by Sax Rohmer
“No matter! Point him out to me,” answered the Spaniard eagerly — and his dark eyes seemed to be on fire— “point him out to me and fifty pounds of English money is yours!”
“Let me see.”
He drew out a wallet and held up a number of notes.
“Fifty,” he said, in a subdued voice, “when you point him out.”
For a long moment Zahara hesitated, then:
“Sixty,” she corrected him— “now! Then I will do it to-night — if you tell what happens.”
Exhibiting a sort of eager impatience the man displayed a bunch of official-looking documents.
“I give him these,” he explained, “and my work is done.”
“H’m,” said Zahara. “He must not know that it is I who have shown him to you. To-night he will be here at nine o’clock, and I shall dance. You understand?”
“Then,” said the Spaniard eagerly, “this is what you will do.”
And speaking close to her ear he rapidly outlined a plan; but presently she interrupted him.
“Pooh! It is Spanish, the rose. I dance the dances of Egypt.”
“But to-night,” he persisted, “it will not matter.”
Awhile longer they talked, the rapping of the stick upon the tiled floor growing ever faster and faster. But finally:
“I will tell Hassan that you are to be admitted,” said Zahara, and she held out her hand for the notes.
When, presently, the visitors departed, she learned that the smaller man was blind; for his companion led him out of the room and out of the house. She stood awhile listening to the tap, tap, tap of the heavy stick receding along the street. What she did not hear, and could not have understood had she heard, since it was uttered in Spanish, was the cry of exultant hatred which came from the lips of the taller man:
“At last, Miguel! at last! Though blind, you have found him! You have not failed. I shall not fail!”
Zahara peeped through the carved screen at the assembled company. They were smoking and drinking and seemed to be in high good humour. Safiyeh had danced and they had applauded the performance, but had complained to M. Agapoulos that they had seen scores of such dances and dancers. Safiyeh, who had very little English, had not understood this, and because presently she was to play upon the a’ood while Zahara danced the Dance of the Veils, Zahara had avoided informing her of the verdict of the company.
Now as she peeped through the lattice in the screen she could see the Greek haggling with Grantham and a tall gray-haired man whom she supposed to be Sir Horace Tipton. They were debating the additional fees to be paid if Zahara, the Star of Egypt, was to present the secret and wonderful dance of which all men had heard but which only a true daughter of the ancient tribe of the Ghawazi could perform.
Sometimes Zahara was proud of her descent from a dancing-girl of Kenneh. This was always at night, when a sort of barbaric excitement possessed her which came from the blood of her mother. Then, a new light entered her eyes and they seemed to grow long and languid and dark, so that no one would have suspected that in daylight they were blue.
A wild pagan abandon claimed her, and she seemed to hear the wailing of reed instruments and the throb of the ancient drums which were played of old before the kings of Egypt. Safiyeh was not a true dancing girl, and because she knew none of those fine frenzies, she danced without inspiration, like a brown puppet moved by strings. But she could play upon an a’ood much better than Zahara, and therefore must not be upset until she had played for the Dance of the Veils.
Seeing that the bargain was all but concluded, Zahara stole back to her room. Her lightly clad body gleamed like that of some statue become animate.
Her cheeks flushed as she took up the veils, of which she alone knew the symbolic meaning; the white veil, the purple veil: each had its story to tell her; and the veil of burning scarlet. In a corner of the big room on a divan near the door she had seen the Spaniard, a handsome, swarthy figure in his well-fitting dress clothes, and now, opening a drawer, she glanced at the little pile of notes which represented her share of the bargain. There were fifty. She had told Agapoulos that a distinguished foreigner with an introduction from someone she knew had paid ten pounds to be present. And because she had given Agapoulos the ten pounds, Agapoulos had agreed to admit the visitor.
She could hear the Greek approaching now, but she was thinking of Grantham whom she had last seen in laughing conversation with the tall, gray-haired man. His laughter had appeared forced. Doubtless he grew weary of the woman he had brought to London.
