by Sax Rohmer
He recounted all that he had learnt of the history of the house of Dhoon and all that he had learnt of recent happenings from Lord and Lady Lashmore. His son wrote rapidly.
“And now,” said the doctor, “for our conclusions. Mirza, the Polish Jewess, who became Lady Lashmore in 1615, practised sorcery in life and became, after death, a ghoul — one who sustained an unholy existence by unholy means — a vampire.”
“But, sir! Surely that is but a horrible superstition of the Middle Ages!”
“Rob, I could take you to a castle not ten miles from Cracow in Poland where there are — certain relics, which would for ever settle your doubts respecting the existence of vampires. Let us proceed. The son of Mirza, Paul Dhoon, inherited the dreadful proclivities of his mother, but his shadowy existence was cut short in the traditional, and effective, manner. Him we may neglect.
“It is Mirza, the sorceress, who must engage our attention. She was decapitated by her husband. This punishment prevented her, in the unhallowed life which, for such as she, begins after ordinary decease, from practising the horrible rites of a vampire. Her headless body could not serve her as a vehicle for nocturnal wanderings, but the evil spirit of the woman might hope to gain control of some body more suitable.
“Nurturing an implacable hatred against all of the house of Dhoon, that spirit, disembodied, would frequently be drawn to the neighbourhood of Mirza’s descendants, both by hatred and by affinity. Two horrible desires of the Spirit Mirza would be gratified if a Dhoon could be made her victim — the desire for blood and the desire for vengeance! The fate of Lord Lashmore would be sealed if that spirit could secure incarnation!”
Dr. Cairn paused, glancing at his son, who was writing at furious speed. Then —
“A magician more mighty and more evil than Mirza ever was or could be,” he continued, “a master of the Black Art, expelled a woman’s spirit from its throne and temporarily installed in its place the blood-lustful spirit of Mirza!”
“My God, sir!” cried Robert Cairn, and threw down his pencil. “I begin to understand!”
“Lady Lashmore,” said Dr. Cairn, “since she was weak enough to consent to be present at a certain séance, has, from time to time, been possessed; she has been possessed by the spirit of a vampire! Obedient to the nameless cravings of that control, she has sought out Lord Lashmore, the last of the House of Dhoon. The horrible attack made, a mighty will which, throughout her temporary incarnation, has held her like a hound in leash, has dragged her from her prey, has forced her to remove, from the garments clothing her borrowed body, all traces of the deed, and has cast her out again to the pit of abomination where her headless trunk was thrown by the third Baron Lashmore!
“Lady Lashmore’s brain retains certain memories. They have been received at the moment when possession has taken place and at the moment when the control has been cast out again. They thus are memories of some secret cavern near Dhoon Castle, where that headless but deathless body lies, and memories of the poignant moment when the vampire has been dragged back, her ‘thirst unslaked,’ by the ruling Will.”
“Merciful God!” muttered Robert Cairn, “Merciful God, can such things be!”
“They can be — they are! Two ways have occurred to me of dealing with the matter,” continued Dr. Cairn quietly. “One is to find that cavern and to kill, in the occult sense, by means of a stake, the vampire who lies there; the other which, I confess, might only result in the permanent ‘possession’ of Lady Lashmore — is to get at the power which controls this disembodied spirit — kill Antony Ferrara!”
Robert Cairn went to the sideboard, and poured out brandy with a shaking hand.
“What’s his object?” he whispered.
Dr. Cairn shrugged his shoulders.
“Lady Lashmore would be the wealthiest widow in society,” he replied.
“He will know now,” continued the younger man unsteadily, “that you are up against him. Have you—”
“I have told Lord Lashmore to lock, at night, not only his outer door but also that of his dressing-room. For the rest — ?” he dropped into an easy-chair,— “I cannot face the facts, I—”
The telephone bell rang.
Dr. Cairn came to his feet as though he had been electrified; and as he raised the receiver to his ear, his son knew, by the expression on his face, from where the message came and something of its purport.
“Come with me,” was all that he said, when he had replaced the instrument on the table.
