by Sax Rohmer
“She let fall from her hands the sacred vase, and the holy symbol was lost to the children of earth for evermore! Lost was the key to the book of wisdom; closed was that book to man for all time!”
“Go on!” said Halesowen, harshly, for Zeda had paused again.
“You do not grasp?” asked the doctor. “Well, then, know that the sentence was ‘Until the parts of this vase be made whole again.’ Five fragments there were: a large one, which is your potsherd, and four smaller. The four smaller, after twenty years of untiring search, I have recovered and joined together. What if we now make whole that which was broken? May I not, by the exercise of such poor shreds of the lost wisdom as I have gathered up, summon before me that wandering spirit ere it return again to plead for rest at the judgment seat of Amenti?”
When I say that the man’s words proved electrical, I do not exaggerate the effect which this astounding proposition had upon us. Halesowen was fairly startled out of his chair, and stood with his eyes fixed on the other in a fascinated gaze.
Zeda, entirely returning to his customary urbanity, shrugged and smiled. “You believe my story?”
Lesty was the first to recover himself, and his reply was characteristic. “Can’t say I do,” he drawled frankly. “I don’t say that you may not, though,” he added.
“Then do you not owe it to assist in proving my words? A little seance? You are sceptical, quite? Very well; I try to show you. If I fail, then it is unfortunate, but — I bow to an inevitable!”
We looked at each other, interrogatively, and then Halesowen answered: “All right. It’s a queer yarn, but we leave the matter entirely in your hands.”
The doctor bowed. “Shall we say to-night to begin?” he said tentatively.
“By all means.”
The doctor expressed himself delighted, and, carefully relocking the fragment of the vase in its double case, he was about to depart, when a point occurred to me.
“Might I ask whom you suspect of the attempted burglary?”
I said.
He turned, in the door, and fixed a strange glance upon me. “There are others,” he replied, “who seek as I seek, and who do not scruple to gain their ends how they may. Of them we shall beware, my friends, for we know they design upon us!”
With that and a low bow he retired.
Little of interest occurred during the day, until about four in the afternoon, when Halesowen aroused us out of a lazy dose to show a letter just received from the British Museum.
It was in reply to one asking why he had received no acknowledgment of the photographs and drawings submitted; and it informed him that no such photographs and drawings had come to hand!
We usually took tea in the afternoon, and Halesowen joined us on this occasion, whilst, at about five o’clock, Dr. Zeda also looked in. He remained until it began to grow dusk, when we all went over to Halesowen’s to arrange the first “sitting” — for so the doctor referred to the projected seance. Retiring, for a few minutes, to his own establishment, Zeda returned with the iron box and explained what he proposed to do.
“Around this small table we sit, as at seance,” he said; “but no medium — only the potsherd. With these flexible bands I will attach, temporarily, the parts, and stand the vase in Mr. Halesowen’s frame, here by the window — so. Beside it we will place the lamp, shaded thus — so that a dim light is upon it. We can just see from where we sit in the dark. We will now wait until it is more dusk.”
Accordingly, we went out on to the balcony and smoked for an hour, Zeda polluting the clean air with the fumes of the long, black cigars he affected. They had an appearance as of dried twigs and an odour so wholly original as to defy simile. Between eight and nine o’clock he expressed himself satisfied with the light — or, rather, lack of it — and we all gathered around the table in the gloom, spreading our hands as he directed. For close upon an hour we sat in tense silence, the room seeming to be very hot. A slight breeze off the Common had wafted the fumes of Zeda’s cigar in through the open windows, which he had afterwards closed, and the reek filled the air as with something palpable — and nauseous. I was growing very weary of the business, and Lesty, despite the doctor’s warning against disturbing the silence, had begun to cough and fidget irritably, when the rumbling foreign voice came, so unexpectedly as to startle us all: “It is useless to-night; something is not propitious. Turn up the lights.”
