by Sax Rohmer
Robert Cairn began to beat his fist into the palm of his left hand convulsively. Yet his father did not stir, but sat there, a black-shadowed wrinkle between his brows....
“By God!”
The doctor sprang to his feet, and with feverish haste began to fumble amongst a bunch of keys.
“What is it, sir! What is it?”
The doctor unlocked the drawer of the big table, and drew out a thick manuscript written in small and exquisitely neat characters. He placed it under the lamp, and rapidly began to turn the pages.
“It is hope, Rob!” he said with quiet self-possession.
Robert Cairn came round the table, and leant over his father’s shoulder.
“Sir Michael Ferrara’s writing!”
“His unpublished book, Rob. We were to have completed it, together, but death claimed him, and in view of the contents, I — perhaps superstitiously — decided to suppress it.... Ah!”
He placed the point of his finger upon a carefully drawn sketch, designed to illustrate the text. It was evidently a careful copy from the Ancient Egyptian. It represented a row of priestesses, each having her hair plaited in a thick queue, standing before a priest armed with a pair of scissors. In the centre of the drawing was an altar, upon which stood vases of flowers; and upon the right ranked a row of mummies, corresponding in number with the priestesses upon the left.
“By God!” repeated Dr. Cairn, “we were both wrong, we were both wrong!”
“What do you mean, sir? for Heaven’s sake, what do you mean?”
“This drawing,” replied Dr. Cairn, “was copied from the wall of a certain tomb — now reclosed. Since we knew that the tomb was that of one of the greatest wizards who ever lived in Egypt, we knew also that the inscription had some magical significance. We knew that the flowers represented here, were a species of the extinct sacred Lotus. All our researches did not avail us to discover for what purpose or by what means these flowers were cultivated. Nor could we determine the meaning of the cutting off,” — he ran his fingers over the sketch— “of the priestesses’ hair by the high priest of the goddess—”
“What goddess, sir?”
“A goddess, Rob, of which Egyptology knows nothing! — a mystical religion the existence of which has been vaguely suspected by a living French savant ... but this is no time—”
Dr. Cairn closed the manuscript, replaced it and relocked the drawer. He glanced at the clock.
“A quarter past one,” he said. “Come, Rob!”
Without hesitation, his son followed him from the house. The car was waiting, and shortly they were speeding through the deserted streets, back to the house where death in a strange guise was beckoning to Myra Duquesne. As the car started —
“Do you know,” asked Dr. Cairn, “if Saunderson has bought any orchids — quite recently, I mean?”
“Yes,” replied his son dully; “he bought a small parcel only a fortnight ago.”
“A fortnight!” cried Dr. Cairn excitedly— “you are sure of that? You mean that the purchase was made since Ferrara—”
“Ceased to visit the house? Yes. Why! — it must have been the very day after!”
Dr. Cairn clearly was labouring under tremendous excitement.
“Where did he buy these orchids?” he asked, evenly.
“From someone who came to the house — someone he had never dealt with before.”
The doctor, his hands resting upon his knees, was rapidly drumming with his fingers.
“And — did he cultivate them?”
“Two only proved successful. One is on the point of blooming — if it is not blooming already. He calls it the ‘Mystery.’”
At that, the doctor’s excitement overcame him. Suddenly leaning out of the window, he shouted to the chauffeur:
“Quicker! Quicker! Never mind risks. Keep on top speed!”
“What is it, sir?” cried his son. “Heavens! what is it?”
“Did you say that it might have bloomed, Rob?”
“Myra” — Robert Cairn swallowed noisily— “told me three days ago that it was expected to bloom before the end of the week.”
“What is it like?”
“A thing four feet high, with huge egg-shaped buds.”
“Merciful God grant that we are in time,” whispered Dr. Cairn. “I could believe once more in the justice of Heaven, if the great knowledge of Sir Michael Ferrara should prove to be the weapon to destroy the fiend whom we raised! — he and I — may we be forgiven!”’
Robert Cairn’s excitement was dreadful.