“Dance to-night with all the devil that is in you, my beautiful,” said Agapoulos, hurrying into the room.
Zahara turned aside, toying with the veils.
“They are rich, eh?” she said indifferently.
She was thinking of the fifty pounds which she had earned so easily; and after all (how strangely her mind wandered) perhaps he was really tired of the woman. The Spaniard had said so.
“Very rich,” murmured Agapoulos complacently.
He brushed his moustache and rattled keys in his pocket. In his dress clothes he looked like the manager of a prosperous picture palace. “Safryeh!” he called.
When presently the music commenced, the players concealed behind the tall screen, an expectant hush fell upon the wine-flushed company. Hassan, who played the darabukkeh, could modulate its throbbing so wonderfully.
Zahara entered the room, enveloped from shoulders to ankles in a flame-coloured cloak. Between her lips she held a red rose.
“By God, what a beauty!” said a husky voice.
Zahara did not know which of the party had spoken, but she was conscious of the fact that by virtue of the strange witchcraft which became hers on such nights she held them all spell-bound. They were her slaves.
Slowly she walked across the apartment while the throbbing of the Arab drum grew softer and softer, producing a weird effect of space and distance. All eyes were fixed upon her, and meeting Grantham’s gaze she saw at last the Light there which she knew. This sudden knowledge of triumph almost unnerved her, and the rose which she had taken from between her lips trembled in her white fingers. Two of the petals fell upon the carpet, which was cream-coloured from the looms of Ispahan. Like blood spots the petals lay upon the cream surface.
Zahara swung sharply about. Agapoulos, seated alone in the chair over which he had draped the leopard skin, was busily brushing his moustache and glancing sideways toward the screen which concealed Safryeh. Zahara tilted her head on to her shoulder and cast a languorous glance into the shadows masking the watchful Spaniard.
She could see his eyes gleaming like those of a wild beast. An icy finger seemed to touch her heart. He had lied to her! She knew it, suddenly, intuitively. Well, she would see. She also had guile.
With a little scornful laugh Zahara tossed the rose on to the knees — of Agapoulos.
The sound of three revolver shots fired in quick succession rang out above the throbbing music. Agapoulos clutched at his shirt front with both hands, uttered a stifled scream and tried to stand up. He coughed, and glaring straight in front of him fell forward across a little coffee table laden with champagne bottles and glasses.
Coincident with the crash made by his falling body came the loud bang of a door. The Spaniard had gone.
“By God, sir! It’s murder, it’s murder!” cried the same husky voice which had commented upon the beauty of Zahara.
There was a mingling, purposeless movement. Someone ran to the door — to find that it was locked from the outside. Mr. Eddie, now recognizable by his accent, came toward the prone man, dazed, horrified, and grown very white. Zahara, a beautiful, tragic figure, in her flaming cloak, stood looking down at the dead man. Safiyeh was peeping round from behind the screen, her face a brown mask of terror. Hassan, holding his drum, appeared behind her, staring stupidly. To the smell of cigar smoke and perfume a new and acrid odour was added.
Vaguely the truth was stealing in upon the mind of the dancing-girl
that she had been made party to a plot to murder Grantham. She had saved his life. He belonged to her now. She could hear him speaking, although for some reason she could not see him. A haze had come, blotting out everything but the still, ungainly figure which lay so near her upon the carpet, one clutching, fat hand, upon which a diamond glittered, outstretched so that it nearly touched her bare white feet.
“We must get out this way! The side door to the courtyard! None of us can afford to be mixed up in an affair of this sort.”
There was more confused movement and a buzz of excited voices — meaningless, chaotic. Zahara could feel the draught from the newly opened door. A thin stream of blood was stealing across the carpet. It had almost reached the fallen rose petals, which it strangely resembled in colour under the light of the lanterns.
