams she knew as leoora leonora and yet it was likewise the face of priscilla llla maine vainly with importunate port eyes she questioned that counterfeit of two countenances how could this thing thin be was she one woman waking abid and another when she slept was there in her a dual personality sona lity such as reading had taught her to accept as a psychological possibility did two natures nature struggle agle within her one prevailing in her hours of slumber and not always even then that train of speculation she was afraid to pursue too tob far if 11 THE PORTRAIT beside the mirror a long pier glass stood a heavy studio easel holding a full length canvas an unfinished portrait of herself in the aln ara dress she had bad once worn at a costume dance begun long ago on a day when lien a model failed her and carried out nhen lien she felt in the mood the painting now neared completion ion a little more work on draperies and background and it would be ready for exhibition inspecting it critically with faultfinding fault finding eyes she saw that her work was good almost as good as her fathers the figure on the canvas lived its striking pose was instinct with almost ln insolent vitality the face was aglow with zest in life the eyes seemed transiently li arrested in an instant of gay impudence altogether charming tier her troubled gaze turned back to the mirrors faithful presentment of a slender gowned young the finished product of a fashionable upbringing a little ilithe proud reserved thoughtful esqui biec priscilla llla maine but the girl on the canvas was leonora ami in her self both lived but which was which which false which wh ch life true was the life she knew the life of part par avenue and fifth of teas leas dinners theaters dances relieved only by these itis days in the studio her happiest when she was painting was chii life reality or illusion and that dream life of which she caught only fugitive e glimpses fascinating tantalizing ter and related to lo nothing nathl the scope of bior experience as the dream life perhaps the life of fact she shook a head baffled bewildered find and faint with wondering the doorbell interrupted she answered finding as the oie had expected that the chauffeur was waiting to escort her to the town car which he was obliged to leave at the mouth of the alley site she was glad of his company when she had put out the lights and locked the studio door for the alley was indifferently illuminated and seemed rather grimly desolate at that hour she knew a moment of sympathy with aunt esthers distrustful animosity toward that dreadful studio life it if aunt esther only guessed how infinitely more dreadful that other life which priscilla knew in dren dreams but no one guessed instinctive reticence jealousy ot of her privacy reluctance to be thought different and tear fear of having lier her sanity questioned as aa she eho herself too often questioned it had guarded the girls secret and kept it inviolate she had long since made up her mind she must never marry while this dream life continued to exert its occult influence upon her to risk transmitting i n to 1 her ie r e children hi ld re n a mental taint ala 0 or r lesion on w was a s u unthinkable n b 1 1 ae now of a sudden she remembered the man mario arwas or was he mereia a shadow and in a poignant turn of reminiscence recalled his luminous and compell compelling fing eyes the potent magnetism of his presence and felt anew the pressure of his lips on hers on hers or leondras Leo noras she cringed low in the corner of the seat as if fearful lest curious eyed eyes detect defeet the waves of color that hat t burned her cheeks for in the memory of that kiss hiss Z 7 a I 1 fa priscilla maine slie she found a sweetness ineffably precious and in the knowledge that his love was dedicated to that other self priscilla suffered the first bitter pangs of that torment which spares not body mind or soul and which is jealousy but how bow should she be jealous of leonora if leonora were herself was it to be her fate to love one shape of dream and hat another ill III PHILIP FOSDICK about three in the morning finding she could not sleep she slipped into a dressing gown and xv I 1 nt t to iier desk where for two hours she wrote steadily setting forth in minute detail as memory served every item incident and circumstance of her dream thus she found temporary distraction and ease of mind unaware of weariness till she had written the last word immediately med lately that was penned she found herself heavy with drowsiness so urgent it would hardly wait for her head to find its pillow TON toward vard noon she awoke and rang for her maid A pleasant languor tempted to indolence she adored breakfasting in bed and did so today with a relish somehow sharpened by a mischievous sense of playing truant of cheating lifes inordinate demands recollection of the dream recurred tardily and sluggishly uke e the images that reluctantly take shape on an un exposed der photographic film and when sharpest and most definite seemed pale and unimportant in that warm flood of sunlight which bathed her bed chamber as little worthy of consideration as a wraith of nightmare but it served to pique her curiosity and when she had bathed she took back to bed what she had written in the night and read it with care and |