by Sax Rohmer
She moved nervously, staring across at the blank wall before her. With her little satin shoe she tapped the carpet, biting her under lip and seeming to be listening. Nothing stirred. Not even an echo of busy Bond Street penetrated to the place. Mrs. Irvin unfastened her cloak and allowed it to fall back upon the settee. Her bare shoulders looked waxen and unnatural in the weird light which shone down upon them. She was breathing rapidly.
The minutes passed by in unbroken silence. So still was the room that Mrs. Irvin could hear the faint crackling sound made by the burning charcoal in the brass vessel near her. Wisps of blue-grey smoke arose through the perforated lid and she began to watch them fascinatedly, so lithe they seemed, like wraiths of serpents creeping up the green draperies.
So she was seated, her foot still restlessly tapping, but her gaze arrested by the hypnotic movements of the smoke, when at last a sound from the outer world, penetrated to the room. A church clock struck the hour of seven, its clangor intruding upon the silence only as a muffled boom. Almost coincident with the last stroke came the sweeter note of a silver gong from somewhere close at hand.
Mrs. Irvin started, and her eyes turned instantly in the direction of the greenly draped wall before her. Her pupils had grown suddenly dilated, and she clenched her hands tightly.
The light above her head went out.
Now that the moment was come to which she had looked forward with mingled hope and terror, long pent-up emotion threatened to overcome her, and she trembled wildly.
Out of the darkness dawned a vague light and in it a shape seemed to take form. As the light increased the effect was as though part of the wall had become transparent so as to reveal the interior of an inner room where a figure was seated in a massive ebony chair. The figure was that of an oriental, richly robed and wearing a white turban. His long slim hands, of the color of old ivory, rested upon the arms of the chair, and on the first finger of the right hand gleamed a big talismanic ring. The face of the seated man was lowered, but from under heavy brows his abnormally large eyes regarded her fixedly.
So dim the light remained that it was impossible to discern the details with anything like clearness, but that the clean-shaven face of the man with those wonderful eyes was strikingly and intellectually handsome there could be no doubt.
This was Kazmah, “the dream reader,” and although Mrs. Irvin had seen him before, his statuesque repose and the weirdness of his unfaltering gaze thrilled her uncannily.
Kazmah slightly raised his hand in greeting: the big ring glittered in the subdued light.
“Tell me your dream,” came a curious mocking voice; “and I will read its portent.”
Such was the set formula with which Kazmah opened all interviews. He spoke with a slight and not unmusical accent. He lowered his hand again. The gaze of those brilliant eyes remained fixed upon the woman’s face. Moistening her lips, Mrs. Irvin spoke.
“Dreams! What I have to say does not belong to dreams, but to reality!” She laughed unmirthfully. “You know well enough why I am here.”
She paused.
“Why are you here?”
“You know! You know!” Suddenly into her voice had come the unmistakable note of hysteria. “Your theatrical tricks do not impress me. I know what you are! A spy — an eavesdropper who watches — watches, and listens! But you may go too far! I am nearly desperate — do you understand? — nearly desperate. Speak! Move! Answer me!”
But Kazmah preserved his uncanny repose.
“You are distracted,” he said. “I am sorry for you. But why do you come to me with your stories of desperation? You have insisted upon seeing me. I am here.”
“And you play with me — taunt me!”
“The remedy is in your hands.”
“For the last time, I tell you I will never do it! Never, never, never!”
“Then why do you complain? If you cannot afford to pay for your amusements, and you refuse to compromise in a simple manner, why do you approach me?”
“Oh, my God!” She moaned and swayed dizzily— “have pity on me! Who are you, what are you, that you can bring ruin on a woman because—” She uttered a choking sound, but continued hoarsely, “Raise your head. Let me see your face. As heaven is my witness, I am ruined — ruined!”
“Tomorrow—”
“I cannot wait for tomorrow—”
That quivering, hoarse cry betrayed a condition of desperate febrile excitement. Mrs. Irvin was capable of proceeding to the wildest extremities. Clearly the mysterious Egyptian recognized this to be the case, for slowly raising his hand:
“I will communicate with you,” he said, and the words were spoken almost hurriedly. “Depart in peace—”; a formula wherewith he terminated every seance. He lowered his hand.
