by Sax Rohmer
He turned again to the pilot.
"What's the idea. Hunter?" he demanded.
"The idea is," the airman replied, grin- ning with evident enjoyment, "that I've made a dash from Heliopolis to cut you off at Wasta! Jump to it! You've got to be clear of the train in two minutes! "
"But we're in the middle of dinner! "
"Don't blame me. It's Superintendent Weymouth's doing. He's standing by where I landed the bus. "
"But," I interrupted, "where are we going? "
"Same place," said the airman, grinning delightedly. "But I can get you there in no time; save you the Nile crossing and land you, I believe, within five hundred yards of the camp. Where's your compartment? You have to run for your things or leave them on the train. It doesn't matter much. "
"It does," I said. I turned to Petrie. "I'll get your bag. Fix things with the attendant and meet me on the platform."
I rushed out of the dining car, observed in blank astonishment by every other occupant. Our compartment gained, I nearly knocked over the night attendant who was making the bed. Dr. Petrie's bag I grabbed at once. Coats, hats, and two light suitcases were quickly bundled out. I thrust some loose money into the hand of the badly-startled attendant and made for the exit.
Petrie's bag I managed to place carefully on the platform. The rest of the kit I was compelled to throw out unceremoniously-- for the train was already in motion. I jumped off the step and looked along the platform.
Far ahead, where the dining-car had halted, I saw Petrie and Jameson Hunter engaged apparently in a heated altercation with the station-master. Heads craned through many windows as the Luxor express moved off.
And suddenly, standing there with the baggage distributed about me, I became rigid, staring--staring--at a yellow, leering face which craned from a coach only one removed from that we had occupied.
The spy had been on the train.
I was brought to my senses by a tap on the arm. I turned.
An Airways mechanic stood at my elbow.
"Mr. Greville," he said, "is this your baggage?"
I nodded.
"Close shave," he commented. He began to pick up the bags. "I think I can manage the lot, sir. Captain Hunter will show you the way. "
"Careful with the black bag!" I cried. "Keep it upright, and for heaven's sake, don't jolt it! "
"Very good, sir."
Hatless, dinnerless, and half-asleep I stood, until Jameson Hunter, Dr. Petrie, and the station-master joined me.
"It's all settled," said Hunter, still grin- ning cheerfully. The station-master here was rather labouring under the impression that it was a hold-up. I think he's been corrupted by American movies. Well, here we go!"
But the station-master was by no means willing to let us go. He was now surrounded by a group of subordinates, and above the chatter of their comments I presently gath- ered that we must produce our tickets. We did so, and pushed our way through the group. Further obstruction was offered... when all voices became suddenly silent.
A big man, wearing a blue serge suit, extraordinarily reminiscent of a London policeman in mufti, and who carried his soft hat so that the moonlight silvered his crisp white hair, strolled into the station.
"Weymouth!" cried Petrie. "This is amazing! What does it mean?"
The big, genial man, whom I had met once or twice at the club, appeared to be under a cloud. His geniality was less manifest than usual; but the effect of his arrival made a splendid advertisement for the British tradi- tion in Egypt. The station-master and his subordinates positively wilted in the presence of this one-time chief inspector of the Crim- inal Investigation Department now in supreme command of the Cairo Detective Service.
Weymouth nodded to me, a gleam of his old cheeriness lighting the blue eyes; then: "I don't begin to think what it means, Doctor," he replied, "but it was what your wife told me. "
"The cry in the courtyard? "
"Yes; and the telegram I found waiting when I got back. "
"Telegram?" Petrie echoed. He turned to me. "Did you send it, Greville? "
"No. Do you mean, Superintendent, you received a telegram from Luxor? "
"I do; I received one to-day. "
"So did I," said Petrie, slowly. "Who, in sanity's name, sent those telegrams, Greville?"
But to that question I could find no answer.
"It's mysterious, I grant," said Weymouth; "but whoever he is, he's a friend. Mrs. Petrie thinks-- "
"Yes," said Petrie, eagerly.
