by Sax Rohmer
Perhaps, when names now famous are forgotten, that of Sir Lionel Barton will be remembered; he will be measured at his true stature — as the greatest Orientalist of his century. But, big, lovable, generous, I must nevertheless state quite definitely that he was next to impossible to work with.
When he made that historic discovery, when I realised what we had come for and what we had found, I experienced an attack of cold feet from which up to the moment of this queer awakening I had never wholly recovered.
It’s a poor joke to dig up a Moslem saint, even if he happens to have been really a heretic. I never remembered to have welcomed anything more than Sir Lionel’s decision to trek swiftly south-west to Ispahan…
“Shan! Shan!”
That voice again — and yet I could not escape from my dream. I thought that only two stretches of canvas separated me from the long green box, the iron casket containing those strange fruits of our discovery.
Sir Lionel’s party was not a large one, but I felt that the Moslems were not to be relied upon. It is one thing to excavate the tombs of the Pharaohs; it is a totally different thing in the eyes of an Arab to desecrate the resting place of a true believer, or even of a near-true believer.
To Ali Mahmoud, the headman, I would have trusted my life in Mecca; but the six Egyptians, who, together with Rima, Dr. Van Berg, Sir Lionel, and myself made up the party, although staunch enough ordinarily, had occasioned me grave doubts almost from the moment we had entered Persian territory.
As for the Afghan, Amir Khan…
“Shan!”
I threw off the coil of dreams. I opened my eyes to utter darkness. My right hand automatically reached out for the torch — and in the physical movement came recognition of my true surroundings.
Khorassan? I was not in Khorassan. Nor was I under canvas — had not been under canvas for more than a week. I was in a house in Ispahan, and someone was calling me!
I grasped the torch, pressed the button, and looked about.
A scantily furnished room, I saw, its door of unpainted teak, as were the beams supporting its ceiling. I saw a rug of very good quality upon an otherwise uncarpeted floor, a large table littered with papers, photographs, books, and other odds and ends, and, from where I lay in bed, very little else.
My dream slipped into the background. The doubtful loyalty of our Moslem Egyptian workers counted for nothing, since by now they were probably back in Egypt, having been paid off a week before.
But — the green box! The green box was in Van Berg’s room, on the floor above... and the door directly facing my bed was opening!
I reached down with my left hand. A Colt repeater hung from a nail there. Sir Lionel had taught me this trick. To place a pistol openly beside one’s bed is to arm the enemy; to put it under the pillow is simply stupid. In doubtful environment, the chief invariably used a nail or hook, whichever was practicable, between his bed and the wall.
Directing the ray of my torch upon the moving doors, I waited. As I did so, the door was flung open fully. Light shone upon tousled mahogany-coloured curls and wide-open, startled gray eyes; upon a slim, silk-clad figure!
“Turn the light out, Shan — quick!”
It was Rima who stood in the open doorway.
I switched off the light; but in the instant of pressing the switch I glanced at my watch. The hour was 2 A.M.
CHAPTER TWO. WAILING IN THE AIR
It was one of those situations to which at times I thought the dear old chief took a delight in exposing me. His humour inclined to the sardonic, and in electing, when we left Nineveh, to start off without a break or any leave east into Persia and right up to the Afghan border, he had seriously upset my plans.
Rima, his niece, and I were to have been married on our return to England after the Syrian job. Sir Lionel’s change of plan had scotched that scheme. There was laughter in his twinkling eyes when he had notified me of the fact that information just received demanded our immediate presence in Khorassan.
“But what about the wedding. Chief?” I remember saying.
“Well, what about it, Greville?”
“There are plenty of padres in these parts, and the engagement has been overlong. Besides, after all, Rima and I are wandering about in camp together, from spot to spot…”
“Greville,” he interrupted me, “when you marry Rima, you’re going to be married from my town house. The ceremony will take place at St. Margaret’s, and I shall give the bride away. I don’t care a hoot about the proprieties, Greville. You ought to know that by now. We’re setting out for Khorassan tomorrow morning. Rima is a brilliant photographer, and I want her to come with us. But if she prefers to go back to England — she can go.”
