Out of the Dark

by Robert W. Chambers

  Applause followed, not very enthusiastic, for the sort of audience which sustains the shows of which her performance was merely an entr’acte is an audience responsive only to the obvious.

  Nobody ever before had seen that sort of magic in America. People scarcely knew whether or not they quite liked it. The lightning of innovation stupefies the dull; ignorance is always suspicious of innovation – always afraid to put itself on record until its mind is made up by somebody else.

  So in this typical New York audience approbation was cautious, but every fascinated eye remained focused on this young girl who continued to do incredible things, which seemed to resemble ‘putting something over’ on them; a thing which no uneducated American conglomeration ever quite forgives.

  The girl’s silence, too, perplexed them; they were accustomed to gabble, to noise, to jazz, vocal and instrumental, to that incessant metropolitan clamor which fills every second with sound in a city whose only distinction is its din. Stage, press, art, letters, social existence unless noisy mean nothing in Gotham; reticence, leisure, repose are the three lost arts. The megaphone is the city’s symbol; its chiefest crime, silence.

  The girl having finished with the big glass bubble full of tiny fish, picked it up and tossed it aside. For a moment it apparently floated there in space like a soap-bubble. Changing rainbow tints waxed and waned on the surface, growing deeper and more gorgeous until the floating globe glowed scarlet, then suddenly burst into flame and vanished. And only a strange, sweet perfume lingered in the air.

  But she gave her perplexed audience no time to wonder; she had seated herself on the stage and was already swiftly busy unfolding a white veil with which she presently covered herself, draping it over her like a tent.

  The veil seemed to be translucent; she was apparently visible seated beneath it. But the veil turned into smoke, rising into the air in a thin white cloud; and there, where she had been seated, was a statue of white stone the image of herself! – in all the frail springtide of early adolescence – a white statue, cold, opaque, exquisite in its sculptured immobility.

  There came, the next moment, a sound of distant thunder; flashes lighted the blank curtain; and suddenly a vein of lightning and a sharper peal shattered the statue to fragments.

  There they lay, broken bits of her own sculptured body, glistening in a heap behind the footlights. Then each fragment began to shiver with a rosy internal light of its own, until the pile of broken marble glowed like living coals under thickening and reddening vapors. And, presently, dimly perceptible, there she was in the flesh again, seated in the fiery center of the conflagration, stretching her arms luxuriously, yawning, seemingly awakening from refreshing slumber, her eyes unclosing to rest with a sort of confused apology upon her astounded audience.

  As she rose to her feet nothing except herself remained on the stage – no débris, not a shred of smoke, not a spark.

  She came down, then, across an inclined plank into the orchestra among the audience.

  In the aisle seat nearest her sat Victor Cleves. His business was to be there that evening. But she didn’t know that, knew nothing about him – had never before set eyes on him.

  At her gesture of invitation he made a cup of both his hands. Into these she poured a double handful of unset diamonds – or what appeared to be diamonds – pressed her own hands above his for a second – and the diamonds in his palms had become pearls.

  These were passed around to people in the vicinity, and finally returned to Mr Cleves, who, at her request, covered the heap of pearls with both his hands, hiding them entirely from view.

  At her nod he uncovered them. The pearls had become emeralds. Again, while he held them, and without even touching him, she changed them into rubies. Then she turned away from him, apparently forgetting that he still held the gems, and he sat very still, one cupped hand over the other, while she poured silver coins into a woman’s gloved hands, turned them into gold coins, then flung each coin into the air, where it changed to a living, fragrant rose and fell among the audience.

  Presently she seemed to remember Cleves, came back down the aisle, and under his close and intent gaze drew from his cupped hands, one by one, a score of brilliant little living birds, which continually flew about her and finally perched, twittering, on her golden headdress – a rainbow-crest of living jewels.

  As she drew the last warm, breathing little feathered miracle from Cleves’s hands and released it, he said rapidly under his breath: ‘I want a word with you later. Where?’

  She let her clear eyes rest on him for a moment, then with a shrug so slight that it was perceptible, perhaps, only to him, she moved on along the inclined way, stepped daintily over the footlights, caught fire, apparently, nodded to a badly rattled audience, and sauntered off, burning from head to foot.

  What applause there was became merged in a dissonant instrumental outburst from the orchestra; the great god Jazz resumed direction, the mindless audience breathed freely again as the curtain rose upon a familiar, yelling turbulence, including all that Gotham really understands and cares for – legs and noise.

  Victor Cleves glanced up at the stage, then continued to study the name of the girl on the programme. It was featured in rather pathetic solitude under ‘Entr’acte’. And he read further: ‘During the entr’acte Miss Tressa Norne will entertain you with several phases of Black Magic. This strange knowledge was acquired by Miss Norne from the Yezidees, among which almost unknown people still remain descendants of that notorious and formidable historic personage known in the twelfth century as The Old Man of the Mountain – or The Old Man of Mount Alamout.

  ‘The pleasant profession of this historic individual was assassination; and some historians now believe that genuine occult power played a part in his dreadful record – a record which terminated only when the infantry of Genghis Khan took Mount Alamout by storm and hanged the Old Man of the Mountain and burned his body under a boulder of You-Stone.

  ‘For Miss Norne’s performance there appears to be no plausible, practical or scientific explanation.

  ‘During her performance the curtain will remain lowered for fifteen minutes and will then rise on the last act of “You Betcha Life”.’

  The noisy show continued while Cleves, paying it scant attention, brooded over the program. And ever his keen, grey eyes reverted to her name, Tressa Norne.

  SAMARIS

  I

  On the thirteenth day of March, 1906, Kerns received the following cable from an old friend:

  Is there anybody in New York who can find two criminals for me? I don’t want to call in the police.

  J.T. BURKE.

  To which Kerns replied promptly:

  Wire Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, N.Y.

  And a day or two later, being on his honeymoon, he forgot all about his old friend Jack Burke.

  On the fifteenth day of March, 1906, Mr Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, received the following cablegram from Alexandria, Egypt:

  Keen, Tracer, New York: – Locate Joram Smiles, forty, stout, lame, red hair, ragged red mustache, cast in left eye, pallid skin; carries one crutch; supposed to have arrived in America per S. S. Scythian Queen, with man known as Emanuel Gandon, swarthy, short, fat, light bluish eyes, Eurasian type.

  I will call on you at your office as soon as my steamer, Empress of Babylon, arrives. If you discover my men, keep them under surveillance, but on no account call in police. Spare no expense. Dundas, Gray & Co. are my bankers and reference.

  JOHN TEMPLETON BURKE.

  On Monday, April 2nd, a few minutes after eight o’clock in the morning, the card of Mr John Templeton Burke was brought to Mr Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, and a moment later a well-built, wiry, sun-scorched young man was ushered into Mr Keen’s private office by a stenographer prepared to take minutes of the interview.

  The first thing that the Tracer of Lost Persons noted in his visitor was his mouth; the next his eyes. Both were unmistakably good – the eyes which his Creator had
given him looked people squarely in the face at every word; the mouth, which a man’s own character fashions agreeably or mars, was pleasant, but firm when the trace of the smile lurking in the corners died out.

  There were dozens of other external characteristics which Mr Keen always looked for in his clients; and now the rapid exchange of preliminary glances appeared to satisfy both men, for they advanced toward each other and exchanged a formal hand clasp.

  ‘Have you any news for me?’ asked Burke.

  ‘I have,’ said the Tracer. ‘There are cigars on the table beside you – matches in that silver case. No, I never smoke; but I like the aroma – and I like to watch men smoke. Do you know, Mr Burke, that no two men smoke in the same fashion? There is as much character in the manner of holding a cigar as there is difference in the technique of artists.’

  Burke nodded, amused, but, catching sight of the busy stenographer, his bronzed features became serious, and he looked at Mr Keen inquiringly.

  ‘It is my custom,’ said the Tracer. ‘Do you object to my stenographer?’

  Burke looked at the slim young girl in her black gown and white collar and cuffs. Then, very simply, he asked her pardon for objecting to her presence, but said that he could not discuss his case if she remained. So she rose, with a humorous glance at Mr Keen; and the two men stood up until she had vanished, then reseated themselves vis-à-vis. Mr Keen calmly dropped his elbow on the concealed button which prepared a hidden phonograph for the reception of every word that passed between them.

  ‘What news have you for me, Mr Keen?’ asked the younger man with that same directness which the Tracer had already been prepared for, and which only corroborated the frankness of eyes and voice.

  ‘My news is brief,’ he said. ‘I have both your men under observation.’

  ‘Already?’ exclaimed Burke, plainly unprepared. ‘Do you actually mean that I can see these men whenever I desire to do so? Are these scoundrels in this town – within pistol shot?’

  His youthful face hardened as he snapped out his last word, like the crack of a whip.

  ‘I don’t know how far your pistol carries,’ said Mr Keen. ‘Do you wish to swear out a warrant?’

  ‘No, I do not. I merely wish their addresses. You have not used the police in this matter, have you, Mr Keen?’

  ‘No. Your cable was explicit,’ said the Tracer. ‘Had you permitted me to use the police it would have been much less expensive for you.’

  ‘I can’t help that,’ said the young man. ‘Besides, in a matter of this sort, a man cannot decently consider expense.’

  ‘A matter of what sort?’ asked the Tracer blandly.

  ‘Of this sort.’

  ‘Oh! Yet even now I do not understand. You must remember, Mr Burke, that you have not told me anything concerning the reasons for your quest of these two men, Joram Smiles and Emanuel Gandon. Besides, this is the first time you have mentioned pistol range.’

  Burke, smoking steadily, looked at the Tracer through the blue fog of his cigar.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I have not told you anything about them.’

  Mr Keen waited a moment; then, smiling quietly to himself, he wrote down the present addresses of Joram Smiles and Emanuel Gandon, and, tearing off the leaf, handed it to the younger man, saying: ‘I omit the pistol range, Mr Burke.’

  ‘I am very grateful to you,’ said Burke. ‘The efficiency of your system is too famous for me to venture to praise it. All I can say is “Thank you”; all I can do in gratitude is to write my check – if you will be kind enough to suggest the figures.’

  ‘Are you sure that my services are ended?’

  ‘Thank you, quite sure.’

  So the Tracer of Lost Persons named the figures, and his client produced a check book and filled in a check for the amount. This was presented and received with pleasant formality. Burke rose, prepared to take his leave, but the Tracer was apparently busy with the combination lock of a safe, and the young man lingered a moment to make his adieus.

  As he stood waiting for the Tracer to turn around he studied the writing on the sheet of paper which he held toward the light:

  Joram Smiles, no profession, 613 West 24th Street. Emanuel Gandon, no profession, same address. Very dangerous men.

  It occurred to him that these three lines of pencil-writing had cost him a thousand dollars – and at the same instant he flushed with shame at the idea of measuring the money value of anything in such a quest as this.

  And yet – and yet he had already spent a great deal of money in his brief quest, and – was he any nearer the goal – even with the penciled addresses of these two men in his possession? Even with these men almost within pistol shot!

  Pondering there, immersed in frowning retrospection, the room, the Tracer, the city seemed to fade from his view. He saw the red sand blowing in the desert; he heard the sickly squealing of camels at the El Teb Wells; he saw the sun strike fire from the rippling waters of Saïs; he saw the plain, and the ruins high above it; and the odor of the Long Bazaar smote him like a blow, and he heard the far call to prayer from the minarets of Sa-el-Hagar, once Saïs, the mysterious – Saïs of the million lanterns, Saïs of that splendid festival where the Great Triad’s worship swayed dynasty after dynasty, and where, through the hot centuries, Isis, veiled, impassive, looked out upon the hundredth king of kings, Meris, the Builder of Gardens, dragged dead at the chariot of Upper and Lower Egypt.

  Slowly the visions faded; into his remote eyes crept the consciousness of the twentieth century again; he heard the river whistles blowing, and the far dissonance of the streets – that iron undertone vibrating through the metropolis of the West from river to river and from the Palisades to the sea.

  His gaze wandered about the room, from telephone desk to bookcase, from the table to the huge steel safe, door ajar, swung outward like the polished breech of a twelve-inch gun.

  Then his vacant eyes met the eyes of the Tracer of Lost Persons, almost helplessly. And for the first time the full significance of this quest he had undertaken came over him like despair – this strange, hopeless, fantastic quest, blindly, savagely pursued from the sand wastes of Saïs to the wastes of this vast arid city of iron and masonry, ringing to the sky with the menacing clamor of its five monstrous boroughs.

  Curiously weary of a sudden, he sat down, resting his head on one hand. The Tracer watched him, bent partly over his desk. From moment to moment he tore minute pieces from the blotter, or drew imaginary circles and arabesques on his pad with an inkless pen.

  ‘Perhaps I could help you, after all – if you’d let me try,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Do you mean – me?’ asked Burke, without raising his head.

  ‘If you like – yes, you – or any man in trouble – in perplexity – in the uncertain deductions which arise from an attempt at self-analysis.’

  ‘It is true; I am trying to analyze myself. I believe that I don’t know how. All has been mere impulse – so far. No, I don’t know how to analyze it all.’

  ‘I do,’ said the Tracer.

  Burke raised his level, unbelieving eyes.

  ‘You are in love,’ said the Tracer.

  After a long time Burke looked up again. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes. Can I help you?’ asked the Tracer pleasantly.

  The young man sat silent, frowning into space; then:

  ‘I tell you plainly enough that I have come here to argue with two men at the end of a pistol; and – you tell me I’m in love. By what logic—’

  ‘It is written in your face, Mr Burke – in your eyes, in every feature, every muscle’s contraction, every modulation of your voice. My tables, containing six hundred classified superficial phenomena peculiar to all human emotions, have been compiled and scientifically arranged according to Bertillon’s system. It is an absolutely accurate key to every phase of human emotion, from hate, through all its amazingly paradoxical phenomena, to love, with all its genera under the suborder – all its species, subspecies,
and varieties.’

  He leaned back, surveying the young man with kindly amusement.

  ‘You talk of pistol range, but you are thinking of something more fatal than bullets, Mr Burke. You are thinking of love – of the first, great, absorbing, unreasoning passion that has ever shaken you, blinded you, seized you and dragged you out of the ordered path of life, to push you violently into the strange and unexplored! That is what stares out on the world through those haunted eyes of yours, when the smile dies out and you are off your guard; that is what is hardening those flat, clean bands of muscle in jaw and cheek; that is what those hints of shadow mean beneath the eye, that new and delicate pinch to the nostril, that refining, almost to sharpness, of the nose, that sensitive edging to the lips, and the lean delicacy of the chin.’

  He bent slightly forward in his chair.

  ‘There is all that there, Mr Burke, and something else – the glimmering dawn of desperation.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the other, ‘that is there. I am desperate.’

  ‘Exactly. Also you wear two revolvers in a light, leather harness strapped up under your armpits,’ said the Tracer, laughing. ‘Take them off, Mr Burke. There is nothing to be gained in shooting up Mr Smiles or converting Mr Gandon into nitrates.

  ‘If it is a matter where one man can help another,’ the Tracer added simply, ‘it would give me pleasure to place my resources at your command – without recompense—’

  ‘Mr Keen!’ said Burke, astonished.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You are very amiable; I had not wished – had not expected anything except professional interest from you.’

  ‘Why not? I like you, Mr Burke.’

  The utter disarming candor of this quiet, elderly gentleman silenced the younger man with a suddenness born of emotions long crushed, long relentlessly mastered, and which now, in revolt, shook him fiercely in every fiber. All at once he felt very young, very helpless in the world – that same world through which, until within a few weeks, he had roved so confidently, so arrogantly, challenging man and the gods themselves in the pride of his strength and youth.