The silver gong sounded again — and the dim light began to fade.
Thereupon the unhappy woman acted; the long suppressed outburst came at last. Stepping rapidly to the green transparent veil behind which Kazmah was seated, she wrenched it asunder and leapt toward the figure in the black chair.
“You shall not trick me!” she panted. “Hear me out or I go straight to the police — now — now!” She grasped the hands of Kazmah as they rested motionless, on the chair-arms.
Complete darkness came.
Out of it rose a husky, terrified cry — a second, louder cry; and then a long, wailing scream... horror-laden as that of one who has touched some slumbering reptile....
CHAPTER IV. THE CLOSED DOOR
Rather less than five minutes later a taxicab drew up in old Bond Street, and from it Quentin Gray leapt out impetuously and ran in at the doorway leading to Kazmah’s stairs. So hurried was his progress that he collided violently with a little man who, carrying himself with a pronounced stoop, was slinking furtively out.
The little man reeled at the impact and almost fell, but:
“Hang it all!” cried Gray irritably. “Why the devil don’t you look where you’re going!”
He glared angrily into the face of the other. It was a peculiar and rememberable face, notable because of a long, sharp, hooked nose and very little, foxy, brown eyes; a sly face to which a small, fair moustache only added insignificance. It was crowned by a wide-brimmed bowler hat which the man wore pressed down upon his ears like a Jew pedlar.
“Why!” cried Gray, “this is the second time tonight you have jostled me!”
He thought he had recognized the man for the same who had been following himself, Mrs. Irvin and Sir Lucien Pyne along old Bond Street.
A smile, intended to be propitiatory, appeared upon the pale face.
“No, sir, excuse me, sir—”
“Don’t deny it!” said Gray angrily. “If I had the time I should give you in charge as a suspicious loiterer.”
Calling to the cabman to wait, he ran up the stairs to the second floor landing. Before the painted door bearing the name of Kazmah he halted, and as the door did not open, stamped impatiently, but with no better result.
At that, since there was neither bell nor knocker, he raised his fist and banged loudly.
No one responded to the summons.
“Hi, there!” he shouted. “Open the door! Pyne! Rita!”
Again he banged — and yet again. Then he paused, listening, his ear pressed to the panel.
He could detect no sound of movement within. Fists clenched, he stood staring at the closed door, and his fresh color slowly deserted him and left him pale.
“Damn him!” he muttered savagely. “Damn him! he has fooled me!”
Passionate and self-willed, he was shaken by a storm of murderous anger. That Pyne had planned this trick, with Rita Irvin’s consent, he did not doubt, and his passive dislike of the man became active hatred of the woman he dared not think. He had for long looked upon Sir Lucien in the light of a rival, and the irregularity of his own infatuation for another’s wife in no degree lessened his resentment.
Again he pressed his ear to the door, and listened intently. Perhaps they were
hiding within. Perhaps this charlatan, Kazmah, was an accomplice in the pay of Sir Lucien. Perhaps this was a secret place of rendezvous.
To the manifest absurdity of such a conjecture he was blind in his anger. But that he was helpless, befooled, he recognized; and with a final muttered imprecation he turned and slowly descended the stair. A lingering hope was dispelled when, looking right and left along Bond Street, he failed to perceive the missing pair.
The cabman glanced at him interrogatively. “I shall not require you,” said Gray, and gave the man half-a-crown.
Busy with his poisonous conjectures, he remained all unaware of the presence of a furtive, stooping figure which lurked behind the railings of the arcade at this point linking old Bond Street to Albemarle Street. Nor had the stooping stranger any wish to attract Gray’s attention. Most of the shops in the narrow lane were already closed, although the florist’s at the corner remained open, but of the shadow which lay along the greater part of the arcade this alert watcher took every advantage. From the recess formed by a shop door he peered out at Gray, where the light of a street lamp fell upon him, studying his face, his movements, with unrelaxing vigilance.