Weymouth smiled in a very sad way, and: "She always knew in the old days," he added. "It was uncanny. "
"It was," Petrie agreed.
"Well, over the phone to-night she told me-- "
"Yes? "
"She told me she had the old feeling. "
"Not-- "
"So I understood, Doctor. I didn't waste another minute. I 'phoned Heliopolis and by a great stroke of luck found Jameson Hunter there with a bus, commissioned to pick up an American party now in Assouan. He was leaving in the morning, but I arranged with him to leave to-night. "
"Moonlight is bad for landing unless one knows the territory very well," Jameson Hunter interrupted. "Fortunately I knew of a good spot outside here, and I know another just behind Der-el-Bahari. If we crash, it will be a bad show for Airways."
We hurried out to where a car waited. Dr. Petrie personally carrying the bag with its precious contents; and soon, to that ceaseless tooting which characterises Egyptian drivers, we were dashing through the narrow streets with pedestrians leaping like hares from right and left of our course.
Outside the town we ran into a cultivated area, but only quite a narrow belt. Here there was a road of sorts. We soon left this and were bumping and swaying over virgin, untamed desert. On we went, and on, in the bright moonlight. I seemed to have stepped over the borderline of reality. The glorious blaze of stars above me had become unreal, unfamiliar.
My companions were unreal--a dream company.
All were silent except Jameson Hunter, whose constant ejaculations of "Jumping Jupiter!" when we took an unusually bad bump indicated that he at least had not succumbed to that sense of mystery which had claimed the rest of us.
On a long, gentle slope dangerously terminated by a ravine, the 'plane rested. Our baggage was quickly transferred and we climbed on board. A second before the roar of the propeller washed out conversation: "Hunter," said Weymouth, "stretch her to the full. It's a race to save a man from living death...."
Chapter Second
RIMA
It was bumpy travelling, and I had never been a good sailor. Jameson Hunter stuck pretty closely to the river, but saved miles, of course, on the many long bends, notably on that big sweep immediately below Luxor, where, leaving the Nile Valley north of Farshut, we crossed fifty miles of practically arid desert, heading east-south-east for Kurna.
I was in poor condition, what with lack of sleep and lack of meals; and I will not enlarge upon my state of discomfort beyond saying that I felt utterly wretched. Sometimes I dozed; and then Rima's grave eyes would seem to be watching me in that maddeningly doubtful way. Once I dreamed that the slender ivory hands of Madame Ingomar beckoned to me....
I awoke in a cold perspiration. Above the roar of the propeller I seemed to hear her bell-like, hypnotic voice....
Who was this shadowy figure, feared by Petrie, by his wife--by Weymouth? What had he to do with the chief's sudden death? Were these people deliberately mystifying me, or were they afraid to tell me what they suspected?
Forester was convinced that Barton was dead. I could not doubt it. But in the incom- prehensible message scribbled at the last, Petrie seemed to have discovered a hope which was not apparent to me. Weymouth's words had reinforced it.
"A race to save a man from living death."
Evidently he, too, believed... believed what?
It was no sort of problem for one in my condition, but at least I had done my job quicker than I could have hoped. Luck had been w
ith me.
Above all, my own personal experience proved that there was something in it. Who had sent the telegrams? Who had uttered that cry in the courtyard? And why had I been followed to Cairo and followed back? Thank heaven, at last I had shaken off that leering, oblique-eyed spy.
Jameson Hunter searched for and eventu- ally found the landing-place which he had in mind--a flat, red-grey stretch east of the old caravan road.
I was past reliable observation, but personally I could see nothing of the camp. This perhaps was not surprising as it nestled at the head of a wadi, represented from our present elevation by an irregular black streak.
However, I was capable of appreciating that the selected spot could not be more than half a mile west of it. Hunter brought off a perfect landing, and with a swimming head I found myself tottering to the door.
When I had scrambled down:
"Wait a minute," said Petrie. "Ah, here's my bag. You've been through a stiff time, Greville. I am going to prescribe."
His prescription was a shot of brandy. It did me a power of good.
