E. Hoffmann Price's Pierre d'Artois: Occult Detective & Associates

by E. Hoffmann Price

  All in a glance, I saw him, knife still clutched, sink to the floor. The kampilan, wedged in the bones of the hip, was pulled from Pierre’s grasp.

  D’Artois sighed, tottered, and leaned against the bed-post.

  Of the two, I was the most shaken, as spectators usually are.

  “Christ, Pierre!” I exclaimed. I had to say something. “You’d make a wonderful jurmentado! But did that first shot get you?”

  “Only a scratch,” he assured. “The second missed entirely.”

  He shook his head, and regarded the two at his feet.

  “They should have died in good spirits,” he muttered, “knowing how close they came to taking the hide of Pierre d’Artois. And that shot, earlier this evening—mordieu! Some one is cursing his poor marksmanship.

  “That attack at the front door,” he continued, “was undoubtedly a ruse to draw you from your post. As for the window—look!”

  He indicated the bars that had been wrenched aside.

  “Those were sawed in advance of the attempt. All of which confirms my suspicions. We are contending with more than ghosts. This necromancer has a well organized crew of cutthroats, who—”

  “Good Lord,” I interrupted, “she’s not even awakened by all this rioting.”

  “No,” replied d’Artois. “Nor is that strange. My guess—tu comprends, it is but a guess—is that Madeleine has been carefully prepared for this outrage. Some one has hypnotized her and impressed upon her mind certain commands which she executes without knowing why.”

  “But how could she be hypnotized, and not know it?” I wondered. “Did she mention—”

  “That is simple,” explained d’Artois. “He could order her to forget it, and all else but the commands he wants her to remember. But give me a hand, and we will heave this carrion into the courtyard.”

  One by one we dragged the intruders to the window and heard them drop to the paving below.

  “In the morning,” said Pierre, “I will have new bars set into the window. Better yet, we will move her into another room, although that will in all probability not fool them. And then I must report this skirmish to the police. It will be embarrassing, but I think that I can convince Monsieur le Préfet, without his having to listen to any talk about a queen loitering about the house.”

  Then, as I followed him down the stairway, “Those I left scattered about down below must also be disposed of.”

  But as we entered the vestibule, we saw not a sign of those that d’Artois had struck down.

  He stared at me for an instant, and frowned.

  “One would think from this, mon vieux, that we were indeed under close observation. Even as we fought up there, some one hauled the casualties away. Do you, therefore, sleep, and I will stand watch the rest of the night. While another attempt is not at all likely, it would be best to take no chances.”

  And though the events of the evening did not tend to promote sound sleep, I did better than the previous night. Nevertheless, I was up shortly after sunrise.

  I found d’Artois sitting on the balcony overlooking the moat, and the rolling parkway below. Raoul was serving coffee.

  “My friend,” said d’Artois as I greeted him, “I will allow you no more than three of those guesses. What happened while you snored so melodiously to keep me awake on my post?”

  “Good Lord, Pierre!” I exclaimed, fearing the worst. “Surely, they didn’t return and—”

  “They did indeed return, and—”

  He laughed outright at my dismay, then continued, “And take away those we heaved into the court. Under my nose, pardieu, or while you and I surveyed the wreckage in my study. But they asked for no more steel!” he concluded with a grim smile, and a twist of his fierce gray mustache.

  Then, as an afterthought, “But this enemy is no incompetent bungler, despite his poor marksmanship.”

  As I sipped my coffee, and digested Pierre’s last remark, I glanced down rue Lachepaillet. The street extends from the citadel commandant’s headquarters, along the city wall, to the guardhouse at the Porte d’Espagne drawbridge. An old man was striding jauntily up the grade. His white beard streamed in the morning breeze. He wore an Arab’s burnoose, and headkerchief. The hilt of a scimitar peeped over his shoulder, and his belt bristled with daggers.

  A frown wrinkled his scar-seamed forehead as he halted and regarded the number over the front door.

  “Pierre,” I said, “it seems we have a visitor.”

  D’Artois thrust aside his coffee, and glanced down from the balcony.