They went out together. It was already past midnight, but a cab was found at the corner of Half-Moon Street, and within the space of five minutes they were at Lord Lashmore’s house.
Excepting Chambers, Lord Lashmore’s valet, no servants were to be seen.
“They ran away, sir, out of the house,” explained the man, huskily, “when it happened.”
Dr. Cairn delayed for no further questions, but raced upstairs, his son close behind him. Together they burst into Lord Lashmore’s bedroom. But just within the door they both stopped, aghast.
Sitting bolt upright in bed was Lord Lashmore, his face a dingy grey and his open eyes, though filming over, yet faintly alight with a stark horror ... dead. An electric torch was still gripped in his left hand.
Bending over someone who lay upon the carpet near the bedside they perceived Sir Elwin Groves. He looked up. Some little of his usual self-possession had fled.
“Ah, Cairn!” he jerked. “We’ve both come too late.”
The prostrate figure was that of Lady Lashmore, a loose kimono worn over her night-robe. She was white and still and the physician had been engaged in bathing a huge bruise upon her temple.
“She’ll be all right,” said Sir Elwin; “she has sustained a tremendous blow, as you see. But Lord Lashmore—”
Dr. Cairn stepped closer to the dead man.
“Heart,” he said. “He died of sheer horror.”
He turned to Chambers, who stood in the open doorway behind him.
“The dressing-room door is open,” he said. “I had advised Lord Lashmore to lock it.”
“Yes, sir; his lordship meant to, sir. But we found that the lock had been broken. It was to have been replaced to-morrow.”
Dr. Cairn turned to his son.
“You hear?” he said. “No doubt you have some idea respecting which of the visitors to this unhappy house took the trouble to break that lock? It was to have been replaced to-morrow; hence the tragedy of to-night.” He addressed Chambers again. “Why did the servants leave the house to-night?”
The man was shaking pitifully.
“It was the laughter, sir! the laughter! I can never forget it! I was sleeping in an adjoining room and I had the key of his lordship’s door in case of need. But when I heard his lordship cry out — quick and loud, sir — like a man that’s been stabbed — I jumped up to come to him. Then, as I was turning the doorknob — of my room, sir — someone, something, began to laugh! It was in here; it was in here, gentlemen! It wasn’t — her ladyship; it wasn’t like any woman. I can’t describe it; but it woke up every soul in the house.”
“When you came in?”
“I daren’t come in, sir! I ran downstairs and called up Sir Elwin Groves. Before he came, all the rest of the household huddled on their clothes and went away—”
“It was I who found him,” interrupted Sir Elwin— “as you see him now; with Lady Lashmore where she lies. I have ‘phoned for nurses.”
“Ah!” said Dr. Cairn; “I shall come back, Groves, but I have a small matter to attend to.”
He drew his son from the room. On the stair:
“You understand?” he asked. “The spirit of Mirza came to him again, clothed in his wife’s body. Lord Lashmore felt the teeth at his throat, awoke instantly and struck out. As he did so, he turned the torch upon her, and recognised — his wife! His heart completed the tragedy, and so — to the laughter of the sorceress — passed the last of the house of Dhoon.”
The cab was waiti
ng. Dr. Cairn gave an address in Piccadilly, and the two entered. As the cab moved off, the doctor took a revolver from his pocket, with some loose cartridges, charged the five chambers, and quietly replaced the weapon in his pocket again.
One of the big doors of the block of chambers was found to be ajar, and a porter proved to be yet in attendance.
“Mr. Ferrara?” began Dr. Cairn.
“You are five minutes too late, sir,” said the man. “He left by motor at ten past twelve. He’s gone abroad, sir.”
CHAPTER XI
CAIRO
The exact manner in which mental stress will effect a man’s physical health is often difficult to predict. Robert Cairn was in the pink of condition at the time that he left Oxford to take up his London appointment; but the tremendous nervous strain wrought upon him by this series of events wholly outside the radius of normal things had broken him up physically, where it might have left unscathed a more highly strung, though less physically vigorous man.