"If we had known," said Hunter, "some sandwiches would have been a worthy effort. But the whole thing was so rushed--I hadn't time to think."
He grinned cheerfully.
"Sorry my Phantom-Rolls isn't here to meet us," he said. "Someone must have mislaid it. It's a case of hoofing, but the going's good."
Carrying our baggage, we set out in the moonlight. We had all fallen silent now, even Jameson Hunter. Only our crunching foot- steps broke the stillness. I think there is no place in the world so calculated to impress the spirit of man as this small piece of territory surrounding those two valleys where the quiet dead of Egypt lie. At night, when the moon sails full, he would be a pitiful soul who. passing that way, failed to feel the touch of eternity.
For my own part, as familiar landmarks appeared, a dreadful unrest compounded of sorrow and hope began to take possession of me. Above all, selfishly no doubt, I asked myself again and again--had Rima returned?
We were not expected until morning when the Cairo train arrived. Consequently I was astounded when on mounting the last ridge west of the wadi I saw Forester hurrying to meet us. Of course, I might have known, had I been capable of associating two ideas, that the sound of our approach must have aroused the camp.
Forester began to run.
Bad news casts a long shadow before it. I forgot my nausea, my weariness. It came to me like a revelation that something fresh had occurred--something even worse than that of which I had carried news to Cairo.
I was not alone in my premonition. I saw Weymouth grasp Petrie's arm.
Forester began shouting:
"Is that you, Greville? Thank God you've come!"
Now, breathless, he joined us.
"What is it?" I asked. "What else had happened? "
"Only this, old man," he panted. "We locked the chiefs body in the big hut, as you remember. I had serious doubts about noti- fying the authorities. And to-night, about dusk, I went to... look at him."
He grasped me by both shoulders.
"Greville!" Even in the moonlight I could see the wildness in his eyes. "His body had vanished. "
"What!" Weymouth yelled.
"There isn't a trace--there isn't a clue. He's just been spirited away!"
2
"If only Nayland Smith could join us," said Weymouth.
Dr. Petrie, looking very haggard in the lamplight, stared at him.
"The same thought had just crossed my own mind," he replied. "I am due to sail for England on Thursday. I had been counting the days. He's meeting me in..."
I knew that I could never again be present at so singular a scene. The hut was in part a laboratory, one end being devoted to Forester's special province, and containing a table laden with jars, test tubes, and other chemical paraphernalia. In part it was a museum. There were plans, diagrams, and photographs--Rima's photographs--pinned on the walls: lumps of stone bearing labels stacked upon the floor; and in open cases were all sorts of fragments found during the earlier stages of our excavation and duly tabu- lated in the same way.
There was a very dilapidated mummy case at the farther end of the hut, which we had taken over from the Egypt Exploration people and had not troubled to remove. The lid rested against the wall. Then there was a long, bare table, very stoutly built, upon which finds were stacked at the end of the day, examined, and sorted according to their value. This, particularly, was my job. But at the moment, as I have said, the table was empty. When I had seen it last before leaving for Cairo, the body of Sir Lionel Barton lay upon it, covered by a grey blanket.
Now, in almost complete silence, for twenty minutes or more, I had watched a one-time chief inspector of Scotland Yard carrying out a detailed investigation in that strangest of settings.
Weymouth had not confined his inquiries to the hut alone; but, assisted by a flash-lamp, had exam- ined the lock of the door, the windows, the path outside; but had finally returned and stared at the table.
Now he fixed his eyes upon me, and: "Mr. Greville," he said, "you are not prej- udiced by certain suspicions of mine which are shared by Dr. Petrie. I asked Mr. Forester to see to the comfort of Jameson Hunter because I wanted just the three of us alone here. Now, you look pretty well whacked, but I know how you feel about this thing; so I am going to ask you a few questions. "
"As many as you like," I replied.
Superintendent Weymouth sat down on the bench just beside the door and knitted his brows; then: "Where is the headman Alt Mahmoud?" he asked.
"Forester tells me he sent him across to Luxor to-night with a letter for our friend the manager of the Winter Palace. Forester asked him, in the letter, to call you. Superintendent, in Cairo, and to explain what had happened. Alt should be back now."