This was the situation in which my brilliant but erratic chief had involved me. And now, at 2 A.M., Rima, with whom I was hungrily in love, had burst into my room in that queer house in Ispahan, and already in the darkness was beside me.
I wonder, indeed I have often wondered, if my make-up is different from that of other men: definitely I am no squire of dames. But, further, I have sometimes thought that although ardour has by no means been left out of me, I have inherited from somewhere an overweight of the practical; so that at any time, and however deeply my affections might be engaged, the job would come before the woman.
So it was now; for, my arm about Rima’s slim, silky waist, her first whispered words in the darkness made me forget how desirable she was and how I longed for the end of this strange interlude, for the breaking down of that barrier unnaturally raised by my erratic chief.
“Shan!” She bent close to my ear. “There was a most awful cry from Dr. Van Berg’s room a few minutes ago!”
I jumped up, still holding her. She was trembling slightly.
“I opened my window and listened. His room is almost right over mine, and I felt certain that was where the cry had come from. But I couldn’t hear anything.”
“Was the voice Van Berg’s?”
“I couldn’t tell, dear. It was a kind of — scream. Then, as I hurried along to wake you, I heard something else—”
She clung to me tightly.
“What, darling?”
“I don’t know!” She shuddered violently. “A sort of dreadful wailing... Shan! I believe it came from the mosque!”
“Then you called out?”
“I didn’t call out till I got right to your door and had it open.”
I understood then that I had confused dreaming with reality. The distant voice, as it had seemed to me, had been that of Rima urgently calling at the opened door.
“It’s the green box!” she whispered, in an even lower tone. “Shan, I’m terrified! You know what happened on Thursday night! It must have been the same sound…”
That thought was on my own mind. Van Berg had been disturbed on Thursday night by an inexplicable happening, an outstanding feature of which had been a strange moaning sound. The chief had declined to take it seriously; but I knew our American colleague for a man of sound common sense not addicted to nervous imaginings.
And the green box was in his room...
Barefooted, I stepped towards the door, releasing Rima, whom I had been holding tightly.
“Stay here, darling,” I said, “unless I call you.”
I crept out into the corridor. It was dimly lighted a few paces along by a high, barred window. Almost opposite in the narrow street stood a deserted mosque, its minaret, from the balcony of which no mueddin had called for many years, overlooking the roof of our temporary residence. Moonlight, reflected from the dingy yellow wall of this mosque, vaguely illuminated the passage ahead of me.
The once holy building had a horrible history, and I knew that Rima associated the sound she had heard with the legend of the mosque.
Stock still I stood for a moment, listening.
The house was silent as a vault. It possessed three floors. The rooms beneath on the ground floor contained the stored furniture — or part of it — of the owner from wh
om Sir Lionel had leased the place. The ground-floor windows were heavily barred, and Ali Mahmoud slept in the lobby; so that none could enter without arousing him.
There were four rooms above, two of them unoccupied. Locked in one were a pair of Caspian kittens, beautiful little creatures with fur like finest silk, destined for the chief’s private menagerie, practical zoology being one of his hobbies. In the end, or southeast, room, Dr. Van Berg was quartered. Our records, the bulk of our photographs, and other valuables were in his charge as well as the green box.
No sound disturbed the silence.
I advanced cautiously in the direction of the staircase. The widely open door of Rima’s room was on my left. Moonlight poured in upon the polished uncarpeted floor. Her shutters were open.
Pausing for a moment, puzzled, I suddenly remembered that she had opened them when that cry in the night had disturbed her.
Personally, I kept mine religiously closed against the incursions of nocturnal insects, since we were near the bank of the river and no great distance from a fruit market. I had switched off my torch, the reflected light through the high window being sufficient for my purpose. I passed Rima’s door — then pulled up short, my nerves jangling.