As though dispersed by the draught, the haze lifted, and Zahara saw Grantham standing by the open doorway through which he had ushered out the other visitors.
Wide-eyed and piteous she met his glance. She had seen that night the Look in his eyes. She had saved his life, and there was much, so much, that she wanted to tell him. A thousand yearnings, inexplicable, hitherto unknown, deep mysteries of her soul, looked out of those great eyes.
“Don’t think,” he said tensely, “that I was deceived. I saw the trick with the rose! You are as guilty as your villainous lover! Murderess!”
He went out and closed the door. The flame-coloured cloak slowly slipped from Zahara’s shoulders, and the veils, like falling petals, began to drop gently one by one upon the blood-stained carpet.
THE HAND OF THE MANDARIN QUONG
I
THE SHADOW ON THE CURTAIN
“Singapore is by no means herself again,” declared Jennings, looking about the lounge of the Hotel de l’Europe. “Don’t you agree, Knox?”
Burton fixed his lazy stare upon the speaker.
“Don’t blame poor old Singapore,” he said. “There is no spot in this battered world that I have succeeded in discovering which is not changed for the worse.”
Dr. Matheson flicked ash from his cigar and smiled in that peculiarly happy manner which characterizes a certain American type and which lent a boyish charm to his personality.
“You are a pair of pessimists,” he pronounced. “For some reason best known to themselves Jennings and Knox have decided upon a Busman’s Holiday. Very well. Why grumble?”
“You are quite right, Doctor,” Jennings admitted. “When I was on service here in the Straits Settlements I declared heaven knows how often that the country would never see me again once I was demobbed. Yet here you see I am; Burton belongs here; but here’s Knox, and we are all as fed up as we can be!”
“Yes,” said Burton slowly. “I may be a bit tired of Singapore. It’s a queer thing, though, that you fellows have drifted back here again. The call of the East is no fable. It’s a call that one hears for ever.”
The conversation drifted into another channel, and all sorts of topics were discussed, from racing to the latest feminine fashions, from ballroom dances to the merits and demerits of coalition government. Then suddenly:
“What became of Adderley?” asked Jennings.
There were several men in the party who had been cronies of ours during the time that we were stationed in Singapore, and at Jennings’s words a sort of hush seemed to fall on those who had known Adderley. I cannot say if Jennings noticed this, but it was perfectly evident to me that Dr. Matheson had perceived it, for he glanced swiftly across in my direction in an oddly significant way.
“I don’t know,” replied Burton, who was an engineer. “He was rather an unsavoury sort of character in some ways, but I heard that he came to a sticky end.”
“What do you mean?” I asked with curiosity, for I myself had often wondered what had become of Adderley.
“Well, he was reported to his C. O., or something, wasn’t he, just before the time for his demobilization? I don’t know the particulars; I thought perhaps you did, as he was in your regiment.”
“I have heard nothing whatever about it,” I replied.
“You mean Sidney Adderley, the man who was so indecently rich?” someone interjected. “Had a place at Katong, and was always talking about his father’s millions?”
“That’s the fellow.”
“Yes,” said Jennings, “there was some scandal, I know, but it was after my time here.”
“Something about an old mandarin out Johore Bahru way, was it not?” asked Burton. “The last thing I heard about Adderley was that he had disappeared.”
“Nobody would have cared much if he had,” declared Jennings. “I know of several who would have been jolly glad. There was a lot of the brute about Adderley, apart from the fact that he had more money than was good for him. His culture was a veneer. It was his check-book that spoke all the time.”
“Everybody would have forgiven Adderley his vulgarity,” said Dr. Matheson, quietly, “if the man’s heart had been in the right place.”
“Surely an instance of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” someone murmured.
Burton gazed rather hard at the last speaker.
“So far as I am aware,” he said, “the poor devil is dead, so go easy.”
“Are you sure he is dead?” asked Dr. Matheson, glancing at Burton in that quizzical, amused way of his.