From the celerity with which Halesown complied, I divined that he, too, had been growing impatient.
“There is some not suitable condition,” said Zeda, relocking his portion of the vase in its case. “To-morrow we shall make some changes in the order.”
He seemed not at all disappointed, being apparently as confident as ever in the ultimate success of the seances. One of the windows, he suggested, should be left open on the following evening during our sitting; and this we were only too glad to agree upon, since it would possibly serve to clear the atmosphere, somewhat, of the odour emanating from the doctor’s cigars. Several other points he also mentioned as being conceivably responsible for our initial failure — such as our positions around the table, and the relative distance of the potsherd. “We shall see, to-morrow,” were his last words as he left us.
“A perfect monument of mendacity!” muttered Lesty, as we heard the retiring footsteps of our foreign friend on the gravel below; “and I think his accent is assumed. I don’t know why we even seem to credit such an incredible fable.”
“I don’t know, either,” said Halesowen, reflectively. “But he certainly possesses the missing part of the vase, and if he does not believe the story, himself, what earthly object can he hope to serve by these séances?”
“Give it up!” replied Lesty, promptly; and that, I think, rather aptly expressed the mental attitude of all three.
We saw nothing of Zeda throughout the following day, but he duly put in an appearance in the evening, and placed us around the table again, but in different order. One of the French windows was left open, and the potsherd, with the lamp beside it, placed somewhat to the left.
After persevering for about forty minutes, we were rewarded by a rather conventional phenomenon. The table rocked and gave forth cracking sounds. There was no other manifestation, and at about half-past ten, the doctor again terminated the seance.
“Excellent!” said Zeda enthusiastically, “excellent! We were en rapport, and within the circle there was power. To-morrow we shall triumph, my friends but there is again an alteration that occurs to me. You, Mr. Clifford, shall sit next to Mr. Lesty on the left. Mr. Halesowen shall be upon his right, and I, facing Mr. Lesty, between. Also, there is too much light from the lamps in the road. It is good, I think, to have open the windows, but this Japanese screen will keep out that too much light and shelter the vase. To-morrow we will observe these things.”
This, then, concluded our second sitting, and brings me to the final episode of that affair which, strange enough in its several developments, was stranger still in its denouement.
IV
Zeda, on the following day, entertained us to luncheon in town, followed by an afternoon concert, for which he had procured seats, being interested, or professing to be, in a certain fiddler who figured largely in the programme. We had arranged that Halesowen and the doctor should dine with us in the evening, before we went to the former’s flat for the seance, and we accordingly returned direct to our rooms and chatted over the doings of the day until dinner was served. Zeda surpassed himself in brilliant conversation. He must, I remember thinking, have led a strange and eventful life.
At about nine o’clock, we walked over, in the dark, to our friend’s flat, where we had to grope for and light an oil-lamp which he had, Zeda declaring that something in the atmosphere was propitious and that the electric light would tend to disturb these favourable conditions. He seemed to be strung to high tension, perhaps with expectancy, but was not so preoccupied as to forget his black cigars, one of which he lighted as he was about to go o
ut for the iron box. He borrowed my matches for the purpose and forgot to return them.
It was, perhaps a quarter to ten before Zeda had matters arranged to his satisfaction, and so dark, by reason of the tall Japanese screen which stood before the open windows, that I could see neither Zeda, on my left, nor Lesty, who sat on my right. Halesowen was a dim silhouette against the patch of light cast by the oil reading-lamp beside the vase, which stood the whole length of the room away. I was conscious of a suppressed excitement, which I am sure was shared by my companions.
I heard a distant clock striking the half-hour, and then the three quarters; but still nothing had occurred. A motor-car drove around from the road and stopped somewhere at the outer end of the drive. I wondered, idly, if it were that of the surgeon who lived at Number 10. After that, everything was very quiet, and I was expecting to hear the hour strike, and straining my ears to catch the sound of the first chime, when the rocking and cracking of the table began. This was much more violent than hitherto, and Zeda’s gruff tones came softly: “Whatever shall happen, do not remove your hands from the table!”