“Can you tell me nothing?” he cried. “What do you hope? What do you fear?”
“Don’t ask me, Rob,” replied his father; “you will know within five minutes.”
The car indeed was leaping along the dark suburban roads at a speed little below that of an express train. Corners the chauffeur negotiated in racing fashion, so that at times two wheels thrashed the empty air; and once or twice the big car swung round as upon a pivot only to recover again in response to the skilled tactics of the driver.
They roared down the sloping narrow lane to the gate of Mr. Saunderson’s house with a noise like the coming of a great storm, and were nearly hurled from their seats when the brakes were applied, and the car brought to a standstill.
Dr. Cairn leapt out, pushed open the gate and ran up to the house, his son closely following. There was a light in the hall and Miss Saunderson who had expected them, and had heard their stormy approach, already held the door open. In the hall —
“Wait here one moment,” said Dr. Cairn.
Ignoring Saunderson, who had come out from the library, he ran upstairs. A minute later, his face very pale, he came running down again.
“She is worse?” began Saunderson, “but—”
“Give me the key of the orchid-house!” said Dr. Cairn tersely.
“Orchid-house!—”
“Don’t hesitate. Don’t waste a second. Give me the key.”
Saunderson’s expression showed that he thought Dr. Cairn to be mad, but nevertheless he plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a key-ring. Dr. Cairn snatched it in a flash.
“Which key?” he snapped.
“The Chubb, but—”
“Follow me, Rob!”
Down the hall he raced, his son beside him, and Mr. Saunderson following more slowly. Out into the garden he went and over the lawn towards the shrubbery.
The orchid-houses lay in dense shadow; but the doctor almost threw himself against the door.
“Strike a match!” he panted. Then— “Never mind — I have it!”
The door flew open with a bang. A sickly perfume swept out to them.
“Matches! matches, Rob! this way!”
They went stumbling in. Robert Cairn took out a box of matches — and struck one. His father was further along, in the centre building.
“Your knife, boy — quick! quick!”
As the dim light crept along the aisle between the orchids, Robert Cairn saw his father’s horror-stricken face ... and saw a vivid green plant growing in a sort of tub, before which the doctor stood. Four huge, smooth, egg-shaped buds grew upon the leafless stems; two of them were on the point of opening, and one already showed a delicious, rosy flush about its apex.
Dr. Cairn grasped the knife which Robert tremblingly offered him. The match went out. There was a sound of hacking, a soft swishing, and a dull thud upon the tiled floor.
As another match fluttered into brief life, the mysterious orchid, severed just above the soil, fell from the tub. Dr. Cairn stamped the swelling buds under his feet. A profusion of colourless sap was pouring out upon the floor.
Above the intoxicating odour of the place, a smell like that of blood made itself perceptible.
The second match went out.
“Another—”
Dr. Cairn’s voice rose barely above a whisper. With fingers quivering, Robert Cairn managed to light a third match. His father, from a second tub, tore out a sma
ller plant and ground its soft tentacles beneath his feet. The place smelt like an operating theatre. The doctor swayed dizzily as the third match became extinguished, clutching at his son for support.
“Her life was in it, boy!” he whispered. “She would have died in the hour that it bloomed! The priestesses — were consecrated to this.... Let me get into the air—”
Mr. Saunderson, silent with amazement, met them.
“Don’t speak,” said Dr. Cairn to him. “Look at the dead stems of your ‘Mystery.’ You will find a thread of bright hair in the heart of each!...”
Dr. Cairn opened the door of the sick-room and beckoned to his son, who, haggard, trembling, waited upon the landing.
“Come in, boy,” he said softly— “and thank God!”
Robert Cairn, on tiptoe, entered. Myra Duquesne, pathetically pale but with that dreadful, ominous shadow gone from her face, turned her wistful eyes towards the door; and their wistfulness became gladness.
“Rob!” she sighed — and stretched out her arms.
