by Sax Rohmer
“No, sir, never. Mrs. Hume and Miss Myra have noticed it in the house on other nights, and one of the maids, too. It was very strong, I’m told, last night. Well, sir, as they stood by the door they heard a horrid kind of choking scream. They both rushed to Sir Michael’s room, and—”
“Yes, yes?”
“He was lying half out of bed, sir—”
“Dead?”
“Seemed like he’d been strangled, they told me, and—”
“Who is with him now?”
The man grew even paler.
“No one, Mr. Cairn, sir. Miss Myra screamed out that there were two hands just unfastening from his throat as she and Mrs. Hume got to the door, and there was no living soul in the room, sir. I might as well out with it! We’re all afraid to go in!”
Cairn turned and ran up the stairs. The upper landing was in darkness and the door of the room which he knew to be Sir Michael’s stood wide open. As he entered, a faint scent came to his nostrils. It brought him up short at the threshold, with a chill of supernatural dread.
The bed was placed between the windows, and one curtain had been pulled aside, admitting a flood, of moonlight. Cairn remembered that Myra had mentioned this circumstance in connection with the disturbance of the previous night.
“Who, in God’s name, opened that curtain!” he muttered.
Fully in the cold white light lay Sir Michael Ferrara, his silver hair gleaming and his strong, angular face upturned to the intruding rays. His glazed eyes were starting from their sockets; his face was nearly black; and his fingers were clutching the sheets in a death grip. Cairn had need of all his courage to touch him.
He was quite dead.
Someone was running up the stairs. Cairn turned, half dazed, anticipating the entrance of a local medical man. Into the room ran his father, switching on the light as he did so. A greyish tinge showed through his ruddy complexion. He scarcely noticed his son.
“Ferrara!” he cried, coming up to the bed. “Ferrara!”
He dropped on his knees beside the dead man.
“Ferrara, old fellow—”
His cry ended in something like a sob. Robert Cairn turned, choking, and went downstairs.
In the hall stood Felton and some other servants.
“Miss Duquesne?”
“She has recovered, sir. Mrs. Hume has taken her to another bedroom.”
Cairn hesitated, then walked into the deserted library, where a light was burning. He began to pace up and down, clenching and unclenching his fists. Presently Felton knocked and entered. Clearly the man was glad of the chance to talk to someone.
“Mr. Antony has been ‘phoned at Oxford, sir. I thought you might like to know. He is motoring down, sir, and will be here at four o’clock.”
“Thank you,” said Cairn shortly.
Ten minutes later his father joined him. He was a slim, well-preserved man, alert-eyed and active, yet he had aged five years in his son’s eyes. His face was unusually pale, but he exhibited no other signs of emotion.
“Well, Rob,” he said, tersely. “I can see you have something to tell me. I am listening.”
Robert Cairn leant back against a bookshelf.
“I have something to tell you, sir, and something to ask you.”
“Tell your story, first; then ask your question.”
“My story begins in a Thames backwater—”
Dr. Cairn stared, squaring his jaw, but his son proceeded to relate, with some detail, the circumstances attendant upon the death of the king-swan. He went on to recount what took place in Antony Ferrara’s rooms, and at the point where something had been taken from the table and thrown in the fire —
“Stop!” said Dr. Cairn. “What did he throw in the fire?”
The doctor’s nostrils quivered, and his eyes were ablaze with some hardly repressed emotion.
“I cannot swear to it, sir—”
“Never mind. What do you think he threw in the fire?”
“A little image, of wax or something similar — an image of — a swan.”
At that, despite his self-control, Dr. Cairn became so pale that his son leapt forward.
“All right, Rob,” his father waved him away, and turning, walked slowly down the room.
“Go on,” he said, rather huskily.
Robert Cairn continued his story up to the time that he visited the hospital where the dead girl lay.
“You can swear that she was the original of the photograph in Antony’s rooms and the same who was waiting at the foot of the stair?”
“I can, sir.”
“Go on.”
