Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1910 — The Quest of Betty Lancey [ARTICLE]

The Quest of Betty Lancey

By MAGDA F. WEST

Ospyiiglit, 1909, byW. e. Chapman. Copyright la Gnat

CHAPTER XXVI (Continued). “So they went to India and took up their residence In the hills. One daughter was born to them, named Narcisse. Capt. De L’Enclos died the following year. When . Cerlsse was only eighteen she was married to Harold Harcourt, whom she had met -while on a visit to Calcutta. He-was a -personable fellow, of gpod family and my aunt thought her only child was making a good match. The resemblance between these four women —my Aunt Marie, and her daughter Narclsse, whom you know as Mrs. Harold Harcourt, and my mother and her daughter, Cerisse Wayne, my sister, was appalling. They all had the same coloring, the same features almost to the fraction of an inch, and the same remarkably exquisite coloring. Yet I am sure that not until to-day has Mrs. Harcourt known that Cerisse Wayne and she were full-blooded cousins, as Aunt Marie brought her daughter up in ignorance of the relatives in Africa. Aunt Marie's idea in this was to protect my mother from my father’s wrath, as he had forbidden mother to tell us of our aunt, and Indeed we were so young when Aunt Marie departed that we soon forgot her. Mother and Aunt Marie never had any communication after Anut Marie left for India. My mother died when I was about nine, and Cerisse not quite eight years old. Cerisse had always been father’s favorite and after my mother’s death home would have been unbearable to me except for Tyoga. We had excellent tutors in the house, and later father sent Benoni and me to Europe to study. I took a doctor’s degree in Heidelberg at a remarkably early age, thanks. to the previous Instruction I had received from my father, who was an exceptionally brilliant man. Benoni studied with me, for while father had subordinated Tyoga and her child, my -mother had dealt fairly with them in the matter of wealth. “I was at Heldelburg when Aunt Marie came to visit me. It was the year that Narcisse was married, and three years after Cerisse, a madcap girl of seventeen, had been sent home In disgrace from a French convent after a flirtation with Hackleye, who had followed her to Afriea and married her there. "Aunt Marie had gone to Africa In search of her sister. With her daughter my aunt felt Bhe could safely seek out her twin lister after the lapse of all these years. She was grief-strick-en over the news of her sister’s death, and unwittingly iet fall before my father that in the Tiougaley region were some extremely-valuable diamond fields, the secret of whose location had been made known to her husband, Capt De L'Enclos, by an Arabian servitor of his. Aunt Marle*ji fortune had felt the touch of years, and she had made a joint reason for her African Journey an attempt to locate and work these mines. Father, his avarice all stirred again, Btrove to force her to tell him where they were. Aunt Marie knew him of old and refused. Learning I was at Heidelberg, she proceeded there, and stopped with Benoni and me for over a year, giving me the only happiness I had known since my mother’s death. She spoke freely to me of my young cousin Narcisse Harcourt in India, asked me to befriend her if ever she needed it, and showed me her miniature, so like that of my sister Cerisse that I could but gasp. “I went home that summer and left Aunt Marie in Paris planning to return to India in the early fall. Later the news came that she had perished In a horrible conflagration at a charity bazaar. This was a severe blow to me, for I had loved my aunt, and my heart went out to my unknown cousin. r “Cerisse had the heart of a fiend. Hackleye had taught her that she was the most beautiful human existent. A whim of hers was to fancy herself the reincarnation of Venus herself. Cerisse did not take kindly to the.newß of her equally exquisite cousin across aeas, especially since her children, of whom by now she had two, were, with all due respect to their father, whom they resembled, not particularly comely. To satisfy herself Cerisse made a flying trip to India in disguise, and there began the tragic end.