Gray, following some moments of indecision, strode off towards Piccadilly. The little man came out cautiously from his hiding-place and looked after him. Out of a dark porch, ten paces along Bond Street, appeared a burly figure to fall into step a few yards behind Gray. The little man licked his lips appreciatively and returned to the doorway below the premises of Kazmah.
Reaching Piccadilly, Gray stood for a time on the corner, indifferent to the jostling of passers-by. Finally he crossed, walked along to the Prince’s Restaurant, and entered the lobby. He glanced at his wrist-watch. It registered the hour of seven-twenty-five.
He cancelled his order for a table and was standing staring moodily towards the entrance when the doors swung open and a man entered who stepped straight up to him, hand extended, and:
“Glad to see you, Gray,” he said. “What’s the trouble?”
Quentin Gray stared as if incredulous at the speaker, and it was with an unmistakable note of welcome in his voice that he replied:
“Seton! Seton Pasha!”
The frown disappeared from Gray’s forehead, and he gripped the other’s hand in hearty greeting. But:
“Stick to plain Seton!” said the new-comer, glancing rapidly about him. “Ottoman titles are not fashionable.”
The speaker was a man of arresting personality. Above medium height, well but leanly built, the face of Seton “Pasha” was burned to a deeper shade than England’s wintry sun is capable of producing. He wore a close-trimmed beard and moustache, and the bronze on his cheeks enhanced the brightness of his grey eyes and rendered very noticeable a slight frosting of the dark hair above his temples. He had the indescribable air of a “sure” man, a sound man to have beside one in a tight place; and looking into the rather grim face, Quentin Gray felt suddenly ashamed of himself. From Seton Pasha he knew that he could keep nothing back. He knew that presently he should find himself telling this quiet, brown-skinned man the whole story of his humiliation — and he knew that Seton would not spare his feelings.
“My dear fellow,” he said, “you must pardon me if I sometimes fail to respect your wishes in this matter. When I left the East the name of Seton Pasha was on everybody’s tongue. But are you alone?”
“I am. I only arrived in London tonight and in England this morning.”
“Were you thinking of dining here?”
“No; I saw you through the doorway as I was passing. But this will do as well as another place. I gather that you are disengaged. Perhaps you will dine with me?”
“Splendid!” cried Gray. “Wait a moment. Perhaps my table hasn’t gone!”
He ran off in his boyish, impetuous fashion, and Seton watched him, smiling quietly.
The table proved to be available, and ere long the two were discussing an excellent dinner. Gray lost much of his irritability and began to talk coherently upon topics of general interest. Presently, following an interval during which he had been covertly watching his companion:
“Do you know, Seton,” he said, “you are the one man in London whose company I could have tolerated tonight.”
“My arrival was peculiarly opportune.”
“Your arrivals are always peculiarly opportune.” Gray stared at Seton with an expression of puzzled admiration. “I don’t think I shall ever understand your turning up immediately before the Senussi raid in Egypt. Do you remember? I was with the armored cars.”
“I remember perfectly.”
“Then you vanished in the same mysterious fashion, and the C. O. was a sphinx on the subject. I next saw you strolling out of the gate at Baghdad. How the devil you’d got to Baghdad, considering that you didn’t come with us and that you weren’t with the cavalry, heaven only knows!”
“No,” said Seton judicially, gazing through his uplifted wine-glass; “when one comes to consider the matter without prejudice it is certainly odd. But do I know the lady to whose non-appearance I owe the pleasure of your company tonight?”
Quentin Gray stared at him blankly.
“Really, Seton, you amaze me. Did I say that I had an appointment with a lady?”
“My dear Gray, when I see a man standing biting his nails and glaring out into Piccadilly from a restaurant entrance I ask myself a question. When I learn that he has just cancelled an order for a table for two I answer it.”
Gray laughed. “You always make me feel so infernally young, Seton.”
“Good!”
“Yes, it’s good to feel young, but bad to feel a young fool; and that’s what I feel — and what I am. Listen!”