Again the younger man resumed his story, relating what he had learnt from Myra Duquesne; what she had told him about the phantom hands; what Felton had told him about the strange perfume perceptible in the house.
“The ring,” interrupted Dr. Cairn— “she would recognise it again?”
“She says so.”
“Anything else?”
“Only that if some of your books are to be believed, sir, Trois Echelle, D’Ancre and others have gone to the stake for such things in a less enlightened age!”
“Less enlightened, boy!” Dr. Cairn turned his blazing eyes upon him. “More enlightened where the powers of hell were concerned!”
“Then you think—”
“Think! Have I spent half my life in such studies in vain? Did I labour with poor Michael Ferrara in Egypt and learn nothing? Just God! what an end to his labour! What a reward for mine!”
He buried his face in quivering hands.
“I cannot tell exactly what you mean by that, sir,” said Robert Cairn; “but it brings me to my question.”
Dr. Cairn did not speak, did not move.
“Who is Antony Ferrara?”
The doctor looked up at that; and it was a haggard face he raised from his hands.
“You have tried to ask me that before.”
“I ask now, sir, with better prospect of receiving an answer.”
“Yet I can give you none, Rob.”
“Why, sir? Are you bound to secrecy?”
“In a degree, yes. But the real reason is this — I don’t know.”
“You don’t know!”
“I have said so.”
“Good God, sir, you amaze me! I have always felt certain that he was really no Ferrara, but an adopted son; yet it had never entered my mind that you were ignorant of his origin.”
“You have not studied the subjects which I have studied; nor do I wish that you should; therefore it is impossible, at any rate now, to pursue that matter further. But I may perhaps supplement your researches into the history of Trois Echelles and Concini Concini. I believe you told me that you were looking in my library for some work which you failed to find?”
“I was looking for M. Chabas’ translation of the Papyrus Harris.”
“What do you know of it?”
“I once saw a copy in Antony Ferrara’s rooms.”
Dr. Cairn started slightly.
“Indeed. It happens that my copy is here; I lent it quite recently to — Sir Michael. It is probably somewhere on the shelves.”
He turned on more lights and began to scan the rows of books. Presently —
“Here it is,” he said, and took down and opened the book on the table. “This passage may interest you.” He laid his finger upon it.
His son bent over the book and read the following: —
“Hai, the evil man, was a shepherd. He had said: ‘O, that I might have a book of spells that would give me resistless power!’ He obtained a book of the Formulas.... By the divine powers of these he enchanted men. He obtained a deep vault furnished with implements. He made waxen images of men, and love-charms. And then he perpetrated all the horrors that his heart conceived.”
“Flinders Petrie,” said Dr. Cairn, “mentions the Book of Thoth as another magical work conferring similar powers.”
“But surely, sir — after all, it’s the twentieth century — this is mere super
stition!”
“I thought so — once!” replied Dr. Cairn. “But I have lived to know that Egyptian magic was a real and a potent force. A great part of it was no more than a kind of hypnotism, but there were other branches. Our most learned modern works are as children’s nursery rhymes beside such a writing as the Egyptian Ritual of the Dead! God forgive me! What have I done!”
“You cannot reproach yourself in any way, sir!”
“Can I not?” said Dr. Cairn hoarsely. “Ah, Rob, you don’t know!”
There came a rap on the door, and a local practitioner entered.
“This is a singular case, Dr. Cairn,” he began diffidently. “An autopsy—”
“Nonsense!” cried Dr. Cairn. “Sir Elwin Groves had foreseen it — so had I!”
“But there are distinct marks of pressure on either side of the windpipe—”
“Certainly. These marks are not uncommon in such cases. Sir Michael had resided in the East and had contracted a form of plague. Virtually he died from it. The thing is highly contagious, and it is almost impossible to rid the system of it. A girl died in one of the hospitals this week, having identical marks on the throat.” He turned to his son. “You saw her, Rob?”
Robert Cairn nodded, and finally the local man withdrew, highly mystified, but unable to contradict so celebrated a physician as Dr. Bruce Cairn.