“Father at this time became cognizant that I knew how to reach ;lie Tlougaley mines. Aunt Marie had besought me with her farewell breath to keep this Intelligence from him. I kept my faith with her. And as a penalty for that faith my father subjected me to the most cruel tortures that tort? fields might have devised. He began In the castle and ended with them In the jungle. And when I was nearly dead from pain and distortion, he realized that I was dying and the secret with me. Then he put forth all his uncanny and exceptional surgical skill, and dragged me back to life—but such a life —such a living death—for no being so deformed and taunted out of human shape as I ever before walked the earth. “Cerlsse went to India. She saw Narclsse and hated her on sight. Narclsse had a child, too, by then, and her one baby was as lovely as CerisSe’s two had been plain. What Is more, Cerlsse became violently infatuated with Harcourt, Narcisse's husband. She made herself known to him one «lav as He walked beneath the trees In the garden, while Narclsse sat in the house and rocked her baby to sleep. After the first start Harcourt became interI know not what wiles Cerlsse used, but this Cerlsse soon had Har-

court bound hand and foot. Narcisse was ousted from her husband’s heart. Cerisse had forgotten 'her home and children. Both Cerisse and Harcourt stopped at actual-murder. They began to play a royal game. The resemblance between Cerisse and Narcisse made this easy. They kept Narcisse under the influence of the loco blossoms—drugged her poor mind almost to imbecility. When Narcisse lay stupefied from the dearly powders Cerisse paraded before the world as Mrs. Harcourt. Cerisse was always jealous of their child, the little Harold, Jr. “°“ e da y Harold, Jr., fell by accident into the lily pond. The poor drugged mother was watching him at the time and sat by the window too stupefied to move or rescue him. Harcourt tried, but he was too far away a L a^ d Stant corner of the garden. Harold dead, he decided it would be best to leave India. Hackleye and father were growing suspicious of Cerisse's long absences, and Mrs. Harcourt’s friends in India were becoming undulv exercised over the changes that apparently had come over her, for of course this strange exchange of personalities tG none ’ So Harcourt gave out thaf he was to travel for his wife’s health. In my pitiable shape I could do little to protect my cousin, but I tried to travel closely enough in their wake to prevent their eiter killing her. For my affliction Cerisse felt no pity. She loathed the sight of me, and her evident hatred soon drove me to ally myself in spirit with my sadly injured brother-in-law and cousin. Harcourt and Cerisse had planned to spend the summer here. She was to go to live in lodgings till she could find a home in which to remove with his-wlfe, and then Cerisse would join them, and the same old farce was to have been renewed. To that end Harcourt leased the Flanders house ’’ A distinct “Ah!” ran through the court room and Harcourt simultaneously uttered a denial. “To that end,” continued Le Malheureux, “Harcourt leased the Flanders house. For some whim or other he took it under the name of Hamley Hackleye. I think Harcourt had intended to make an end of Narcisse there, for he knew that Hackleye was. close on the trail. Then Cerisse was to have stepped into her cousin’s shoes and Hackleye would have believed that it was his wife who had died. Cerisse took rooms at the Desterle's and almost Immediately a secret doorway was cut through. I tracked Harcourt to the house at 94 Brlarsweet place the night of the murder. I waited till I had a chance and secreted myself In the house. I saw him remove the plaque and climb into my sister’s room. I followed, hiding in the closet. “Cerisse and he quarreled nearly all evening. Cerisse in one of her petulant moods was provoking-film beyond endurance. She was becoming wearied with him. The letter that was found on the floor urging her to live up to the demands of womanhood and to return to ‘H’ had been recently received by her from Harcourt, and she made it the pivot on which to turn many a Joke and Jest. Finally she told him she was tired of him, and thought she would go back to her husband. They squabbled and wrangled till finally Cerisse made ready for bed. Harcourt started to go home, but at length, fully dressed, threw himself down on the bed and began to smoke, at the same time chiding Cerisse for using so many cigarettes. Then she asked him for money, claiming that her losses at the races had, as she termed it, ‘laid her flat. He said he had no money" and then she turned on him with reproaches of an over-fondness for roulette. They bickered about money till nearly daylight and till Harcourt would not talk any more. Cerisse dropped off into a doze, but Harcourt lay there smoking in moody silence. Cerisse roused and asked him to get her a drink of water. He refused at first but she kept at him. Finally he got up, went over to the stand, fumbled there for a moment and came back, handing her the glass half filled with water, and said. ‘Never ask me for a drink again.’