CHAPTER XXV
CAIRN MEETS FERRARA
Not the least of the trials which Robert Cairn experienced during the time that he and his father were warring with their supernaturally equipped opponent was that of preserving silence upon this matter which loomed so large in his mind, and which already had changed the course of his life.
Sometimes he met men who knew Ferrara, but who knew him only as a man about town of somewhat evil reputation. Yet even to these he dared not confide what he knew of the true Ferrara; undoubtedly they would have deemed him mad had he spoken of the knowledge and of the deeds of this uncanny, this fiendish being. How would they have listened to him had he sought to tell them of the den of spiders in Port Said; of the bats of Méydûm; of the secret incense and of how it was made; of the numberless murders and atrocities, wrought by means not human, which stood to the account of this adopted son of the late Sir Michael Ferrara?
So, excepting his father, he had no confidant; for above all it was necessary to keep the truth from Myra Duquesne — from Myra around whom his world circled, but who yet thought of the dreadful being who wielded the sorcery of forgotten ages, as a brother. Whilst Myra lay ill — not yet recovered from the ghastly attack made upon her life by the man whom she trusted — whilst, having plentiful evidence of his presence in London, Dr. Cairn and himself vainly sought for Antony Ferrara; whilst any night might bring some unholy visitant to his rooms, obedient to the will of this modern wizard; whilst these fears, anxieties, doubts, and surmises danced, impish, through his brain, it was all but impossible to pursue with success, his vocation of journalism. Yet for many reasons it was necessary that he should do so, and so he was employed upon a series of articles which were the outcome of his recent visit to Egypt — his editor having given him that work as being less exacting than that which properly falls to the lot of the Fleet Street copy-hunter.
He left his rooms about three o’clock in the afternoon, in order to seek, in the British Museum library, a reference which he lacked. The day was an exceedingly warm one, and he derived some little satisfaction from the fact that, at his present work, he was not called upon to endue the armour of respectability. Pipe in mouth, he made his way across the Strand towards Bloomsbury.
As he walked up the steps, crossed the hall-way, and passed in beneath the dome of the reading-room, he wondered if, amid those mountains of erudition surrounding him, there was any wisdom so strange, and so awful, as that of Antony Ferrara.
He soon found the information for which he was looking, and having copied it into his notebook, he left the reading-room. Then, as he was recrossing the hall near the foot of the principal staircase, he paused. He found himself possessed by a sudden desire to visit the Egyptian Rooms, upstairs. He had several times inspected the exhibits in those apartments, but never since his return from the land to whose ancient civilisation they bore witness.
Cairn was not pressed for time in these days, therefore he turned and passed slowly up the stairs.
There were but few visitors to the grove of mummies that afternoon. When he entered the first room he found a small group of tourists passing idly from case to case; but on entering the second, he saw that he had the apartment to himself. He remembered that his father had mentioned on one occasion that there was a ring in this room which had belonged to the Witch-Queen. Robert Cairn wondered in which of the cases it was exhibited, and by what means he should be enabled to recognise it.
Bending over a case containing scarabs and other amulets, many set in rings, he began to read the inscriptions upon the little tickets placed beneath some of them; but none answered to the description, neither the ticketed nor the unticketed. A second case he examined with like results. But on passing to a third, in an angle near the door, his gaze immediately lighted upon a gold ring set with a strange green stone, engraved in a peculiar way. It bore no ticket, yet as Robert Cairn eagerly bent over it, he knew, beyond the possibility of doubt, that this was the ring of the Witch-Queen.
Where had he seen it, or its duplicate?
With his eyes fixed upon the gleaming stone, he sought to remember. That he had seen this ring before, or one exactly like it, he knew, but strangely enough he was unable to determine where and upon what occasion. So, his hands resting upon the case, he leant, peering down at the singular gem. And as he stood thus, frowning in the effort of recollection, a dull white hand, having long tapered fingers, glided across the glass until it rested directly beneath his eyes. Upon one of the slim fingers was an exact replica of the ring in the case!
Robert Cairn leapt back with a stifled exclamation.