The latter seated himself in an armchair, and rested his chin in the palm of his left hand. Robert Cairn paced restlessly about the library. Both were waiting, expectantly. At half-past two Felton brought in a tray of refreshments, but neither of the men attempted to avail themselves of the hospitality.
“Miss Duquesne?” asked the younger.
“She has just gone to sleep, sir.”
“Good,” muttered Dr. Cairn. “Blessed is youth.”
Silence fell again, upon the man’s departure, to be broken but rarely, despite the tumultuous thoughts of those two minds, until, at about a quarter to three, the faint sound of a throbbing motor brought Dr. Cairn sharply to his feet. He looked towards the window. Dawn was breaking. The car came roaring along the avenue and stopped outside the house.
Dr. Cairn and his son glanced at one another. A brief tumult and hurried exchange of words sounded in the hall; footsteps were heard ascending the stairs, then came silence. The two stood side by side in front of the empty hearth, a haggard pair, fitly set in that desolate room, with the yellowing rays of the lamps shrinking before the first spears of dawn.
Then, without warning, the door opened slowly and deliberately, and Antony Ferrara came in.
His face was expressionless, ivory; his red lips were firm, and he drooped his head. But the long black eyes glinted and gleamed as if they reflected the glow from a furnace. He wore a motor coat lined with leopard skin and he was pulling off his heavy gloves.
“It is good of you to have waited, Doctor,” he said in his huskily musical voice— “you too, Cairn.”
He advanced a few steps into the room. Cairn was conscious of a kind of fear, but uppermost came a desire to pick up some heavy implement and crush this evilly effeminate thing with the serpent eyes. Then he found himself speaking; the words seemed to be forced from his throat.
“Antony Ferrara,” he said, “have you read the Harris Papyrus?”
Ferrara dropped his glove, stooped and recovered it, and smiled faintly.
“No,” he replied. “Have you?” His eyes were nearly closed, mere luminous slits. “But surely,” he continued, “this is no time, Cairn, to discuss books? As my poor father’s heir, and therefore your host, I beg of you to partake—”
A faint sound made him turn. Just within the door, where the light from the reddening library windows touched her as if with sanctity, stood Myra Duquesne, in her night robe, her hair unbound and her little bare feet gleaming whitely upon the red carpet. Her eyes were wide open, vacant of expression, but set upon Antony Ferrara’s ungloved left hand.
Ferrara turned slowly to face her, until his back was towards the two men in the library. She began to speak, in a toneless, unemotional voice, raising her finger and pointing at a ring which Ferrara wore.
“I know you now,” she said; “I know you, son of an evil woman, for you wear her ring, the sacred ring of Thoth. You have stained that ring with blood, as she stained it — with the blood of those who loved and trusted you. I could name you, but my lips are sealed — I could name you, brood of a witch, murderer, for I know you now.”
Dispassionately, mechanically, she delivered her strange indictment. Over her shoulder appeared the anxious face of Mrs. Hume, finger to lip.
“My God!” muttered Cairn. “My God! What—”
“S — sh!” his father grasped his arm. “She is asleep!”
Myra Duquesne turned and quitted the room, Mrs. Hume hovering anxiously about her. Antony Ferrara faced around; his mouth was oddly twisted.
“She is troubled with strange dreams,” he said, very huskily.
“Clairvoyant dreams!” Dr. Cairn addressed him for the first time. “Do not glare at me in that way, for it may be that I know you, too! Come, Rob.”
“But Myra—”
Dr. Cairn laid his hand upon his son’s shoulder, fixing his eyes upon him steadily.
“Nothing in this house can injure Myra,” he replied quietly; “for Good is higher than Evil. For the present we can only go.”
Antony Ferrara stood aside, as the two walked out of the library.