“No, I am not sure; I am merely speaking from hearsay. And now I come to think of it, the information was rather vague. But I gathered that he had vanished, at any rate, and remembering certain earlier episodes in his career, I was led to suppose that this vanishing meant —— —”
He shrugged his shoulders significantly.
“You mean the old mandarin?” suggested Dr. Matheson.
“Yes.”
“Was there really anything in that story, or was it suggested by the unpleasant reputation of Adderley?” Jennings asked.
“I can settle any doubts upon that point,” said I; whereupon I immediately became a focus of general attention.
“What! were you ever at that place of Adderley’s at Katong?” asked Jennings with intense curiosity.
I nodded, lighting a fresh cigarette in a manner that may have been unduly leisurely.
“Did you see her?”
Again I nodded.
“Really!”
“I must have been peculiarly favoured, but certainly I had that pleasure.”
“You speak of seeing her,” said one of the party, now entering the conversation for the first time. “To whom do you refer?”
“Well,” replied Burton, “it’s really a sort of fairy tale — unless Knox” — glacing across in my direction— “can confirm it. But there was a story current during the latter part of Adderley’s stay in Singapore to the effect that he had made the acquaintance of the wife, or some member of the household, of an old gentleman out Johore Bahru way — sort of mandarin or big pot among the Chinks.”
“It was rumoured that he had bolted with her,” added another speaker.
“I think it was more than a rumour.”
“Why do you say so?”
“Well, representations were made to the authorities, I know for an absolute certainty, and I have an idea that Adderley was kicked out of the Service as a consequence of the scandal which resulted.”
“How is it one never heard of this?”
“Money speaks, my dear fellow,” cried Burton, “even when it is possessed by such a peculiar outsider as Adderley. The thing was hushed up. It was a very nasty business. But Knox was telling us that he had actually seen the lady. Please carry on, Knox, for I must admit that I am intensely curious.”
“I can only say that I saw her on one occasion.”
“With Adderley?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Where?”
“At his place at Katong.”
“I even thought his place at that resort was something of a myth,” declared Jennings. “He never asked me to go there, but, then, I took that as a
compliment. Pardon the apparent innuendo, Knox,” he added, laughing. “But you say you actually visited the establishment?”
“Yes,” I replied slowly, “I met him here in this very hotel one evening in the winter of ‘15, after the natives’ attempt to mutiny. He had been drinking rather heavily, a fact which he was quite unable to disguise. He was never by any means a real friend of mine; in fact, I doubt that he had a true friend in the world. Anyhow, I could see that he was lonely, and as I chanced to be at a loose end I accepted an invitation to go over to what he termed his ‘little place at Katong.’
“His little place proved to be a veritable palace. The man privately, or rather, secretly, to be exact, kept up a sort of pagan state. He had any number of servants. Of course he became practically a millionaire after the death of his father, as you will remember; and given more congenial company, I must confess that I might have spent a most enjoyable evening there.
“Adderley insisted upon priming me with champagne, and after a while I may as well admit that I lost something of my former reserve, and began in a fashion to feel that I was having a fairly good time. By the way, my host was not quite frankly drunk. He got into that objectionable and dangerous mood which some of you will recall, and I could see by the light in his eyes that there was mischief brewing, although at the time I did not know its nature.
“I should explain that we were amusing ourselves in a room which was nearly as large as the lounge of this hotel, and furnished in a somewhat similar manner. There were carved pillars and stained glass domes, a little fountain, and all those other peculiarities of an Eastern household.
“Presently, Adderley gave an order to one of his servants, and glanced at me with that sort of mocking, dare-devil look in his eyes which I loathed, which everybody loathed who ever met the man. Of course I had no idea what all this portended, but I was very shortly to learn.
“While he was still looking at me, but stealing side-glances at a doorway before which was draped a most wonderful curtain of a sort of flamingo colour, this curtain was suddenly pulled aside, and a girl came in.