  “Holá! Nureddin!” he hailed.

  “Ya Pierre!” shouted the old fellow, as he looked up and recognized d’Artois.

  The ensuing sputter of Arabic was too fast for my ear. And then d’Artois, after hesitating for a moment at the balcony railing, decided the leap was too great for his years, and dashed down the stairs to admit his visitor.

  “Ya sidi,” said the old man, as Pierre seized his hand, “the British Resident at Aden sought me out in the desert and gave me your message. And behold, I am here, el hamdu lilahi!”

  “And I also praise God, my good friend,” exclaimed d’Artois devoutly. And then, “Raoul! Coffee!”

  Turning to me, Pierre continued, “This is Nureddin, a holy darwish with whom I have had dealings in the past.”

  The old fellow grinned, nodded, and said, “By the bounty of Allah, I am indeed a pious recluse, but my friend Pierre summoned me from my meditations.”

  He made the last part of his declaration solemnly; but the twinkle in his keen old eyes convinced me that his holiness had been considerably diluted of late.

  “There were no vessels, and I was in a hurry,” he continued. “So in my despair, I approached the crew of a zaroug lying at anchor. I gave them various presents. We threw the nakhoda overboard, with the help of Allah, and set sail.”

  And then Raoul served coffee. Nureddin’s piety did not keep him from relishing the brandy that Raoul had added.

  This wrinkled old reprobate from the hinterland of Aden must be the ally that Pierre had summoned, relying on past friendship to bring him in such haste. Piracy, it seemed, was a new accomplishment, for as he sipped his coffee, he repeated with gusto how with the help of God they had thrown the captain overboard, and sailed up the Red Sea.

  “We were not far from the shore, sidi,” he added, “and the dog refused a fair offer I made him. My crew? Wallah, they will remain in the zaroug. Eight stout Dankalis. Wild men from behind Djibouti. The voyage kept them busy, but lying here in idleness, they will doubtless cut each other to pieces—”

  “Say you so, my friend?” interrupted d’Artois. “I will give them cutting in good measure.”

  Nureddin’s eyes brightened.

  “Praise God!” he ejaculated devoutly, “But I saw no camels in the public square this morning, and I feared that there were no caravans to rob—”

  “There are none,” admitted Pierre. “But we have better game for you. And as for your Dankalis, let them make camp in the courtyard. I have work for the good fellows.”

  “In that case, my lord,” replied the old darwish, “I will get them at once.”

  And Nureddin, striking light to a cigarette, strode briskly to the door, and thence down rue Lachepaillet.

  Where,” I demanded, “did you find him?”

  “That is Nureddin, the darwish,” said Pierre. “A pious and holy man—”

  “Holy, hell!” I exclaimed. “Then I’m a cardinal.”

  “Despite his occasional trifling with caravans, he is, according to his own standards, a pious and holy man,” d’Artois insisted. “He robs only heretic Persians—”

  “And dumps the nakhoda over the side, as his debut in piracy,” I interrupted.

  “Tiens!” scoffed Pierre. “He was in a hurry on my account. As I said, the good fellow is ver
sed in occult sciences. He has even been in that lost city Madinat ash-Shams, far beyond the ruins of Mareb. He, if any one, can get to the bottom of this matter. Be of good cheer, my friend. This accursed pack of devil-mongers will have the crimp put in their style!”

  D’Artois was enormously cheered by the arrival of his strange ally. I could see that he had shaken off the burden of despair that had weighed him down ever since my arrival in Bayonne.

  In order to thwart a repetition of the previous night’s raid, we decided to continue our watch. The power that was reaching forth to clutch Madeleine had become stronger. Her eyes had become strange in expression, and regarded us with curiosity mingled with resentment. Her slow, enigmatic smile made us shudder from its resemblance to the shadowy Balkis whom Pierre had commanded to leave, that night that we had seen the apparition. And then, once in a while, we caught flashes of Madeleine herself, bewildered, and dazed, and strange in her own body. Her gestures had become undulant and serpentine. It was terrifying to watch Madeleine being rapidly thrust into the background by the invader. She was lovelier, perhaps, than she had been, but it was a dismaying beauty that came from the grave of Balkis.