Those who have passed through a nerve storm such as this which had laid him low will know that convalescence seems like a welcome awakening from a dreadful dream. It was indeed in a state between awaking and dreaming that Robert Cairn took counsel with his father — the latter more pale than was his wont and somewhat anxious-eyed — and determined upon an Egyptian rest-cure.
“I have made it all right at the office, Rob,” said Dr. Cairn. “In three weeks or so you will receive instructions at Cairo to write up a series of local articles. Until then, my boy, complete rest and — don’t worry; above all, don’t worry. You and I have passed through a saturnalia of horror, and you, less inured to horrors than I, have gone down. I don’t wonder.”
“Where is Antony Ferrara?”
Dr. Cairn shook his head and his eyes gleamed with a sudden anger. “For God’s sake don’t mention his name!” he said. “That topic is taboo, Rob. I may tell you, however, that he has left England.”
In this unreal frame of mind, then, and as one but partly belonging to the world of things actual, Cairn found himself an invalid, who but yesterday had been a hale man; found himself shipped for Port Said; found himself entrained for Cairo; and with an awakening to the realities of life, an emerging from an ill-dream to lively interest in the novelties of Egypt, found himself following the red-jerseyed Shepheard’s porter along the corridor of the train and out on to the platform.
A short drive through those singular streets where East meets West and mingles, in the sudden, violet dusk of Lower Egypt, and he was amid the bustle of the popular hotel.
Sime was there, whom he had last seen at Oxford, Sime the phlegmatic. He apologised for not meeting the train, but explained that his duties had rendered it impossible. Sime was attached temporarily to an archæological expedition as medical man, and his athletic and somewhat bovine appearance contrasted oddly with the unhealthy gauntness of Cairn.
“I only got in from Wasta ten minutes ago, Cairn. You must come out to the camp when I return; the desert air will put you on your feet again in no time.”
Sime was unemotional, but there was concern in his voice and in his glance, for the change in Cairn was very startling. Although he knew something, if but very little, of certain happenings in London — gruesome happenings centering around the man called Antony Ferrara — he avoided any reference to them at the moment.
Seated upon the terrace, Robert Cairn studied the busy life in the street below with all the interest of a new arrival in the Capital of the Near East. More than ever, now, his illness and the things which had led up to it seemed to belong to a remote dream existence. Through the railings at his feet a hawker was thrusting fly-whisks, and imploring him in complicated English to purchase one. Vendors of beads, of fictitious “antiques,” of sweetmeats, of what-not; fortune-tellers — and all that chattering horde which some obscure process of gravitation seems to hurl against the terrace of Shepheard’s, buzzed about him. Carriages and motor cars, camels and donkeys mingled, in the Shâria Kâmel Pasha. Voices American, voices Anglo-Saxon, guttural German tones, and softly murmured Arabic merged into one indescribable chord of sound; but to Robert Cairn it was all unspeakably restful. He was quite contented to sit there sipping his whisky and soda, and smoking his pipe. Sheer idleness was good for him and exactly what he wanted, and idling amid that unique throng is idleness de luxe.
Sime watched him covertly, and saw that his face had acquired lines — lines which told of the fires through which he had passed. Something, it was evident — something horrible — had seared his mind. Considering the many indications of tremendous nervous disaster in Cairn, Sime wondered how near his companion had come to insanity, and concluded that he had stood upon the frontiers of that grim land of phantoms, and had only been plucked back in the eleventh hour.
Cairn glanced around with a smile, from the group of hawkers who solicited his attention upon the pavement below.
“This is a delightful scene,” he said. “I could sit here for hours; but considering that it’s some time after sunset it remains unusually hot, doesn’t it?”
“Rather!” replied Sime. “They are expecting Khamsîn — the hot wind, you know. I was up the river a week ago and we struck it badly in Assouan. It grew as black as night and one couldn’t breathe for sand. It’s probably working down to Cairo.”
“From your description I am not anxious to make the acquaintance of Khamsîn!”
Sime shook his head, knocking out his pipe into the ash-tray.