He ceased speaking, and the rocking motions, together with the rapping and cracking that had sounded from all about us, also ceased, with disconcerting suddenness. A silence fell, so short in duration as to be scarcely appreciable; for it was almost instantly broken by an unexpected sound.
It was a woman’s voice, very low and clear, and it seemed to mutter something in a weird, rising cadence, with a high note at the end of every third bar or so, and this over and over again — an eerie thing, vaguely like a Gregorian chant.
“Triumph!” whispered Zeda. “The Hymn of the souls who are passing.”
His speech seemed to disturb the singer, but only for a moment. The Hymn was continued.
This singular performance was proving too much for my nerves; at each recurrence of the quiet, clear note on the fourth beat of the third bar, a cold shudder ran down my spine. Then, as the very monotony of the thing was beginning to grow appalling, I suddenly became aware of a slim, white figure standing beside the vase!
The chant stopped, and I could hear nothing but the nervous breathing of my companions. Seated as they were, I doubted whether Halesowen or Lesty could see this apparition, but I was facing directly toward her — for it was a woman. I could see every line of her figure — the curves of her throat and arms and shoulders, the dull, metallic gleaming of her clustering hair. As she extended her hand toward the light, I distinctly saw the large, green stone set in a ring on her index finger. She must be very beautiful, I thought, and I was peering through the gloom in a vain endeavour to see her more clearly, when there came a disconcerting crash — and utter darkness! The table whereat we were seated was overturned, and I found myself capsized from my chair!
“Hold him!” yelled the voice of Lesty. “Hold him, Halesowen — Clifford!”
A door banged loudly.
“Confound it! I’m on the floor!” — from Halesowen.
I shouted for some one to turn up the light, at the same time scrambling through the gloom with that intent. After severely damaging my shins against the intervening furniture, I found the switch. It would not work!
“It’s cut off!” I cried. “Strike a match, somebody.”
“Haven’t got any!” said Lesty.
“Zeda has mine!” responded Halesowen. “Open the door.”
“Locked!” was Lesty’s next report.
“Break it down!” shouted Halesowen, hurling aside the Japanese screen. “The potsherd is gone!”
Lesty applied his shoulder to the oak — once — twice — thrice. Then all together we attacked it, and it flew open with a splintering crash.
“Round to his flat!” panted Halesowen, running downstairs.
Out on to the drive we sprinted, into the next entrance and up to the first landing. Knocking and ringing proved ineffectual, and the door was too strong to be burst open. We stood in dismayed silence, staring at one another.
“Off your balcony, on to his and through the French window!” said Lesty, suddenly; so back we all ran again.
I had never before realised how easy it was to get from one balcony to another, until I saw Lesty swing himself across. Halesowen and I followed in a trice and we all blundered into the dark room through the open window and made for the electric switch beside the mantelpiece. We turned on the light. The room was unfurnished!
“Good Lord!” breathed Halesowen, hurrying into the next.
That, too, was quite bare, as were all the rest! The outer door was locked.
“While we were fooling at that concert, he had every scrap of stuff removed!” I said. “He probably had the lot on hire from a big furnishing firm — curios and all. I remember noticing that his curiosities were of a very ordinary character, considering his extensive travels and the nature of his studies.”
“No doubt whatever,” agreed Lesty. “His burglary proved a failure (and, I think, must have been interrupted), though I am compelled to admire the neat manner in which he handled the very delicate situation that resulted. His more recent and elaborate device has turned out all that could be desired — from Zeda’s point of view!”
“But how has he got away?” said Halesowen, in bewilderment.
