'Why should a murderer use a pliant cable apparently thicker than a man’s arm?' he muttered. 'And what terrible constriction was applied to so crush the man’s heavy neck.'
He rose and walked to the nearest door opening into the corridor.
'Here is a bust knocked from a stand near the door,' he said, 'and here the polished floor is scratched, and the hangings in the doorway are pulled awry as if a clutching hand had grasped them – perhaps for support. Kallian Publico must have been attacked in that room. Perhaps he broke away from the assailant, or dragged the fellow with him as he fled. Anyway, he ran staggeringly out into the corridor where the murderer must have followed and finished him.'
'And if this heathen isn’t the murderer, where is he?' demanded the prefect.
'I haven’t exonerated the Cimmerian yet,' snapped the Inquisitor. 'But we’ll investigate that room –'
He halted and wheeled, listening. From the street had sounded a sudden rattle of chariot-wheels, which approached rapidly, then ceased abruptly.
'Dionus!' snapped the Inquisitor. 'Send two men to find that chariot. Bring the driver here.'
'From the sound,' said Arus, who was familiar with all the noises of the street, 'I’d say that it stopped in front of Promero’s house, just on the other side of the silk-merchant’s shop.'
'Who is Promero?' asked Demetrio.
'Kallian Publico’s chief clerk.'
'Bring him here with the chariot driver,' snapped Demetrio. 'We’ll wait until they come before we examine that room.'
Two guardsmen clomped away. Demetrio still studied the body; Dionus, Arus, and the remaining policemen watched Conan, who stood sword in hand, like a bronze figure of brooding menace. Presently sandalled feet re-echoed outside, and the two guardsmen entered with a strongly built dark skinned man in the helmet and tunic of a charioteer, with a whip in his hand, and a small timid looking individual, typical of that class which, risen from the ranks of artizans, supplies righthand men for wealthy merchants and traders.
This one recoiled with a cry from the sprawling bulk on the floor.
'Oh, I knew evil would come of this!'
'You are Promero, the clerk, I suppose. And you?'
'Enaro, Kallian Publico’s charioteer.'
'You do not seem overly moved at the sight of his corpse,' observed Demetrio.
'Why should I be moved?' The dark eyes flashed. 'Some one has only done what I dared not, but longed to do.'
'So!' murmured the Inquisitor. 'Are you a free man?'
Enaro’s eyes were bitter as he drew aside his tunic, showing the brand of the debtor-slave on his shoulder.
'Did you know your master was coming here tonight?'
'No. I brought the chariot to the Temple this evening for him as usual. He entered it and I drove toward his villa. But before we came to the Palian Way, he ordered me to turn and drive him back. He seemed much agitated in his mind.'
'And did you drive him back to the Temple?'
'No. He bade me stop at Promero’s house. There he dismissed me, ordering me to return there for him shortly after midnight.'
'What time was this?'
'Shortly after dusk. The streets were almost deserted.'
'What did you do then?'
'I returned to the slave quarters where I remained until it was time to return to Promero’s house. I drove straight there, and your men seized me as I talked with Promero in his door.'
'You have no idea why Kallian went to Promero’s house?'
'He didn’t speak of his business to his slaves.'
Demetrio turned to Promero. 'What do you know about this?'
'Nothing,' the clerk’s teeth chattered as he spoke.
'Did Kallian Publico come to your house as the charioteer says?'
'Yes.'
'How long did he stay?'
'Only a few minutes. Then he left.'
'Did he come from your house to the Temple?'
'I don’t know!' the clerk’s voice was shrill with taut nerves.
'Why did he come to your house?'
'To―to talk matters of business with me.'
'You’re lying,' snapped Demetrio. 'Why did he come to your house?'
'I don’t know! I don’t know anything!' Promero was growing hysterical. 'I had nothing to do with it –'
'Make him talk, Dionus,' snapped Demetrio, and Dionus grunted and nodded to one of his men who, grinning savagely, moved toward the two captives.
'Do you know who I am?' he growled, thrusting his head forward and staring domineeringly at his shrinking prey.
'You’re Posthumo,' answered the charioteer sullenly. 'You gouged out a girl’s eye in the Court of Justice because she wouldn’t give you information incriminating her lover.'