“This is a funny country,” he said reflectively. “The most weird ideas prevail here to this day — ideas which properly belong to the Middle Ages. For instance” — he began to recharge the hot bowl— “it is not really time for Khamsîn, consequently the natives feel called upon to hunt up some explanation of its unexpected appearance. Their ideas on the subject are interesting, if idiotic. One of our Arabs (we are excavating in the Fayûm, you know), solemnly assured me yesterday that the hot wind had been caused by an Efreet, a sort of Arabian Nights’ demon, who has arrived in Egypt!”
He laughed gruffly, but Cairn was staring at him with a curious expression. Sime continued:
“When I got to Cairo this evening I found news of the Efreet had preceded me. Honestly, Cairn, it is all over the town — the native town, I mean. All the shopkeepers in the Mûski are talking about it. If a puff of Khamsîn should come, I believe they would permanently shut up shop and hide in their cellars — if they have any! I am rather hazy on modern Egyptian architecture.”
Cairn nodded his head absently.
“You laugh,” he said, “but the active force of a superstition — what we call a superstition — is sometimes a terrible thing.”
Sime stared.
“Eh!” The medical man had suddenly come uppermost; he recollected that this class of discussion was probably taboo.
“You may doubt the existence of Efreets,” continued Cairn, “but neither you nor I can doubt the creative power of thought. If a trained hypnotist, by sheer concentration, can persuade his subject that the latter sits upon the brink of a river fishing when actually he sits upon a platform in a lecture-room, what result should you expect from a concentration of thousands of native minds upon the idea that an Efreet is visiting Egypt?”
Sime stared in a dull way peculiar to him.
“Rather a poser,” he said. “I have a glimmer of a notion what you mean.”
“Don’t you think—”
“If you mean don’t I think the result would be the creation of an Efreet, no, I don’t!”
“I hardly mean that, either,” replied Cairn, “but this wave of superstition cannot be entirely unproductive; all that thought energy directed to one point—”
Sime stood up.
“We shall get out of our depth,” he replied conclusively. He considered the ground of discussion an unhealthy one; this was the territory adjoining that of insanity.
A fortune-teller from India proffered his services incessantly.
“Imshi!
imshi!” growled Sime.
“Hold on,” said Cairn smiling; “this chap is not an Egyptian; let us ask him if he has heard the rumour respecting the Efreet!”
Sime reseated himself rather unwillingly. The fortune-teller spread his little carpet and knelt down in order to read the palm of his hypothetical client, but Cairn waved him aside.
“I don’t want my fortune told!” he said; “but I will give you your fee,” — with a smile at Sime— “for a few minutes’ conversation.”
“Yes, sir, yes, sir!” The Indian was all attention.
“Why” — Cairn pointed forensically at the fortune-teller— “why is Khamsîn come so early this year?”
The Indian spread his hands, palms upward.
“How should I know?” he replied in his soft, melodious voice. “I am not of Egypt; I can only say what is told to me by the Egyptians.”
“And what is told to you?”
Sime rested his hands upon his knees, bending forward curiously. He was palpably anxious that Cairn should have confirmation of the Efreet story from the Indian.
“They tell me, sir,” — the man’s voice sank musically low— “that a thing very evil” — he tapped a long brown finger upon his breast— “not as I am” — he tapped Sime upon the knee— “not as he, your friend” — he thrust the long finger at Cairn— “not as you, sir; not a man at all, though something like a man! not having any father and mother—”
“You mean,” suggested Sime, “a spirit?”
The fortune-teller shook his head.
“They tell me, sir, not a spirit — a man, but not as other men; a very, very bad man; one that the great king, long, long ago, the king you call Wise — —”
“Solomon?” suggested Cairn.
“Yes, yes, Suleyman! — one that he, when he banish all the tribe of the demons from earth — one that he not found.”
“One he overlooked?” jerked Sime.
“Yes, yes, overlook! A very evil man, my gentlemen. They tell me he has come to Egypt. He come not from the sea, but across the great desert—”