by Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER III
A STRANGE QUESTION
A conviction burst upon my mind that a frightful crime had beencommitted. By whom and for what purpose I knew not. I hastened to thehotel of the Grand Duke. Tremendous excitement prevailed there, ofcourse. There is no more certain way for a great personage to courtpublicity than to travel incognito. Everywhere that "M. de Stahler"had appeared all Paris had cried, "There goes the Grand Duke Ivan!"And now as I entered the hotel, press, police and public weredemanding: "Is it true that the Grand Duke is dead?" Just emergingfrom the lift I saw Casimir. _In propria persona_--as M. Max--hefailed to recognize me.
"My good man," I said--"are you a member of the suite of the lateGrand Duke?"
"I am, or was, the valet of M. de Stahler, monsieur," he replied.
I showed him my card.
"To me 'M. de Stahler' is the Grand Duke Ivan. What other servants hadhe with him?" I asked, although I knew very well.
"None, monsieur."
"Where and when was he taken ill?"
"At the Theatre Coquerico. Montmartre, at about a quarter past teno'clock to-night."
"Who was with him?"
"No one, monsieur. His Highness was alone in a box. I had instructionsto call with the car at eleven o'clock."
"Well?"
"The theatre management telephoned at a quarter past ten to say thatHis Highness had been taken ill and that a physician had been sent for.I went in the car at once and found him lying in one of thedressing-rooms to which he had been carried. A medical man was inattendance. The Grand Duke was unconscious. We moved him to the car----"
"_We?_"
"The doctor, the theatre manager, and myself. The Grand Duke was thenalive, the physician declared, although he seemed to me to be alreadydead. But just before we reached the hotel, the physician, who waswatching His Highness anxiously, cried, 'Ah,_mon Dieu!_ It is finished.What a catastrophe!'"
"He was dead?"
"He was dead, monsieur."
"Who has seen him?"
"They have telephoned for half the doctors in Paris, monsieur, but itis too late."
He was affected, the good Casimir. Tears welled up in his eyes. Imounted in the lift to the apartment in which the Grand Duke lay.Three doctors were there, one of them being he of whom Casimir hadspoken. Consternation was written on every face.
"It was his heart," I was assured by the doctor who had been summonedto the theatre. "We shall find that he suffered from heart trouble."
They were all agreed upon the point.
"He must have sustained a great emotional shock," said another.
"You are convinced that there was no foul play, gentlemen?" I asked.
They were quite unanimous on the point.
"Did the Grand Duke make any statement at the time of the seizurewhich would confirm the theory of a heart attack?"
No. He had fallen down unconscious outside the door of his box, andfrom this unconsciousness he had never recovered. (Depositions ofwitnesses, medical evidence and other documents are available forthe guidance of whoever may care to see them, but, as is well known,the death of the Grand Duke was ascribed to natural causes and itseemed as though my trouble would after all prove to be in vain.)Let us see what happened.
Leaving the hotel, on the night of the Grand Duke's death, I joinedthe man who was watching the cafe telephone.
There had been a message during the course of the evening, but it hadbeen for a Greek cigarette-maker and it referred to the theft ofseveral bales of Turkish tobacco--useful information, of minor kind,but of little interest to me. I knew that it would be useless toquestion the man Miguel, although I strongly suspected him of beinga member of "The Scorpion's" organization. Any patron of theestablishment enjoyed the privilege of receiving private telephonecalls at the cafe on payment of a small fee.
A man of less experience in obscure criminology might now have assumedthat he had been misled by a series of striking coincidences. Remember,there was not a shadow of doubt in the minds of the medical expertsthat the Grand Duke had died from syncope. His own professionaladvisor had sent written testimony to show that there was hereditaryheart trouble, although not of a character calculated to lead to afatal termination except under extraordinary circumstances. His ownGovernment, which had every reason to suspect that the Grand Duke'sassassination might be attempted, was satisfied. _Eh bien!_ I was not.
I cross-examined the manager of the Theatre Coquerico. He admitted thatMlle. Zara el-Khala had been a mystery throughout her engagement.Neither he nor anyone else connected with the house had ever enteredher dressing-room or held any conversation with her, whatever, exceptthe stage-manager and the musical director. These had spoken to herabout her music and about lighting and other stage effects. She spokeperfect French.
Such a state of affairs was almost incredible, but was explained bythe fact that the dancer, at a most modest salary, had doubled thetakings of the theatre in a few days and had attracted capacitybusiness throughout the remainder of her engagement. She had writtenfrom Marseilles, enclosing press notices and other usual matter andhad been booked direct for one week. She had remained for two months,and might have remained for ever, the poor manager assured me, at fivetimes the salary!