'I always get what I go after!' bellowed the guardsman, the veins in his thick neck swelling, and his face growing purple, as he seized the wretched clerk by the collar of his tunic, twisting it so the man was half strangled.
'Speak up, you rat!' he growled. 'Answer the Inquisitor.'
'Oh Mitra, mercy!' screamed the wretch. 'I swear –'
Posthumo slapped him terrifically first on one side of the face and then on the other, and continued the interrogation by flinging him to the floor and kicking him with vicious accuracy.
'Mercy!' moaned the victim. 'I’ll tell – I’ll tell anything –'
'Then get up, you cur!' roared Posthumo, swelling with self-importance. 'Don’t lie there whining.'
Dionus cast a quick glance at Conan to see if he were properly impressed.
'You see what happens to those who cross the police,' he said.
The Cimmerian spat with a sneer of cruel contempt for the moaning clerk.
'He’s a weakling and a fool,' he growled. 'Let one of you touch me and I’ll spill his guts on the floor.'
'Are you ready to talk?' asked Demetrio tiredly. He found these scenes wearingly monotonous.
'All I know,' sobbed the clerk, dragging himself to his feet and whimpering like a beaten dog in his pain, 'is that Kallian came to my house shortly after I arrived – I left the Temple at the same time he did – and sent his chariot away. He threatened me with discharge if I ever spoke of it. I am a poor man, without friends or favour. Without my position with him, I would starve.'
'What’s that to me?' snapped Demetrio. 'How long did he remain at your house?'
'Until perhaps half an hour before midnight. Then he left, saying that he was going to the Temple, and would return after he had done what he wished to do there.'
'What was he going to do there?'
Promero hesitated at revealing the secrets of his dreaded employer, then a shuddering glance at Posthumo, who was grinning evilly as he doubled his huge fist, opened his lips quickly.
'There was something in the Temple he wished to examine.'
'But why should he come here alone, and in so much secrecy?'
'Because it was not his property. It arrived in a caravan from the south, at dawn. The men of the caravan knew nothing of it, except that it had been placed with them by the men of a caravan from Stygia, and was meant for Kalanthes of Hanumar, priest of Ibis. The master of the caravan had been paid by these other men to deliver it directly to Kalanthes, but he’s a rascal by nature, and wished to proceed directly to Aquilonia, on the road to which Hanumar does not lie. So he asked if he might leave it in the Temple until Kalanthes could send for it.
'Kallian agreed, and told him he himself would send a runner to inform Kalanthes. But after the men had gone, and I spoke of the runner, Kallian forbade me to send him. He sat brooding over what the men had left.'
'And what was that?'
'A sort of sarcophagus, such as is found in ancient Stygian tombs, but this one was round, like a covered metal bowl. Its composition was something like copper, but much harder, and it was carved with hieroglyphics, like those found on the more ancient menhirs in southern Stygia. The lid was made fast to the body by carven copper-like bands.'
'Wha
t was in it?'
'The men of the caravan did not know. They only said that the men who gave it to them told them that it was a priceless relic, found among the tombs far beneath the pyramids and sent to Kalanthes, ‘because of the love the sender bore the priest of Ibis.’ Kallian Publico believed that it contained the diadem of the giant-kings, of the people who dwelt in that dark land before the ancestors of the Stygians came there. He showed me a design carved on the lid, which he swore was the shape of the diadem which legend tells us the monster-kings wore.
'He determined to open the Bowl and see what it contained. He was like a madman when he thought of the fabled diadem, which myths say was set with the strange jewels known only to that ancient race, a single one of which is worth more than all the jewels of the modern world.
'I warned him against it. But he stayed at my house as I have said, and a short time before midnight, he came alone to the Temple, hiding in the shadows until the watchman had passed to the other side of the building, then letting himself in with his belt-key. I watched him from the shadows of the silk shop, saw him enter the Temple, and then returned to my own house. If the diadem was in the Bowl, or anything else of great value, he intended hiding it somewhere in the Temple and slipping out again. Then on the morrow he would raise a great hue and cry, saying that thieves had broken into his house and stolen Kalanthes’ property. None would know of his prowlings but the charioteer and I, and neither of us would betray him.'