From somewhere, outside the house, and high up, came a singular sound.
It was a sort of whistle in a minor key, resembling nothing so much as a human imitation of a police whistle. It changed, passing from a moan to an indescribable wail... and dying away.
“Shan, did you hear it? That’s the sound!” Rima’s voice reached me in a quavering whisper, and:
“I heard it,” I answered in a low voice. “For God’s sake, stay where you are.”
The chief’s door was ahead of me, in comparative shadow there at the end of the passage. I could see that it was closed: a teak door, ornamented with iron scrollwork. Sir Lionel was a heavy sleeper. A narrow stair opened on the right and led down to the lobby. No sound reached me from beneath. Evidently Ali Mahmoud had not been aroused.
On my left was a stair to the floor above. I crept up.
My nerves were badly jangled, and creaking of the ancient woodwork sounded in my ears like pistol shots. I gained the top corridor. Two windows faced west, commanding a view of low, flat roofs stretching away to a distant prospect of the river. The moonlight was dazzling. In contrast to the passage below it was like stepping from midnight into high noon.
I paused again for a moment, listening intently.
A sound of scurrying movement reached my ears from beyond Van Berg’s closed door. I took a step forward and paused again. Then, my hand on the clumsy native latch:
“Van Berg!” I said softly.
The only reply was a queer soft, plaintive howl.
Let me confess that this nearly unnerved me. A vague but unmistakable menace had been overhanging us from the hour of our momentous discovery in Khorassan. Now, awakened as I had been, my memory repeating over and over again that weird, wailing sound, I recognized that I was by no means at my best.
Clenching my teeth, I raised the latch...
I peered along the narrow room. It extended from the corridor to the opposite side of the house. I saw that the shutters were open in the deep, recessed window. Moonlight reflected from the wall of the mosque afforded scanty illumination.
A sickly sweet perfume hung in the air, strongly resembling that of mimosa, but having a pungency which gripped me by the throat. I pressed the button of my torch.
Some vague thing, indeterminate, streaky, leapt towards me. I shrank back, pistol levelled… And for the second time I heard the sound.
Perhaps I have never been nearer to true panic in my life. That moaning wail seemed to come from outside the house — and from high above. It seemed to vibrate throughout my entire nervous system. It was the most utterly damnable sound to which I had ever listened.
Only my sudden recognition of one of the facts saved me. The Caspian kittens were in the room! I remembered, and gasped in my relief, that the doctor was extremely fond of them. The little creatures, who were very tame, crouched at my feel, looking up at me with their big eyes, appealingly, as it seemed.
A vague stirring came from the depths of the house. The smell of mimosa was overpowering... Probably Rima had run down and aroused Ali Mahmoud.
These ideas, chaotically, with others too numerous to record, flashed through my mind at the same moment that, stricken motionless with horror, I stood staring down upon Dr. Van Berg, where he lay under the light of my torch.
His heavy body was huddled in so strange a position that, what with anger, regret, fear and other unnameable emotions, I could not at first realise what had happened. He was clothed in silk pajamas of an extravagant pattern which he affected, and his fair hair, which he wore long, hung down over his forehead so that it touched the floor.
He was lying across the green box.
He lay in such a way that his big body almost obscured the box from my view. But now I saw that his powerful arms were outstretched, and that his fingers were locked in a death grip upon the handles at either end.
That long moment of horrified inertia passed.
I sprang forward and dropped upon one knee. I tried to speak, but only a husky murmur came. There was blood on the lid of the box, and a pool was gathering upon the floor beside it. I put my hand under Van Berg’s chin and lifted his face. Then I stood upright, feeling very ill.
What I had seen had wiped the slate of consciousness clear of all but one thing. My fingers quivered on the Colt repeater. I wanted the life of the cowardly assassin who had done Van Berg to death — big, gentle, fearless Van Berg. For here was murder — cold-blooded murder!