A curious fact now came to light. In all her photographs Zarael-Khala appeared veiled, in the Eastern manner; that is to say, shewore a white silk _yashmak_ which concealed all her face except hermagnificent eyes! On the stage the veil was discarded; in thephotographs it was always present.
And the famous picture which she had sent to the Grand Duke? He haddestroyed it, in a fit of passion, on returning from the Bois deBoulogne after his encounter with Chunda Lal!
It is Fate after all--Kismet--and not the wit of man which leads tothe apprehension of really great criminals--a tireless Fate whichdogs their footsteps, a remorseless Fate from which they fly in vain.Long after the funeral of the Grand Duke, and at a time when I hadalmost forgotten Zara el-Khala, I found myself one evening at theopera with a distinguished French scientist and he chanced to referto the premature death (which had occurred a few months earlier) ofHenrik Ericksen, the Norwegian.
"A very great loss to the century, M. Max," he said. "Ericksen was aseminent in electrical science as the Grand Duke Ivan was eminent inthe science of war. Both were stricken down in the prime of life--andunder almost identical circumstances."
"That is true," I said thoughtfully.
"It would almost seem," he continued, "as if Nature had determined tofoil any further attempts to rifle her secrets and Heaven to checkmankind in the making of future wars. Only three months after theGrand Duke's death, the American admiral, Mackney, died at sea--youwill remember? Now, following Ericksen, Van Rembold, undoubtedly thegreatest mining engineer of the century and the only man who hasever produced radium in workable quantities, is seized with illnessat a friend's house and expires even before medical aid can besummoned."
"It is very strange.'
"It is uncanny."
"Were you personally acquainted with the late Van Rembold?" I asked.
"I knew him intimately--a man of unusual charm, M. Max; and I haveparticular reason to remember his death, for I actually met him andspoke to him less than an hour before he died. We only exchanged afew words--we met on the street; but I shall never forget the subjectof our chat."
"How is that?" I asked.
"Well, I presume Van Rembold's question was prompted by his knowledgeof the fact that I had studied such subjects at one time; but heasked me if I knew of any race or sect in Africa or Asia whoworshipped scorpions."
"_Scorpions!_" I cried. "_Ah, mon Dieu!_ monsieur say it again--_scorpions?_"
"But yes, certainly. Does it surprise you?"
"Did it not surprise _you_?"
"Undoubtedly. I could not imagine what had occurred to account forhis asking so strange a question. I replied that I knew of no suchsect, and Van Rembold immediately changed the subject, nor did herevert to it. So that I never learned why h
e had made that singularinquiry."
You can imagine that this conversation afforded me much food forreflection. Whilst I could think of no reason why anyone should plotto assassinate Grand Dukes, admirals and mining engineers, thecircumstances of the several cases were undoubtedly similar in anumber of respects. But it was the remarkable question asked by VanRembold which particularly aroused my interest.
Of course it might prove to be nothing more than a coincidence, butwhen one comes to consider how rarely the word "scorpion" is used,outside those in which these insects abound, it appears to besomething more. Van Rembold, then, had had some occasion to feelcurious about the scorpions; the name "Scorpion" was associatedwith the Hindu follower of Zara el-Khala; and she was who hadbrought the Grand Duke to Paris, where he had died.
Oh! it was a very fragile thread, but by following such a thread asthis we are sometimes led to the heart of a labyrinth.
Beyond wondering if some sinister chain bound together this series ofapparently natural deaths I might have made no move in the matter, butsomething occurred which spurred me to action. Sir Frank Narcombe, thegreat English surgeon, collapsed in the foyer of a London theatre anddied shortly afterwards. Here again I perceived a case of a notableman succumbing unexpectedly in a public place--a case parallel to thatof the Grand Duke, of Ericksen, of Van Rembold! it seemed as thoughsome strange epidemic had attacked men of science--yes! they were allmen of science, even including the Grand Duke, who was said to be themost scientific soldier in Europe, and the admiral, who had perfectedthe science of submarine warfare.
"The Scorpion!" ... that name haunted me persistently. So much so thatat last I determined to find out for myself if Sir Frank Narcombe hadever spoken about a scorpion or if there was any evidence to show thathe had been interested in the subject.
I could not fail to remember, too, that Zara el-Khala had last beenreported as crossing to England.