Antony Ferrara stood before him!
“The Museum ring is a copy, dear Cairn,” came the huskily musical, hateful voice; “the one upon my finger is the real one.”
Cairn realised in his own person, the literal meaning of the overworked phrase, “frozen with amazement.” Before him stood the most dangerous man in Europe; a man who had done murder and worse; a man only in name, a demon in nature. His long black eyes half-closed, his perfectly chiselled ivory face expressionless, and his blood-red lips parted in a mirthless smile, Antony Ferrara watched Cairn — Cairn whom he had sought to murder by means of hellish art.
Despite the heat of the day, he wore a heavy overcoat, lined with white fox fur. In his right hand — for his left still rested upon the case — he held a soft hat. With an easy nonchalance, he stood regarding the man who had sworn to kill him, and the latter made no move, uttered no word. Stark amazement held him inert.
“I knew that you were in the Museum, Cairn,” Ferrara continued, still having his basilisk eyes fixed upon the other from beneath the drooping lids, “and I called to you to join me here.”
Still Cairn did not move, did not speak.
“You have acted very harshly towards me in the past, dear Cairn; but because my philosophy consists in an admirable blending of that practised in Sybaris with that advocated by the excellent Zeno; because whilst I am prepared to make my home in a Diogenes’ tub, I, nevertheless, can enjoy the fragrance of a rose, the flavour of a peach—”
The husky voice seemed to be hypnotising Cairn; it was a siren’s voice, thralling him.
“Because,” continued Ferrara evenly, “in common with all humanity I am compound of man and woman, I can resent the enmity which drives me from shore to shore, but being myself a connoisseur of the red lips and laughing eyes of maidenhood — I am thinking, more particularly of Myra — I can forgive you, dear Cairn—”
Then Cairn recovered himself.
“You white-faced cur!” he snarled through clenched teeth; his knuckles whitened as he stepped around the case. “You dare to stand there mocking me—”
Ferrara again placed the case between himself and his enemy.
“Pause, my dear Cairn,” he said, without emotion. “What would you do? Be discreet, dear Cairn; reflect that I have only to call an attendant in order to have you pitched ignominiously into the s
treet.”
“Before God! I will throttle the life from you!” said Cairn, in a voice savagely hoarse.
He sprang again towards Ferrara. Again the latter dodged around the case with an agility which defied the heavier man.
“Your temperament is so painfully Celtic, Cairn,” he protested mockingly. “I perceive quite clearly that you will not discuss this matter judicially. Must I then call for the attendant?”
Cairn clenched his fists convulsively. Through all the tumult of his rage, the fact had penetrated — that he was helpless. He could not attack Ferrara in that place; he could not detain him against his will. For Ferrara had only to claim official protection to bring about the complete discomfiture of his assailant. Across the case containing the duplicate ring, he glared at this incarnate fiend, whom the law, which he had secretly outraged, now served to protect. Ferrara spoke again in his huskily musical voice.
“I regret that you will not be reasonable, Cairn. There is so much that I should like to say to you; there are so many things of interest which I could tell you. Do you know in some respects I am peculiarly gifted, Cairn? At times I can recollect, quite distinctly, particulars of former incarnations. Do you see that priestess lying there, just through the doorway? I can quite distinctly remember having met her when she was a girl; she was beautiful, Cairn. And I can even recall how, one night beside the Nile — but I see that you are growing impatient! If you will not avail yourself of this opportunity, I must bid you good-day—”
He turned and walked towards the door. Cairn leapt after him; but Ferrara, suddenly beginning to run, reached the end of the Egyptian Room and darted out on to the landing, before his pursuer had time to realise what he was about.
At the moment that Ferrara turned the corner ahead of him, Cairn saw something drop. Coming to the end of the room, he stooped and picked up this object, which was a plaited silk cord about three feet in length. He did not pause to examine it more closely, but thrust it into his pocket and raced down the steps after the retreating figure of Ferrara. At the foot, a constable held out his arm, detaining him. Cairn stopped in surprise.