CHAPTER IV
AT FERRARA’S CHAMBERS
Dr. Bruce Cairn swung around in his chair, lifting his heavy eyebrows interrogatively, as his son, Robert, entered the consulting-room. Half-Moon Street was bathed in almost tropical sunlight, but already the celebrated physician had sent those out from his house to whom the sky was overcast, whom the sun would gladden no more, and a group of anxious-eyed sufferers yet awaited his scrutiny in an adjoining room.
“Hullo, Rob! Do you wish to see me professionally?”
Robert Cairn seated himself upon a corner of the big table, shaking his head slowly.
“No, thanks sir; I’m fit enough; but I thought you might like to know about the will—”
“I do know. Since I was largely interested, Jermyn attended on my behalf; an urgent case detained me. He rang up earlier this morning.”
“Oh, I see. Then perhaps I’m wasting your time; but it was a surprise — quite a pleasant one — to find that Sir Michael had provided for Myra — Miss Duquesne.”
Dr. Cairn stared hard.
“What led you to suppose that he had not provided for his niece? She is an orphan, and he was her guardian.”
“Of course, he should have done so; but I was not alone in my belief that during the — peculiar state of mind — which preceded his death, he had altered his will—”
“In favour of his adopted son, Antony?”
“Yes. I know you were afraid of it, sir! But as it turns out they inherit equal shares, and the house goes to Myra. Mr. Antony Ferrara” — he accentuated the name— “quite failed to conceal his chagrin.”
“Indeed!”
“Rather. He was there in person, wearing one of his beastly fur coats — a fur coat, with the thermometer at Africa! — lined with civet-cat, of all abominations!”
Dr. Cairn turned to his table, tapping at the blotting-pad with the tube of a stethoscope.
“I regret your attitude towards young Ferrara, Rob.”
His son started.
“Regret it! I don’t understand. Why, you, yourself brought about an open rupture on the night of Sir Michael’s death.”
“Nevertheless, I am sorry. You know, since you were present, that Sir Michael has left his niece — to my care—”
“Thank God for that!”
“I am glad, too, although there are many difficulties. But, furthermore, he enjoined me to—”
“Keep an eye on Antony! Yes, yes — but, heavens! he didn’t know him for what he is!”
Dr. Cairn turned to him again.
“He did not; by a divine mercy, he never knew — what we know. But” — his clear eyes were raised to his son’s— “the charge is none the less sacred, boy!”
The younger man stared perplexedly.
“But he is nothing less than a — —”
His father’s upraised hand checked the word on his tongue.
“I know what he is, Rob, even better than you do. But cannot you see how this ties my hands, seals my lips?”
Robert Cairn was silent, stupefied.
“Give me time to see my way clearly, Rob. At the moment I cannot reconcile my duty and my conscience; I confess it. But give me time. If only as a move — as a matter of policy — keep in touch with Ferrara. You loathe him, I know; but we must watch him! There are other interests—”
“Myra!” Robert Cairn flushed hotly. “Yes, I see. I understand. By heavens, it’s a hard part to play, but—”
“Be advised by me, Rob. Meet stealth with stealth. My boy, we have seen strange ends come to those who stood in the path of someone. If you had studied the subjects that I have studied you would know that retribution, though slow, is inevitable. But be on your guard. I am taking precautions. We have an enemy; I do not pretend to deny it; and he fights with strange weapons. Perhaps I know something of those weapons, too, and I am adopting — certain measures. But one defence, and the one for you, is guile — stealth!”
Robert Cairn spoke abruptly.
“He is installed in palatial chambers in Piccadilly.”
“Have you been there?”
“No.”
“Call upon him. Take the first opportunity to do so. Had it not been for your knowledge of certain things which happened in a top set at Oxford we might be groping in the dark now! You never liked Antony Ferrara — no men do; but you used to call upon him in college. Continue to call upon him, in town.”
Robert Cairn stood up, and lighted a cigarette.
“Right you are, sir!” he said. “I’m glad I’m not alone in this thing! By the way, about — ?”
“Myra? For the present she remains at the house. There is Mrs. Hume, and all the old servants. We shall see what is to be done, later. You might run over and give her a look-up, though.”
“I will, sir! Good-bye.”