'But the watchman?' objected Demetrio.
'Kallian did not intend being seen by him; he planned to have him crucified as an accomplice of the thieves,' answered Promero. Arus gulped and turned pale as this duplicity of his employer came home to him.
'Where is this sarcophagus?' asked Demetrio. Promero pointed, and the Inquisitor grunted. 'So! The very room in which Kallian must have been attacked.'
Promero turned pale and twisted his thin hands.
'Why should a man in Stygia send Kalanthes a gift? Ancient gods and queer mummies have come up the caravan roads before, but who loves the priest of Ibis so well in Stygia, where they still worship the arch-demon Set who coils among the tombs in the darkness? The god Ibis has fought Set since the first dawn of the earth, and Kalanthes has fought Set’s priests all his life. There is something dark and hidden here.'
'Show us this sarcophagus,' commanded Demetrio, and Promero hesitantly led the way. All followed, including Conan, who was apparently heedless of the wary eye the guardsmen kept on him, and seemed merely curious. They passed through the torn hangings and entered the room, which was rather more dimly lighted than the corridor. Doors on each side gave into other chambers, and the walls were lined with fantastic images, gods of strange lands and far peoples. And Promero cried out sharply.
'Look! The Bowl! It’s open – and empty!'
In the centre of the room stood a strange black cylinder, nearly four feet in height, and perhaps three feet in diameter at its widest circumference, which was half-way between the top and bottom. The heavy carven lid lay on the floor, and beside it a hammer and a chisel. Demetrio looked inside, puzzled an instant over the dim hieroglyphs, and turned to Conan.
'Is this what you came to steal?'
The barbarian shook his head.
'How could I bear it away? It is too big for one man to carry.'
'The bands were cut with this chisel,' mused Demetrio, 'and in haste. There are marks where misstrokes of the hammer dinted the metal. We may assume that Kallian opened the Bowl. Some one was hiding nearby – possibly in the hangings in the doorway. When Kallian had the Bowl open, the murderer sprang on him – or he might have killed Kallian and opened the Bowl himself.'
'This is a grisly thing,' shuddered the clerk. 'It’s too ancient to be holy. Who ever saw metal like it in a sane world? It seems less destructible than Aquilonian steel, yet see how it is corroded and eaten away in spots. Look at the bits of black mould clinging in the grooves of the hieroglyphics; they smell as earth smells from far below the surface. And look – here on the lid!' The clerk pointed with a shaky finger. 'What would you say it is?'
Demetrio bent closer to the carven design.
'I’d say it represents a crown of some sort,' he grunted.
'No!' exclaimed Promero. 'I warned Kallian, but he would not believe me! It is a scaled serpent coiled with its tail in its mouth. It is the sign of Set, the Old Serpent, the god of the Stygians! This Bowl is too old for a human world – it is a relic of the time when Set walked the earth in the form of a man! The race which sprang from his loins laid the bones of their kings away in such cases as these, perhaps!'
'And you’ll say that those moldering bones rose up and strangled Kallian Publico and then walked away, perhaps,' derided Demetrio.
'It was no man who was laid to rest in that bowl,' whispered the clerk, his eyes wide and staring. 'What human could lie in it?'
Demetrio swore disgustedly.
'If Conan is not the murderer,' he snapped, 'the slayer is still somewhere in this building. Dionus, and Arus, remain here with me, and you three prisoners stay here too. The rest of you search the house. The murderer could only have escaped – if he got away before Arus found the body – by the way Conan used in entering, and in that case the barbarian would have seen him, if he’s telling the truth.'
'I saw no one but this dog,' growled Conan, indicating Arus.
'Of course not, because you’re the murderer,' said Dionus. 'We’re wasting time, but we’ll search the house as a formality. And if we find no one, I promise you shall burn! Remember the law, my black-haired savage – you go to the mines for killing a commoner, you hang for killing a tradesman, and for murdering a rich man, you burn!'
Conan answered with a wicked lift of his lip, baring his teeth, and the men began their search. The listeners in the chamber heard them stamping upstairs and down, moving objects, opening doors and bellowing to one another through the rooms.