  Happily, she was awake but little of the day. And shortly after sunset, she fell into a deep sleep.

  “Watch her closely, my friend,” said Pierre. “Do not relax from your vigilance even for a moment. Nureddin and I will divide the watches with you. Beware of any trickery to distract you. Call me if you should become drowsy—no matter how early it may be, call me at once.”

  * * * *

  In view of the strategy employed by the enemy in the attack of the preceding night, I took my post in Madeleine’s room. I examined the window-bars, and noted that they had not been tampered with. And regardless of whatever disturbance I might hear from below, I resolved not to quit my post. With Pierre, and the old Arab, Nureddin, and the crew of Dankalis from the zaroug, any handful of cutthroats that the unknown devil-monger might send would meet an adequate reception committee.

  It was utterly inconceivable, a woman’s being crowded out of her own body; yet Madeleine had actually become another person. When, during her waking moments, Nureddin had succeeded in cajoling her from her haughty silence, she had addressed him in what the darwish declared was the language of the ancient Sabeans.

  The classic example of the illiterate servant-girl’s reciting long passages of Hebraic which she had overheard her master, a philologist, declaiming did not apply to Madeleine. The servant in the delirium of fever recited, whereas Madeleine conversed. The distinction and the logical inference were painfully obvious.

  Balkis the Queen remembered that her people, the Sabeans, were cousins of the Arabs, and she recognized the kinship between her and the darwish. She considered Pierre and me as aliens. She spoke in the present tense of the lost splendors of Madinat ash-Shams, that city whose ruins are in Arabia, far behind Mareb.

  “By Allah!” the darwish had exclaimed at the end of one of those conversations, “I have seen those ruins. And I know that she speaks of that city as it was in the days of Suleiman, upon whom be the peace!

  “She is verily Balkis, Malikat as-Sabahh!” he continued, lowering his voice in awe. “The Queen of the Morning. And look you, sidi, those are the eyes of a Sabean woman of the line of Iaraab, of pure race.”

  It was terrifying to think that a necromancer loved a dead queen, and could summon her from her grave, and plan so that his accursed lips might thrill to the caress of one who had smiled at Solomon.

  Then what of the true Madeleine? Into what darkness was she banished? In what limbo, neither living nor dead, did she roam, desolate and become like a bird without feathers?

  Hideous! Only in this hasheesh dream of a city could this infamy have occurred.

  The moon was almost full. In another night, lean, wrinkled Nureddin would try his occult arts, whether or not the identity of the devil-monger was known. And in the meanwhile, he and d’Artois were taking counsel.

  The night was warm and pleasant, yet suddenly I shivered. My thoughts were poor company. I knew that this room was alive with presences, and that the very silence masked the soundless murmuring of powers who were striving to make a final assault against that body whose soul they had banished.

  I could not see them, but they were assembling.

  The room had become a congress of evil, unseen shapes. Dead Balkis had been only an apparition, which should have been asleep rather than awake and wandering. But this which I now sensed approaching was malignant, and obscene in its own right.

  The moonlight that had streamed in through the window was becoming dimmed.

  “Only a cloud,” I reassured myself. But I knew better.

  Madeleine—Balkis—stirred uneasily, and murmured. Then her great dark eyes opened. They had the sightlessness of drugged sleep. I knew that something was commanding her silence.

  The cloud that blotted the moon must now be very dense. The moon sought to hide her face from the evils of creation. The air was now vibrant with menace. Balkis, ghost that she was in a living body, was at least human. I wondered for a moment if I could awaken her, and let her dark eyes and strange tongue reprove me for my insolence, so that I would not be utterly alone in this whirlpool of evil. I wondered then if even Balkis was present. That darkened room had become appallingly empty, save for that malevolence that had become a concentrated fury.

