by Sax Rohmer
“It is inescapable: but I have no more idea how he came to be there than if he had been found in Buckingham Palace.”
“Fully appreciate that. But plain fact remains that man wasn’t found in Buckingham Palace; he was found in your house. Infernal eccentricities—” he held up his sherry glass, blinking at it viciously— “key in flower box outside door, that sort of thing, all make it more difficult to investigate. Then, your friend Mrs. Vane knew Loeder.”
“Yet I cannot recall that she ever mentioned him. I was, of course, aware of the fact that he had been her lover.”
“H’m!” The colonel took an appreciative sip and set his glass down. “Relations with women friends quite beyond me, Amberdale; always were. They used to say in the old days, something to do with a woman led you to chuck up the army.”
“I know they did.” Lord Marcus spoke wearily but patiently. “And they were right.”
“What!”
“Yes, O’Halloran. Something occurred, in Egypt, which radically changed the current of my existence. A woman (I shall not mention her name) died; and it was the end of life for me in that sense in which most men regard life. In another sense, it was the beginning.”
The Assistant Commissioner was watching him fixedly, and sympathetically. “Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”
“I have no more to tell you, O’Halloran — about her. I am merely trying to explain why I went in for those somewhat obscure studies which, from that day onward, wholly enthralled me. You may recall that I was traditionally a religious man, but up to that time religion had meant little to me. I suddenly determined that it meant everything, but not in its accepted form. I proposed to prove, scientifically, as one proves a thing in the laboratory, that the human spirit survived death. Once, there were schools in which this subject was systematically expounded. To-day, it is in the hands of impostors. I set out to endeavor to recover some of that older, true knowledge; and in a measure, O’Halloran, I have succeeded.”
Colonel O’Halloran continued to watch him speculatively; there was an unspoken doubt to be read in his little blinking eyes, but deep sympathy remained.
“Sure you’re not deluding yourself?”
“Quite sure.” The musical voice was calm, expressing finality. “Some day I hope to prove this to the world. If I were to tell you where my explorations have led me, since those years in which we served together, when I was so keen on polo—” he smiled without sadness— “when I rode my own horse in the Grand National, I doubt if you would believe me, O’Halloran, or credit the cost.”
“In terms of cash?”
“In terms of sacrifice. My friends accounted me mad, but I had come to a state of philosophy which, under guidance, rendered me immune to uninformed criticism. I followed my chosen path. Mrs. Vane, with whose record I am familiar, is peculiarly endowed. She possesses, in an unusual degree, a power cultivated by certain priestesses of Ancient Egypt, that of releasing the spirit, which is deathless, from the body, which commonly trammels it throughout earth life. Many such priestesses of the past, whose powers exceeded anything we can well imagine to-day, were in no sense models of physical purity.”
Colonel O’Halloran began to roll a cigarette. “Frankly, all rather beyond me.”
“Naturally. One is strangely alone in such pursuits; it is part of the price one has to pay. Fortunately, my financial resources, and my family name up to a point, enable me to defy prejudice and to ignore misunderstanding.” He raised his hand to his high brow so that the green scarab which he wore twinkled like the eye of a reptile. “But I recognise the fact that when homicide intrudes upon my studies I have no armor against malice.”
Colonel O’Halloran bit ragged ends from his cigarette and taking up the carafe refilled both glasses. “Quite satisfied about your man Wake?”
“Yes,” Lord Marcus replied, prolonging the word in a meditative way. “He juggles with the household accounts, steals my wine, my whisky and my cigars. I believe he goes in for dog racing, and no doubt the housekeeping allowance is employed to make up his losses. In every other respect, he suits me well.”
Colonel O’Halloran grinned: it was a cheerful mischievous, rather boyish grin. “Wouldn’t suit me.”
“A more honest man would be less competent.”