'Conan,' said Demetrio, 'you know what it means if they find no one?'
'I didn’t kill him,' snarled the Cimmerian. 'If he had sought to hinder me I’d have split his skull. But I did not see him until I saw his corpse.'
'I know that some one sent you here tonight, to steal at least,' said Demetrio. 'By your silence you incriminate yourself in this murder as well. You had best speak. The mere fact of your being here is sufficient to send you to the mines for ten years, anyhow, whether you admit your guilt or not. But if you tell the whole tale, you may save yourself from the stake.'
'Well,' answered the barbarian grudgingly, 'I came here to steal the Zamorian diamond goblet. A man gave me a diagram of the Temple and told me where to look for it. It is kept in that room,' Conan pointed, 'in a niche in the floor under a copper Shemitish god.'
'He speaks truth there,' said Promero. 'I’d thought that not half a dozen men in the world knew the secret of that hiding place.'
'And if you had secured it,' asked Dionus sneeringly, 'would you really have taken it to the man who hired you? Or would you have kept it for yourself?'
Again the smouldering eyes flashed resentment.
'I am no dog,' the barbarian muttered. 'I keep my word.'
'Who sent you here?' Demetrio demanded, but Conan kept a sullen silence.
The guardsmen were straggling back from their search.
'There’s no man hiding in this house,' they growled. 'We’ve ransacked the place. We found the trap-door in the roof through which the barbarian entered, and the bolt he cut in half. A man escaping that way would have been seen by the guards we posted about the building, unless he fled before we came. Then, besides, he would have had to stack tables or chairs or cases upon each other to reach it from below, and that has not been done. Why couldn’t he have gone out the front door just before Arus came around the building?'
'Because the door was bolted on the inside, and the only keys which will work that bolt are the one belonging to Arus and the one which still hangs on the girdle of Kallian Publico.'
'
I’ve found the cable the murderer used,' one of them announced. 'A black cable, thicker than a man’s arm, and curiously splotched.'
'Then where is it, fool?' exclaimed Dionus.
'In the chamber adjoining this one,' answered the guard. 'It’s wrapped about a marble pillar, where no doubt the murderer thought it would be safe from detection. I couldn’t reach it. But it must be the right one.'
He led the way into a room filled with marble statuary, and pointed to a tall column, one of several which served a purpose more of ornament to set off the statues, than of utility. And then he halted and stared.
'It’s gone!' he cried.
'It never was there!' snorted Dionus.
'By Mitra, it was!' swore the guardsman. 'Coiled about the pillar just above those carven leaves. It’s so shadowy up there near the ceiling I couldn’t tell much about it – but it was there.'
'You’re drunk,' snapped Demetrio, turning away. 'That’s too high for a man to reach; and nothing but a snake could climb that smooth pillar.'
'A Cimmerian could,' muttered one of the men.
'Possibly. Say that Conan strangled Kallian, tied the cable about the pillar, crossed the corridor and hid in the room where the stair is. How then, could he have removed it after you saw it? He has been among us ever since Arus found the body. No, I tell you Conan didn’t commit the murder. I believe the real murderer killed Kallian to secure whatever was in the Bowl, and is hiding now in some secret nook in the Temple. If we can’t find him, we’ll have to put the blame on the barbarian, to satisfy Justice, but – where is Promero?'
They had returned to the silent body in the corridor. Dionus bellowed threateningly for Promero, and the clerk came suddenly from the room in which stood the empty Bowl. He was shaking and his face was white.
'What now, man?' exclaimed Demetrio irritably.
'I found a symbol on the bottom of the Bowl!' chattered Promero. 'Not an ancient hieroglyphic, but a symbol recently carved! The mark of Thoth-amon, the Stygian sorcerer, Kalanthes’ deadly foe! He found it in some grisly cavern below the haunted pyramids! The gods of old times did not die, as men died – they fell into long sleeps and their worshippers locked them in sarcophagi so that no alien hand might break their slumbers. Thoth-amon sent death to Kalanthes – Kallian’s greed caused him to loose the horror – and it is lurking somewhere near us – even now it may be creeping upon us –'
The Conan Chronology Page 97