  I glanced at the window, and saw that which I had not heard. Then I wondered if, indeed, I saw. That which stared between the stout half-inch bars of steel was a thing which could not have any existence. It was a foulness and an abomination and an outrage, that slate-gray, amorphous presence, four of whose misshapen hands clutched the sill. It was that whose soundless approach, and not any cloud, had obscured the moon.

  The reptilian stench of the creature choked me, and its baleful eyes paralyzed me. I gasped, and licked my dry lips, and sought to yell, but my throat was a dusty void through which my breath hissed and muttered futilely. I had a pistol, but as in a dreadful nightmare, my numb hands would not draw and fire. I knew that firing would be useless. I knew that it would be vain to alarm Pierre and the darwish, and the Dankali sailors.

  Two of the hands gripped the bars, and strained against them, until they stretched and snapped. And then another pair gave way before the resistless force of that monster. It was translucent in the moonlight; and despite its prodigious strength, it was unsubstantial seeming, and formless. It was a foulness from those unhallowed vaults, coming to do the bidding of him who had resurrected and enslaved dead Balkis.

  The window was now clear. That shapeless, monstrous thing flowed into the room with its ghastly confusion of limbs. The reptilian mustiness of serpent-infested subterranean caverns made the air dense and stifling and foul.

  In that extreme of terror, I could no longer tremble. A lethargic resignation possessed me. And then I remembered that it had come at its diabolical master’s command to seize Madeleine. My throat was still inarticulate, but with a mighty effort I regained command of my arms. I seized the chair on which I had been sitting and with the strength of frenzy, smote the creature on the head. I thought, at least, that it was its head, but I could not be sure, for the monstrosity transcended the anatomy of honest beasts.

  The chair splintered, and yet bounded back as though I had smitten an inflated the. I lashed out again with what remained in my hand. It ignored me, and lumbered toward Madeleine’s bed. It was as indifferent to position as it was to blows; for instead of rising from its dive to the floor, it waddled sidewise, crablike. That formless foulness moved but with a single idea. It was devoid of perceptions. If it were cut to fragments, they would unite, and march on. Neither beast, nor reptile, nor plant, but a hideous blending of them.

  It waddled, dragging its members with a scraping, hissing rustling. Nothing could stop that abysmal foulness.

  It would take Madeleine to t
he den of the necromancer. Madeleine was doomed, and before my staring eyes. My paralyzed throat still sought to yell, but could not. A fragment of the heavy chair still hung in my grasp. Hopeless. Hopeless. What if the Dankalis drove their broad-bladed knives through it? What if Pierre sliced it with that two-handed Moro kampilan? Futile. Vain. The master demanded Madeleine. And it served. It advanced, deliberately.

  “No, by God!” my mind said, though my lips were dumb. “There is a way.”

  I leaped past the terror, clutched Madeleine in my arms, and faced the monster. Madeleine—Balkis—was the beloved of that damnable necromancer. It would not hurt her.

  I shuddered, and sickened as it embraced me and my still sleeping burden. I held her in a frenzied grip, so that it would seize us as one. My senses whirled and spun as the deadly vileness exhaled by the creature stifled me.

  “Must…hold…tight.”

  Good God, what would not a breath…one breath…of pure air be worth! And that amorphous, textureless travesty on all creation was touching her. I wondered how her bare skin could endure that which made me shudder from the contamination that filtered through my heavier clothing.

  That quintessence of all subterranean loathsomeness.…

  “Must…hold…tight…go with…her…”

  My last conscious impression was that we were descending the masonry side of the building. Very vaguely, and as from a great distance, I heard yells of frantic men crying out in a strange language.

  The Dankali sailors had seen it…

  Then no more, until—I know not how much later—I opened my eyes, and saw that I was in a vast, high-ceiled room pervaded with a phosphorescent greenness that quivered and glowed and flickered maddeningly. The expanse of floor was so broad that the furniture, visible at the far side, seemed diminutive. I was lying near the wall. My hands and feet were tied with cords. My desperate strategy had worked, though to what end, I knew not. I had followed Madeleine into the house of the sorcerer, or into his subterranean den. I had no ideas on my location, whether above or below ground.