A sort of buzzing in my ears died away and left me perfectly cool, with just that one desire for retribution burning in my brain. I heard footsteps — muffled voices. I didn’t heed them.
I was staring about the room. Staring at the open window trying to recall details of Van Berg’s story of what had happened on the Thursday night. In the room there was no hiding place, and the window was thirty feet above street level. The mystery of the thing was taking hold of me.
“Greville Effendim,” I heard.
I glanced back over by shoulder. Ali Mahmoud stood in the open doorway — and I saw Rima’s pale face behind him.
“Don’t come in, Rima!” I said hastily. “For God’s sake, don’t come in. Go down and wake the chief.”
CHAPTER THREE. THE GREEN BOX
Upon the horror of that murder in the night, I prefer not to dwell. The mystery of Van Berg’s death defied solution. As I recall the tragic event, I can recapture a sharp picture of Sir Lionel Barton arrayed in neutral-coloured pyjamas and an old dressing gown, his mane of gray hair disordered, his deep-set eyes two danger signals, standing massive, stricken, over the dead man.
The bed had been slept in — so much was evident; and about it the strange odour of mimosa clung more persistently than elsewhere.
There was no stranger on the premises. Of this we had assured ourselves. And for a thirty-foot ladder to have been reared against the window of the room and removed without our knowledge, was a sheer impossibility.
Yet Van Berg had been stabbed to the heart from behind — palpably in an attempt to defend the green box: an attempt which had been successful. But, except that his shutters were open, there was no clue to the identity of his assassin, nor to the means of the latter’s entrance and exit.
“I didn’t hear a sound!” I remember the chief murmuring, looking at me haggard eyed. “I didn’t hear that damnable wailing — it might have told me something. Anyhow, Greville, he died doing his job, and so he’s gone wherever good men go. His death is on my conscience.”
“Why, Chief?”
But he had turned away…
We conformed to the requirements of the fussy local authorities, but got no help from them; and shortly after noon, Mr. Stratton Jean, of the American Legation at Teheran, arrived by air, accompanied by Captain Woodville, a British intellig
ence officer.
I reflected, when they came in from the alighting ground just outside the ancient city, that the caravan route is nearly two hundred and forty miles long, and that in former days a week was allowed for the journey.
It was a strange interview, being in part an inquest upon the dead man. It took place in poor Van Berg’s room, which had always served as a sort of office during the time that we had occupied this house in Ispahan.
There was a big table in the corner near the window laden with indescribable fragments, ranging from Davidian armour to portfolios of photographs and fossilised skulls. There was a rather fine scent bottle, too, of blue glass dating from the reign of Haroun-er-Raschid, and a number of good glazed tiles. A fine illuminated manuscript, very early, of part of the Diwan of Hafiz, one of Sir Lionel’s more recently acquired treasures, lay still open upon the table, for Van Berg had been busy making notes upon the text up to within a few hours of his death.
The doctor’s kit, his riding boots, and other intimate reminders of his genial presence lay littered about the floor; for, apart from the removal of the body, nothing had been disturbed.
That fatal green box, upon which the bloodstains had dried, stood upon the spot where I had found it. The floor was still stained…
Mr. Stratton Jean was a lean Bostonian, gray haired, sallow complexioned, and as expressionless as a Sioux Indian. Captain Woodville was a pretty typical British army officer of thirty-five or so, except for a disconcerting side-glance which I detected once or twice, and which alone revealed — to me, at least, for he had the traditional bored manner — that he was a man of very keen mind.
Mr. Stratton Jean quite definitely adopted the attitude of a coroner, and under his treatment the chief grew notably restive, striding up and down the long, narrow room in a manner reminiscent of a caged polar bear.
Rima, who sat beside me, squeezed my hand nervously, glancing alternately at the two Persian officials who were present, and at her famous uncle. She knew that a storm was brewing, and so did Captain Woodville, for twice I detected him hiding a smile. At last, in reply to some question: