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

by E. Hoffmann Price

  Crane’s fist smashed home, driving away a black-haired woman who sought to displace his companion. Her body was raked and bitten and slashed, but she was seeking more savage company… Crane saw how Diane had been mangled. Her terror hinted that she had not been drugged…

  Then Crane saw what had been released when those unseen iron bars clanged open. A tall, gray-haired man whose deeply lined face had once been handsome and commanding. He wore what remained of full evening dress. The ribbon that had crossed his shirtfront trailed like a streamer as he approached; and on it Crane saw the ribbons of civil and military decorations.

  He recognized the man. He knew now from whose formal garb that purple rosette had been torn. His mouth frothed, and his eyes burned insanely. He snarled bestially and plunged into the surging orgy.

  This was a man whose whispers shook Europe. Now he rolled vilely in that tangle of writhing flesh.

  But why—Great God, why?

  The Master laughed and gestured. The sullen ruddy glow of the tapers was drowned in a blue white, dazzling radiance, pitilessly revealing what shadows had shrouded.

  Then Crane saw and understood.

  A motion picture camera was covering the hideous show. That damnable film would place those drugged dignitaries forever in the power of that master of blasphemy. He had tricked them from Biarritz with hints of sensational ritual, drugged them, and the record of their unspeakable wallowings would doom them. Satanism had a logical purpose: political blackmail.

  Time to move. The Master was distracted by his own show. Crane kicked clear of his companion, reached for his pistol.

  It was gone! Lost in that writhing vortex.

  He bounded to the altar, snatched that mockery of a crucifix, and whirled toward the Master. A pistol crackled. Crane felt the stab of hot lead, hurled himself aside as bullets spattered the masonry. The acolytes closed in. The brazen crucifix crunched home. But the survivors overwhelmed him, hammering and kicking and grinding him into the flagstones.

  The Master joined them. Crane, battered and stunned, heaved up out of the gory tangle, clawed the mask aside. He slashed at that swarthy, aquiline face. He missed, ducked a knife thrust, and closed in. This was the émir, the Asiatic enemy whose grip on the drugged dignitaries would buy state and army secrets, upset an African colonial empire.

  Crane bored in, but the enemy was fresh and he was dizzy and battered. They crashed to the floor, Crane underneath, vainly trying to drive home one good blow. He jerked clear of a second knife thrust; but the next raked his ribs. The vault became a roaring redness until he perceived nothing but those implacable eyes and that savage, brazen leer.

  But that last stroke did not fall. The surging tangle of madmen, sated of all but blood lust, swept Crane and his enemies against the wall. As the acolytes strove to club them into reason, Crane made the most of his respite.

  He snatched an abandoned thurible by the chains, swung it like a flail, flattening the Master’s skull. He swung again, but the chains whipped athwart a devotee who intervened, and the weapon was jerked from Crane’s grasp. He turned toward the altar, ploughing through the writhing tangle. He tripped and was dragged back into the whirlpool of madness, a yard short of his goal.

  A pistol roared as he struggled to his feet.

  Madeline had followed him.

  Crane jerked the weapon from her fingers and blasted the acolytes back as she struggled with her sister’s bonds.

  Another shot. The cameraman toppled from his perch behind the altar. The pistol was empty. Crane seized the machine and smashed it across the head of a surviving enemy. The film reservoir spewed out its reel of yellow celluloid, fogged beyond redemption in an instant.

  The knots yielded. Crane seized the half conscious girl and with Madeline at his heels, skirted the groveling tangle of drugged devil-worshipers. There were no acolytes left to pursue. And presently they reached the mist and moonlight…

  “As you learned,” explained Diane, hours later, in Crane’s rooms, “I was just frightened helpless by your dashing down to meet me. The émir didn’t intend for me to be clawed to ribbons. But Monsieur le Général Mar—”

  “Forget his name!” interrupted Crane, “Later, I’ll tell you why.”

  “Eh bien,” resumed Diane, “through error he prematurely took some of those drugs sooner than the émir intended. Before the ritual started. And you saw—”

  “Plenty.” Crane shuddered. Then he glanced at Madeline. “You little fool, you had to follow me!”

  “But yes. I suspected that through no fault of your own you had been involved and were following some insane American impulse to do what you thought the right thing. So I followed, to help if I could. I feared she was dead, so I hesitated to call the police.”

  “Damn lucky you didn’t!”

  And then Diane interposed, “Monsieur Denis, how can I ever express my gratitude—”

  “Madeline,” interrupted Crane, “has already taken care of that. And having had my fill of sunny France, I think I’ll leave for Spain in the morning.”

  PALE HANDS

  Originally published in The Magic Carpet Magazine, October 1933.

  As Davis Lawton glanced up from the tall glass before him to gaze across the plaza just outside the gray-walled city of Bayonne, he saw that his friend Georges Joubert was approaching the table. Joubert was now a member of the Sûreté Générale; but instead of avoiding him, Lawton cultivated their wartime friendship. A subtle and audacious touch, that, maintaining cordial relations with a member of the French Secret Service!

  “Sit down and have a drink,” invited Lawton.

  Although he declined the drink, as he usually did, Joubert accepted a place at Lawton’s table.

  “My friend,” he began abruptly, after a marked and awkward silence, “there has been very much surmise about your connections, here in Bayonne, and elsewhere—in Morocco, for instance—”

  Joubert paused again, groping for words. But further speech was not necessary to tell Lawton that his connections in Morocco were about to lead him to a stone wall in a courtyard, and a firing-squad primed with a stiff drink of cognac and grumbling with forced gruffness at small-arms practice at sunrise. Lawton knew that the Sûreté never made an open move until it had enough evidence to condemn a man. The trial would be only a matter of form. But Lawton eyed Joubert very calmly: for in the beginning. Lawton had been a soldier and he would be one again, in the end.

  “Very well, Georges,” he replied. “Read me the papers.”

  “Mon ami,” came the answer, “I have no papers. That is, not yet. But I know that in twenty-four hours I shall have them. Maybe tomorrow morning. Some one has babbled. Not much, but more than enough. As for your being an agent of Abd el Krim, that is nothing to me, for personally, I don’t think France has any right in Morocco. But once the information reaches me officially I shall be compelled to forget that day on the front, when you carried me safety through that hell of machine-gun fire.

  “So get out of Bayonne and across the border as soon after sunrise as you can. There is an early express to Spain.

  “Yesterday’s paper,” he continued, “told all about Abd el Krim’s successful advance all along the front. So if I have to arrest you it will be either a firing-squad, or Devil’s Island, which is much worse. Au revoir, mon ami!”

  Then Joubert released Lawton’s hand, turned, and abruptly strode across the plaza toward the Bridge of Saint Esprit.

  * * * *

  “Someone has babbled…”

  Joubert’s words still burned into Lawton’s brain like hot irons. But before making his escape, he would have to find out what or who had betrayed him. Perhaps Madeleine had said too much in a careless moment. At the very most, she knew very little; but that would suffice. Perhaps, in a flare of jealousy—but that simply couldn’t be the case! Of all lovers, Lawton had been the most devoted. Ma
deleine wouldn’t have betrayed him, though she might have been indiscreet. And even though he escaped the Sûreté, thanks to Joubert, he would have to face the unforgiving wrath of Abd el Krim for blundering and wasting time. The problem of the moment was to find out who had betrayed him. Only the evening remained: but the Gray Goddess would tell him. She knew everything.

  The law in France prohibited the sale of absinthe; but the Gray Goddess was subtle, so that she now materialized when the contents of two separate and distinct bottles, each in itself legal, were suitably blended. First a pony of anis del oso, then one of cordiale gentiane; and then the tall glass was filled with seltzer, which clouded, becoming gray and pearly. The result was insipid to taste, but when one had an abundance of time in which to court the lady of fancies, the innocuous flavor was worth enduring for the glamour that came stealing over one’s senses.

  Lawton paid for the afternoon’s drinking, and then crossed the street to go up rue Port Neuf. He halted at a store near the corner, and after regarding its window display for a moment, stepped in. In a few minutes he emerged with a basket laden with all manner of exotic delicacies; and, among the several bottles of Oporto and Malaga, whose necks projected from their nest of parcels, there were as many more whose contents would insure the presence of the Gray Goddess during his last night in Bayonne.

  Through continued evocation of the Gray Goddess, Davis Lawton had shaken off the fetters that bound him to earth and its restricting three dimensions. She had at last become a Presence, not visible, but none the less a distinct personality whose inspiration whipped Lawton’s brain to uncanny agility, so that the most profound riddles became lucid as water. No reasoning was too intricate for his acuteness; and tonight she would tell him very certainly how he had been betrayed.

  As he reached the head of rue Port Neuf, where the old cathedral lifts its tall spires like great, slim lance-heads, he wondered how much Madeleine had lost at Biarritz that day, and what new systems he would have to devise for her.

  Madeleine lived in an apartment rue Lachepaillet, a street that ran along the walls of the city, and overlooked the park whose broad, tree-clustered green rolled away from the moat, far below. The door opened before Lawton could pick the key from its companions on his ring.

  “I’ve had the most thrilling day,” said Madeleine between kisses. “I do wish you could have been along—but what’s in the basket? Oh, aren’t those grapes just wonderful! Why, you’ve brought everything! Tinned duck, and confiture d’abricots, and—you know, I’ve got a new way to fix that caviar, with little tomatoes—and even my favorite pastries. Looks like one of your large evenings! Do tell me, have you had some good luck, too?”

  Lawton smiled cryptically at that last. And as Madeleine, all enthusiastic about the indicated celebration, began her preparations for the feast, Lawton found a tall glass and mixed his libation to the Gray Goddess. To invoke her the more swiftly, he doubled the portions of liqueurs and diminished the quantity of selzer.

  “You know, the pelota matches were wonderful today!” chattered Madeline. “And I won a bet of five louis from a charming old fellow. Terribly old, you understand, but he had the keenest eyes! Every once in a while he made a funny little gesture as if he were going to stroke his beard, then suddenly remembered that he was clean-shaven. He must have a history, that one, with the sudden shave he’s not yet accustomed to!

  “Oh, yes, and do you remember that bracelet we saw at Mornier Frères?” she continued as she set out an array of glasses. “That fascinating thing of green gold and platinum filigree, all set with diamonds and little sapphires—you didn’t even notice I’m wearing it! You never notice anything, you with your pious meditations.”

  “It really is beautiful, sweetheart,” admitted Lawton as he inspected the bracelet that glittered on her extended wrist. “You must have had a lucky day.”

  “You’d be surprised,” replied Madeleine as she went on with her work. “But I’ll tell you later. You’d never guess!”

  And then the Gray Goddess, who had returned to Lawton’s side, began whispering in his ear.

  “Probably,” she interposed, “she had it charged, so she can go back tomorrow with all her winnings and play them on double zero. You’ll get the bill for the bracelet—”

  “I know it was terribly expensive,” continued Madeleine, pausing long enough to run her slim white fingers through his hair. “But—no, I won’t tell you, yet. That’s going to be a surprise.” Lawton stared for a moment at her slender, exquisite hands. They had all had pale hands, that succession of ruinous adored ones of which Madeleine was the last. And each time that he rose from the wreckage of his duty they daintily plucked the foundation from beneath his feet again. Lawton sighed wearily, and felt very old at the recollection: but only for a moment. The Gray Goddess was weaving her web of sorcery and the Power was returning to Lawton. It pulsed and throbbed in his veins, and streaked in tiny flashes of fire down his spine, and tingled in his toes. The patterns of the Bokhara rug became exceedingly clean-cut, and then they clouded, islands of old ivory and deep blue in a sea of red that shimmered in the sultry glow of the tall floor lamp at his side. His head reeled ever so slightly with exaltation and all-knowingness. “Tomorrow,” Madeleine was saying, “we’ll drive to Saint Jean de Luz. Do you remember that day—”

  “That first day?” interpolated Lawton, ignoring for a moment the silver-clear syllables of the Goddess whispering in his ear.