Weymouth nodded thoughtfully.
"Leaving out for the moment the circum- stances of Sir Lionel's death," said he, "how long a time elapsed between your finding him in his tent and the removal of his body to this hut? "
"Roughly, two hours," I replied after a few moments' thought.
"During those two hours someone was always in sight of the tent? "
"Certainly. "
"When was it decided he should be moved? "
"When I made up my mind to go to Cairo. I gave instructions for his body to be placed in this hut... I am second in command, you know. Forester agreed, although he swore that life was extinct. I personally super- intended the job. I locked the hut, handed the keys to Forester, and turned in, hoping for some sleep before starting for Luxor. "
"Did you sleep? "
"No; I lay awake right up to the time I had to set out. "
"Did anything unusual occur during the night?"
I thought hard, and then: "Yes," I replied; "there was a queer howling of dogs. Ali Mahmoud turned out. He said the sound had not been made by dogs; but of course he was rather strung up. We all were. We searched but found nothing. "
"H'm! What time was this? "
"I am afraid I can't tell you; but some time before dawn.
"Did you open this hut? "
"No. "
"Ah!" said Weymouth meditatively. "That was a pity. And now, Mr. Greville, there's another point I'm not clear about. You spoke of Sir Lionel's niece. Where is she, and where was she at the time of the tragedy?"
I had expected the question, of course. Nevertheless I didn't quite know how to meet it. I saw Dr. Petrie regarding me curiously, and at last:
"I don't know where she is!" I replied-- and recognized how strange the words must sound.
"What!" Weymouth exclaimed. "But I thought she was official photographer? "
"She is; but... Well! we had a quarrel. She went across to Luxor on Tuesday at midday. I haven't seen her since! "
"Oh, I see," said Weymouth. "Forgive me. I hadn't grasped the position. Sir Lionel knew of her absence? "
"He treated it as a joke. That was his way. She often stayed in Luxor and worked here during
the day. "
"Did he approve of the--understanding? "
"Yes; at least I think so. "
"I suppose, as she hasn't come back, that she doesn't know what's happened? "
"I suppose so; but I am very anxious.... "
"Naturally." Weymouth looked suddenly grave; and then:
"Perhaps, Mr. Greville," he said, "you would ask Forester to come in?"
I opened the door and walked out in the dense shadow of the wadi. A new atmosphere invested it, an atmosphere to which, even mentally, I didn't like to give a name, but which nevertheless was an atmosphere of terror.
What was the meaning of the disappear- ance of Sir Lionel's body? Whom could it benefit? Most damnable mystery of all-- what was the information clearly shared by Weymouth and Petrie which they were suppressing?
So my thoughts ran as I walked through the shadows. The moon was out of sight from the wadi, but the stars were wonderful; and suddenly the natural law of things had its way. I began to think ofRima, to the exclu- sion of everything else.
Her empty tent--the tent which she occu- pied when she spent the night in camp--was on the slope directly ahead. Moonlight touched it at one point, but the front was in shadow.
"If I am in the way," I seemed to hear her voice saying again, "I can go--"
If she was in the way! What had she meant? I had had no chance to find out. She had gone. Undoubtedly she was labouring under some strange delusion. But where was she-- and did she know what had happened?
I was abreast of her tent, now, and some- thing--an empty longing, no doubt-- prompted me to peep inside. As I did so, an incredible thing happened--or, rather, two incredible things.
The mournful howling of a dog arose, apparently quite close to the camp. And in the darkness of the tent something stirred! I suppressed a cry, bent forward with outstretched arms... and found a slim soft body in my embrace!
Even then, I couldn't believe what was true, couldn't appreciate the nature of my capture, until: "Shan! Shan!" came a stifled cry. "You're hurting me dreadfully! "
"Rima!" I exclaimed--and wondered if my heart or hers throbbed the more wildly.
I said not another word. Stooping, I kissed her with a desperation which probably sprang from a submerged fear that she would never give me an opportunity of kissing her again.