“Might be. Less expensive, too. Fact is, Amberdale — might as well get down to it — you have some queer acquaintances. Wake and Mrs. Vane are only two of ’em. The interest of my department begins and ends, more or less, with the Loeder case; but Loeder case overlaps much more urgent job. There’s a spy ring in London. Must know that through M.O.I. It’s a big show; serious menace to war effort. These people are believed, in certain quarters, to use the underground gambling racket as a means of getting information.”
“Might I ask in what way this concerns my queer acquaintances?”
“Well — saw you lunching with Mrs. Destrée the other day at the Grand Marnier. She’s up to her neck in the racket, although we can’t catch her out. See what I mean?”
“I take it to mean that these associations lend color to the suspicion that I am an undesirable character.”
Colonel O’Halloran grinned again. “Not by me. But the average working police officer to be excused if tries to add up two and two to make four. Destrée is a pretty woman, and goes nearly everywhere; Eurasian, I should say, but attractive. Thing is, Amberdale, why have you taken her up?”
Lord Marcus raised his sherry glass, twirling it slowly and watching the amber liquid as a seer watches his crystal. Scraps of Army “shop” floated to them from the counter ... “Hullo, Tinker! how’s Tobruk looking?... Don’t agree, McAndrew. A first class regimental officer, yes; but ...”
“I am trying—” Lord Marcus’s effortless oratory was audible above all other sounds— “to assemble a psychic chain. The spiritual core within a man is much older than his body, O’Halloran. Some of us have shared common experiences when the world was young. Those of us who are peculiarly sensitive recognise these associations: in this way groups are formed, groups brought together by old love and by old enmity. The seven deadly sins turn us aside from our true destiny and have kept us on the treadmill of mortal life all down the centuries. Now, the significance of seven is a subject which I have no time to discuss, but I am trying to assemble a group of seven people whose paths have crossed one another in past lives.”
“What for?” asked the Colonel.
“To strengthen my individual power. The force which I could generate in this way might achieve miracles. Mrs. Vane, in trance, is able to recognise those who belong to the same cycle as ourselves. She might identify you — correctly, I have no doubt — or she might point to a complete stranger.”
“New kind of hunting, Amberdale.”
“No, O’Halloran; very old. I make it my business to seek out those whom she has recognised in order to learn if they are in other respects suitable. In this way I recently made the acquaintance of Mrs. Destrée. She is a woman steeped in evil; her spirit is old as Atlantis; but it is a spirit of power. In such an experiment as this which I contemplate, the positive and the negative, good and evil, must be nicely adjusted. My cousin, Fay Perigal, will, I hope, consent to join us. She will help to adjust the scales.”
“She isn’t keen, I take it?”
“It frightens her,” Lord Marcus replied simply. “But since the time when she was a little girl, when during her holidays I used to take her to Hampton Court, to the Zoo, to matinees, and so forth, I have known that her spirit was a white flame, a spirit older and wiser than mine.” He sipped his sherry, and, as if he feared that he had transgressed, smiled his disarming smile. “I must apologise, O’Halloran, for this sermon; but you are partly to blame.”
“Not a bit of it. Extraordinarily interested.” The Assistant Commissioner emptied his second glass. “Suppose we go in to lunch?”
22
Ivory and Powdered Satin
Rita Martin set out at three o’clock from Simone�
�s upon an assignment booked for her that morning by Mlle. Dorine. As she came down the carpeted stair, wearing a discreet but well cut suit and a raffish little hat, her shapely legs gleaming through American silk stockings, elegant insteps displayed to some advantage by suede shoes from a Paris last, she presented an undeniably attractive figure. Rita had poise. Her beauty, though bold, was not vulgar, and she made up with discretion. But her dark eyes were cloudy and apprehensive.
The familiar glass cases with their unobtainable exhibits, those mingled perfumes of the shop, the boxes of powder, lip sticks and implements of manicure alluringly arranged upon the counter: to-day, they all looked different; her nostrils rejected once familiar scents, for something alien seemed to have crept into them.