  “Our first day,” said Madeleine, “when we paused on that crest and saw the gulf sparkling, far off, through a cleft in the Pyrenees?”

  “Little stupid!” chided Lawton fondly; “do you suppose that I could ever forget? There was never such a day before—”

  There was a moment’s silence, in which both she and Lawton half smiled to themselves at the memory.

  “Do you know,” she finally resumed, “I’ve often feared that some day you might leave. You’re such a nomad. And I’m so glad that you remember. It might make you return, that memory.”

  “But suppose,” suggested Lawton, “that I did return and didn’t find you? Then what of remembrance?”

  “Don’t be absurd, darling,” she reproved. “You know I’m perfectly foolish about you, and I’ll always love you. But let’s not even think of parting!”

  To which Lawton nodded and smiled; for the Goddess at his side had taken form from the mist which always heralded her presence. She was tall when he stood, and she was tiny when he sat: always at a height just right for her to whisper in his ear, so close that no one else could overhear. And of course, no one else ever saw her.

  Madeleine was chattering merrily. Lawton hated to cloud her gaiety by telling her of his departure in the morning. The evening was too lovely to mar with bad news. Later, he would tell her; but now, he would respond to her high spirits. It was easy to smile, and have his lips reply for him. And this would be agreeable to the Goddess, for Lawton now spoke to her in the language of the little gray gods, some of whom were standing respectfully in the corners of the room. He could not see them, yet, but he could feel their presence.

  Madeleine was eating now, picking dainty bits of tropical palm hearts from their garniture of mayonnaise. Her great, smoldering eyes regarded him amorously. Then she would smile, and murmur affectionate fanciful things as she offered him morsels of cold fowl, and jelly, and curiously adorned pastries and sips of Malaga.

  The enchantment was complete. He paid more and more attention to Madeleine, and yet was not distracted from the crystal-clear, thin voice of the Goddess. Lawton knew that she was not offended because Madeleine did not offer her a bit of pastry or a sip of wine, or even one of those honey-sweet and honey-colored grapes from Spain. Goddesses did not eat; and neither did gods, but Lawton tactfully ignored his divinity long enough to accept the tidbits that Madeleine offered him; for that was their last night, and he wished to make it so memorable and perfect that she wou
ld never forget him, no matter who sought her during his absence.

  “You’ve been so patient all evening,” Madeleine was saying, “I’m going to tell you the secret I’ve been saving. I know you couldn’t even guess—”

  “Do tell me and end the suspense,” Lawton replied with surprising animation, in view of his speaking at the same time to the shadow presence at his side.

  “I broke the bank today, really and truly! Can you believe it?”

  As she spoke, Madeleine drew a great roll of Bank of France notes from her handbag, and then another, and still another roll, until the fine gold mesh, emptied, clung caressingly to her knee.

  “Now, silly aren’t you sorry you growled so much about my playing roulette?” demanded Madeleine triumphantly.

  “Sweetheart, that’s perfectly wonderful, and I’m repentant already,” replied Layton. “Won’t ever growl again.”

  The Goddess was still at Lawton’s side, silent and smiling at her own thoughts. He could see her, without even turning his head, or lifting his glance from Madeleine’s exquisite, slim hands and their rosy nails that glowed warmly in the rose-hued light. And then he saw that her eyes were amorous with heavy wine from Lisbon and the thin, ethereal vintage of France. In due course she would become very sleepy, and then Lawton could continue his conversation with the Goddess: but in the meanwhile—the girl beside him was exceedingly lovely and desirable.

  Lawton dismissed the riddles of the early evening. They would keep. Nothing in the world, either this one or the next, could compare with his love for this girl and her supreme beauty that was enriching their farewell. Then he remembered that his voice was deep and resonant; and so he sang:

  “Pale hands I loved, beside the Shalimar,

  Where are you now…”

  As the last word passed his inspired lips, he leaned back against his cloud-bank of cushions and accepted Madeleine’s ecstasy of approval, and her wine-perfumed kiss.