“Cerlsse lay back on her pillows, and apparently fell infcy slumber again. Harcourt resumed hla place by her side, i was about to go. wishing to make my way back home before the dawn broke, when suddenly Harcourt turned over on his elbow and moaned like a whipped lioness. "What have I done, what have I done?' he cried over and over again. “My temper, my temper! My awful Jealousy! Cerlsse, I have killed you. killed you!" « “He kissed her again. and again, and wept and dug his nails Into his flesh. The sunlight came In at the window and the breakfast gong clanged In the hall. Reality came back to him. He cautiously slid from the bed and made hla way back Into the house. He knew that safety lay in flight. “Handicapped by deformity. I knew I could do nothing, but I relied on Hackleye. Together I thought we might take the body away with us through that trap door. I went over to the bed and assured myself that Cerisse was quite dead. I smelled of the glass and from the lack of odor and the condition of Cerisse’B body guessed that Harcourt had depended upon his old friend, the loco plant, to end her life. Perhaps he had given her the dose meant originally for Narclsse. “Then I went in search for Hack-

leys, it took me longer to him than I thought, for It was very late, nearly noon; when we returned to the room. I had not told him she was dead. He was fearfully shocked. We had just entered and.were figuring how we could get the body away, when we heard the trap door fastened behind us. Evidently Harcourt hid come in and noticed it open and, fearing he had forgotten to close It in his wild flight of the morning, made haste to remedy the oversight. There we were, Hackleye and I, locked in the room with the dead body of his wife and my sister. Five minutes later Mrs. Desterle burst in the door. There was time to get out, as Hackleye has said, while they carried Mrs. Desterle to her room. “I was in the hotel perched on the fire-escape above the room occupied by Miss Lancey, now Mrs. Morris, that same night. I was keeping guard over Mrs. Harcourt. I did not know but that an after rage Harcourt might not destroy her, too. I did not know what the papers were, but feared they might react on my cousin’s safety. I followed Mrs. Morris to Mrs. Harcourt’s v room and ran Into her as she was rounding the corner on her return. She struggled to free herself, but I held her fast. I wanted to discover what she had done, and to see if she had the stolen papers hidden about her, and if so, what they were. In the contest her waist was torn off and her nose began to bleed. Then she fainted from fright. I carried her from the hotel to Hackleye’s rooms, Intending to take her to her home in the morning. She grew steadily worse and by morning was having convulsions. I hold high European degrees as a physician, and as I knew the cause of her malady felt the only just way to the girl would be to treat her myself. Together with Tyoga and Hackleye I got her to San Francisco and took her to Africa with me. I had to do it. There was no other way. My only safely lay in flight Her only chance of recovery lay in the medication I could give her, for I alone knew the cause of her complete mental prostration. The later Complications of her journey I had not foreseen, but she is here now, safe and well, and, may I not say it? all the happier for her trip.” Harcourt had risen and staggered from his feet toward Francis Wayne. Harcourt walked lfi-g a drunken man, and quicker than anyone could divine his purpose he had unveiled ing figure of Le Malheureux. Shrieks rose from ali sides of the court- room. Before them stood —The Man-Aperilla! High and clear rang Narcisse Harcourt’s voice: “My poor cousin! My poor, poor cousin!” CHAPTER XXVII. They hanged Harcourt within themonth. And the British government did not Interfere. It was glad to shift the riddance of such a human pest on Uncle Sam. Hackleye went back to England to be with his children, and patfeh out the rest of his life as best he could. Narcisse Harcourt and Phil'tp Hartley married. The papers Francis Wayne produced bore out his story, which was further attested by the old French Cure, and by Benoni. They also told of the frightful treatment Francis Wayne had suffered at the hands of his unnatural father, and how his repulsive shape was in reality a perverted triumph of science. For old John Wayne out there in the African jungle had forestalled alk continental research In the graft of body on body. When through his tortures his son lay before him scarcely more than a heart and a brain, John Wayne had grafted to him bodily the hugest gorilla the jungle furnished. The human brain and heart and soul still beat in kinship, and the\beast’s body thrived and made for the mortal soul within it a torture. After the trial Le Malheureux, disdaining the pleadings of a hundred scientists, went back to Africa with Meta and Benoni. There he has sunk hla.. identity In a wonderful laboratory for electrical research, from which annually issue bulletins that delight and astonish the scientific world. Before Le Malheureux sailed he said, in selfjustlflcation: “Only once have I let the inclinations of the beast that Is part of me overtop me—only once permitted its physical characteristics to conquer my immortal soul. That was the time when, penned in the death-chamber of my sister, with the trap-door locked behind me. and open escape, such as Hackleye took, barred from me because of my unmerited affliction, and when I knew no one would believe my story, that I might keep free for my cousin’s sake, hunted and sore, I Jlbbered and fought and played the beast I look.” (The End.)