Leaning across the table so that the light of the shaded lamp fell fully upon his flushed, eager face, Gray, not without embarrassment, told his companion of the “dirty trick” — so he phrased it — which Sir Lucien Pyne had played upon him. In conclusion:
“What would you do, Seton?” he asked.
Seton sat regarding him in silence with a cool, calculating stare which some men had termed insolent, absently tapping his teeth with the gold rim of a monocle which he carried but apparently never used for any other purpose; and it was at about this time that a long low car passed near the door of the restaurant, crossing the traffic stream of Piccadilly to draw up at the corner of old Bond Street.
From the car Monte Irvin alighted and, telling the man to wait, set out on foot. Ten paces along Bond Street he encountered a small, stooping figure which became detached from the shadows of a shop door. The light of a street lamp shone down upon the sharp, hooked nose and into the cunning little brown eyes of Brisley, of Spinker’s Detective Agency. Monte Irvin started.
“Ah, Brisley!” he said, “I was looking for you. Are they still there?”
“Probably, sir.” Brisley licked his lips. “My colleague, Gunn, reports no one came out whilst I was away ‘phoning.”
“But the whole thing seems preposterous. Are there no other offices in the block where they might be?”
“I personally saw Mr. Gray, Sir Lucien Pyne and the lady go into Kazmah’s. At that time — roughly, ten to seven — all the other offices had been closed, approximately, one hour.”
“There is absolutely no possibility that they might have come out unseen by you?”
“None, sir. I should not have troubled a client if in doubt. Here’s Gunn.”
Old Bond Street now was darkened and deserted; the yellow mist had turned to fine rain, and Gunn, his hands thrust in his pockets, was sheltering under the porch of the arcade. Gunn possessed a purple complexion which attained to full vigor of coloring in the nasal region. His moustache of dirty grey was stained brown in the centre as if by frequent potations of stout, and his bulky figure was artificially enlarged by the presence of two overcoats, the outer of which was a waterproof and the inner a blue garment appreciably longer both in sleeve and skirt than the former. The effect produced was one of great novelty.
Gunn touched the brim of his soft felt hat, which he wore turned down all round apparently in imitation of a flower-pot.
“All snug, sir,” he said, hoarsely and confidentially, bending forward and breathing the words into Irvin’s ear. “Snug as a bee in a hive. You’re as good as a bachelor again.”
Monte Irvin mentally recoiled.
“Lead the way to the door of this place,” he said tersely.
“Yes, sir, this way, sir. Be careful of the step there. You may remark that the outer door is not yet closed. I am informed upon reliable authority as the last to go locks the door. Hence we perceive that the last has not yet gone. It is likewise opened by the first to come of a mornin’. Here we are, sir; door on the right.”
The landing was in darkness, but as Gunn spoke he directed the ray of a pocket lamp upon a bronze plate bearing the name “Kazmah.” He rested one hand upon his hip.
“All snug,” he repeated; “as snug as a eel in mud. The decree nisi is yours, sir. As an alderman of the City of London and a Justice of the Peace you are entitled to call a police officer—”
“Hold your tongue!” rapped Irvin. “You’ve been drinking: and I place no reliance whatever in your evidence. I do not believe that my wife or any one else but ourselves is upon these premises.”
The watery eyes of the insulted man protruded unnaturally. “Drinkin’!” he whispered, “drink—”
But indignation now deprived Gunn of speech and:
“Excuse me, sir,” interrupted the nasal voice of Brisley, “but I can absolutely answer for Gunn. Reputation of the Agency at stake. Worked with us for three years. Parties undoubtedly on the premises as reported.”
“Drink—” whispered Gunn.
“I shall be glad,” said Monte Irvin, and his voice shook emotionally, “if you will lend me your pocket lamp. I am naturally upset. Will you kindly both go downstairs. I will call if I want you.”
The two men obeyed, Gunn muttering hoarsely to Brisley; and Monte Irvin was left standing on the landing, the lamp in his hand. He waited until he knew from the sound of their footsteps that the pair had regained the street, then, resting his arm against the closed door, and pressing his forehead to the damp sleeve of his coat, he stood awhile, the lamp, which he held limply, shining down upon the floor.