“Motor waiting at the corner,” replied Lesty, promptly. “Heard it come up. When the reading-lamp was capsized, and whoever had crept from his balcony to yours and in behind the screen had returned the same way — with the vase! — Zeda overturned the table and pushed you two men backwards in your chairs. Then, before I could reach him, he bolted out and locked the door after him. For, having lulled my suspicions by two practically uneventful seances, he cunningly placed himself nearest to the door and me farthest away. He probably removed the key when he went out for the box and placed it outside in the lock when he returned. His accomplice had run straight through Zeda’s flat and out to the waiting car, and there he joined her. They may be thirty miles away by now!”
Being unable to open the door, we perforce returned to Halesowen’s balcony by the same way that we had come, our friend bewailing his lost potsherd and exclaiming: “The cunning, cunning scamp!”
“I knew he had some deep game in hand,” said Lesty; “but I hadn’t bargained for this move. Of course, I had noticed the dodge of borrowing all our matches, but I didn’t grasp its importance until too late. It never occurred to me that he’d disconnected the electric light (which he probably did some time in the night, by the way). I was a fool not to realise it, too, when he insisted on our only using the oil-lamp. Then, again, I was slow not to go straight through the window and into Zeda’s flat that way. It is just possible I might have caught the lady songster if I had done that in the first place. The possibility, however, had not been overlooked, since she took the precaution to lock the door after her.”
“A clever rogue!” I declared. “But wasn’t the first attempt — for I suppose we must classify the mysterious arm under that head — more than a trifle indiscreet?”
“No doubt,” agreed Lesty. “But we didn’t know, then, that Zeda was in London, and the flat was still unfurnished. Also, they may have thought Halesowen was in bed; or the woman (whom he has so cleverly kept out of sight) may have exceeded her instructions in attempting to touch the potsherd while any one remained in the room.”
“But,” said Halesowen, slowly, “we don’t know that there was any woman!”
“Eh?” queried Lesty.
“Did you see her?”
“No.”
“I did. She was lovely, very lovely — for a woman!”
Lesty stared curiously. “You surprise me,” he commented, drily.
“Zeda was a strange man,” pursued the other, “and there were certainly things occurred as we sat round that table that need a lot of explaining.”
“Very ordinary three-and-six-a-head phenomena!” was the reply. “Merely a blind.”
“Then what was the reason of his burning desire to secure my pot
sherd, if not to complete the vase?”
“Do you mean to tell me,” asked Lesty, “that you are going to credit that story about the priestess — now, after he has shown his hand? Do you wish to suggest that he was aided by a spirit?”
“Then why was he so keen to get the thing?” persisted Halesowen.
Lesty looked at him, looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and began to load his pipe. Having done so, he sat smoking and staring at the brilliant moon.
“Well?” inquired our host.
“Give it up!” admitted Lesty.
(CONCLUSION OF MR. CLIFFORD’S ACCOUNT)
V
One of my visits to the Wapping curio-shop of Moris Klaw was made in company with Mr. Halesowen, who, with the others mentioned in the foregoing narrative, I subsequently had met.
Somewhere amid the misty gloom of this place, where loot of a hundred ages, of every spot from pole to pole, veils its identity in the darkness, sits a large grey parrot. Faint perfumes and scuffling sounds tell of hidden animal life near to the visitor; but the parrot proclaims itself stridently —
“Moris Klaw! Moris Klaw! The devil’s come for you!”
That signal brings Moris Klaw from his hiding-place. He shuffles into the shop, a figure appropriate to its surroundings. Imagine a tall, stooping man, enveloped in a very faded blue dressing-gown. His skin is but a half-shade lighter than that of a Chinaman; his hair, his shaggy brows, his scanty beard, defy one to name their colour. He wears pince-nez.
When upon this particular occasion I introduced my companion, and Moris Klaw acknowledged the introduction in his rumbling voice, I saw Halesowen stare.
Klaw produced a scent-spray from somewhere and sprayed verbena upon his high, yellow brow.
“It is very stuffy — in this shop!” he explained. “Isis! Isis! Bring for my visitors some iced drinks!”