Recently, her associates had noted this change creeping over Rita, but only one had succeeded in discovering its cause. Sadness was in it, and her friend, Dora, fully understood its origin, since she guessed rather than knew that Rita’s smart clothes and comfortable apartment had been due to the munificence of the late Sir Giles Loeder. But there was something else.
Rita seemed to become apprehensive every time the telephone rang; seemed to mistrust any new client who entered the place. Dora understood this, also. She had overheard Lady Huskin cross-examining Rita about her friendship with Sir Giles; she knew that Rita had been with him on the night of his death. Rita, however, had not confided in Dora, who only that morning had said to her: “You are as restless as a cat. What’s up with you?”
But Rita had shrugged her shoulders irritably, and had made no reply. Now, as she passed through the shop:
“You can go home when you have finished, Miss Rita,” said the receptionist; “you need not return to the Salon.”
“Thank you, Mlle. Dorine. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
She opened the door and stepped into the street, then hurried on around the corner. A young auxiliary policeman (in private life a screen juvenile) who stood there, smiled appreciatively, but his smile seemed to frighten her. He scratched his chin reflectively, looking after the trim figure and wondering if he had lost his sex appeal. In fact, she had barely noticed the man but had merely noticed the constable, and members of the police force had become objects of dread to Rita. There was not an hour of the day and there were comparatively few of the night — those haunted, sleepless nights — when she did not check up in every memorable particular upon the events of her final parting from Sir Giles. Over and over again, a maddening iteration, she had reviewed those persons who knew, or who might know, that she had been in his company just before his murder.
There were the people who had been at the roulette party in Hay Hill. Actually, Sir Giles had introduced none of them: he never did on such occasions. He had contrived to keep her well in the background, so that even Lady Huskin had failed to see her. Teddie Olivar had invited her to a drink in a side room, and there might have been others who knew her by sight. Now, of course, that old cat Lady Huskin knew.
She found herself avoiding the glances of all taxi drivers; for the man who had driven her home on that fatal night would certainly be able to describe her. By an unfortunate coincidence, she had been twice in his taxi, first on the way to the B.B.C., and later from Berkeley Square to her own apartment in King’s Road.
Why had the police not asked for her evidence?
Then, there was someone else — someone else whom she knew in her heart had seen her, and had seen her with Sir Giles: — Dick Kershaw.
Why had he not come forward, demanded an explanation? Had he too gone to the police?
This was the menace which overhung Rita Martin, haunted her by day and by night. It was beginning to take inevitable toll of her good looks. As if, she reflected, fortune had not hit her hard enough already; for where could she hope to find the quarterly rent of her snug little quarters in Chelsea? In fact, failing one man, the man upon whom she had counted and who unaccountably had disappeared, what did the future hold for her? And now, this assignment.
It was with Mrs. Destrée at Gatacre House.
She dreaded the interview beyond measure, but it was impossible that she should avoid it, and she could no longer afford to lose her employment: this would mean going straight into the army. Furthermore, it would mean ... Her thoughts made her feel quite dizzy. In fact, she stood still on the corner of Clarges Street, endeavoring to regain command of herself.
Destrée ... who was Destrée? Destrée’s name she had often heard spoken, but hitherto Destrée had not been a client of Simone’s; then, on that evening, Rita had seen her glittering in the shadows like a brilliant night moth. Rita, a brunette herself, admired dark beauty, and she thought Destrée was exotically lovely. But even if Sir Giles had offered to introduce her, which he studiously avoided doing, Rita would have refused the honor. Rita was a realist and did not shirk facts. She feared Destrée as the average woman fears an adder. It was unaccountable, but during the time that she had been there at the gambling party she had divined rather than detected glances from those dreamy eyes directed upon her. In the solitude of her own room she had tried to analyse this dread, but she had failed to find any solution to the problem. She was unaware of the fact, but it was a profound psychological problem calculated to defeat a brain more highly trained than that of Rita Martin.
When she arrived at Gatacre House she was almost sick with apprehension.
“Lady Huskin mentioned your name to me,” said Destrée. “You know Lady Huskin?”
“Yes, madam, I dress her Ladyship’s hair regularly.”
Her voice was toneless but not altogether steady. The lobby had frightened her, with its perfume of lilies; the eyes of the Madonna had seemed to accuse her, and Buddha to smile ironically: now, this remarkable bedroom, with its low pedestal bed, its silken coverings of palest lavender. There were lilies here, too: water lilies in bowls; long stemmed lilies in vases; pieces of Chinese tapestry framed upon the walls. And there were some singular modern statuettes which frightened her even more than the Madonna had frightened her.
Destrée sat in a cushioned chair which more nearly resembled a throne. Rita thought that it was some kind of Arab work; the pale lemon colored wood was inlaid with ivory and mother o’ pearl. Destrée wore a white swansdown wrap having long sleeves, and she sat before a wonderfully equipped dressing-table, watching her own and Rita’s reflections in the mirror.
Rita thought that Destrée had the most beautiful eyes that she had ever seen. She envied her the curled lashes, told herself that the way she had of drooping her lids, so that her eyes became mere slits draped with black lace, must have proved fatal to many men. But she knew, of course, that Destrée was not English, and she had hoped, jealously, that her luxurious hair would prove to be coarse. It was not coarse. It was like silk, and had a slow, natural wave, which made it very easy to dress. Her own lips, Rita considered, were at least as desirable as Destrée’s, her teeth as white; but little furtive glances at the two images in the mirror forced upon Rita’s rebellious mind the fact that compared with the delicate loveliness of Destrée, her own beauty was commonplace.
“My maid has gone to visit her family,” Destrée explained. “She usually dresses my hair for special occasions. You see?”
“I see, madam. She must be very skilful.”
“Yes, she is quite good.” The silvery voice sounded almost playful. “You have seen me before, sometimes, I believe, Miss Rita?”
Rita swallowed rapidly and stooped to pick up a brush from the small table beside her. “Yes, madam, I believe I saw you once — in the distance.”
Destrée sighed contentedly as the brush was passed through her hair, and closed her eyes entirely, or seemed to do so. “At Mrs. Sankey’s?” she murmured.
“Well, madam, I believe that was the name of the lady to whose flat I was taken one evening. Mrs. Sankey herself was not there.”
“No. She lives out of London. She lets her flat for parties ... Yes, I remember now,” Destrée murmured. “You
came with poor Sir Giles Loeder.”
“Yes, madam.”
Rita knew that her hands were slightly unsteady and didn’t know what to do to correct this fault. She had always been proud of her hands, but the hands of Destrée, loosely folded upon white draped knees, resembled exquisite ivory carvings, tinted by the brush of a master. Little by little Rita’s self-confidence, a quality by no means lacking in her make-up, began to desert her. She felt plain and common, and once, detecting a reflected glance flashed through the grille of Destrée’s lashes, experienced again that unaccountable fear.
When Destrée next addressed her, the silver bell voice sounded even more childish. “Poor Sir Giles was rather fond of pretty girls, I am afraid. Yes? His choice was — most democratic.”
Perhaps there was nothing in these words but a sort of playful sadness, yet they acted sharply upon Rita; in fact, they stimulated a spirit of bravado which sometimes irrationally took charge of her behavior.
“Really, madam, I am afraid I know very little about that. I have always lived in the country, with my father, a retired Civil Servant.”
This statement, which Rita thought necessary in order that Destrée’s mind should be disabused of any false idea implied by the word “democratic” was strictly true. Her father was a postman whose enthusiastic patronage of all the bars in his territory had led to his premature retirement.
“You met Sir Giles when you came to London, I suppose?”
“Yes, madam.”
Destrée sighed again and was silent for some time, when: “Did he bother you a lot with questions about the clients at Simone’s?” she inquired, fully opening her eyes so that Rita, who was watching her reflection in the mirror, met their fixed regard and became conscious of an almost physical effort as she turned her head aside.
“Simone’s clients, madam?”