Doctor Death Vs. The Secret Twelve - Volume 1

by Harold Ward

  THE transition from the icy chill of the cavern to the oppressive heat of the Egyptian night was startling. It was like stepping from a refrigerator into a Turkish bath. Rounding an outcropping of rock, they suddenly found themselves in the ruins of a tiny stone hut. Its tumbling walls masked the entrance of the cave.

  On one of the tumbledown walls was a lantern from the ship. The bags and packages brought up by the men had disappeared. Through the open door, Holm looked out. A little distance away stood two cars.

  Again he marvelled at the foresight of this sinister man who called himself Death. He watched Death walk away, talking to the girl in a low voice.

  “Don’t! Oh-h-h, God!”

  It was a scream of wild, uncontrollable fear. Holm’s heart pounded in his chest as he thought of the men far below them in the bowels of the earth and wondered which of them had shrieked. Nina had dropped back a pace and was listening.

  Then came another and still another wild, frantic call for help.

  The captain, his red face streaked with perspiration, whirled, his hand reaching in his pocket for his gun.

  “Great God!” he exclaimed in a horrified voice. “That was Casey.”

  He started for the entrance, McPherson, the engineer, squat, broad-shouldered and Scotch, a pace behind him.

  The cries from below were redoubled now. The cavern echoed and reëchoed with terrified screeches.

  “Take it off! Take it off! It’s choking me! It’s sucking my blood. It’s...”

  “Choking me! Sucking my blood!... blood!... blood!...” came back the echoes. “Blood!... Blood!... Blood!...

  “The elementals!” Nina Fererra whispered hoarsely.

  Death heard the word, low though it was and turned his cavernous eyes upon her.

  “The elementals,” he nodded. “This cavern should make an excellent breeding place for them.”

  The two officers were already inside the entrance. He halted them with a quick word of command.

  “By God! Something has happened and no one ever yet said that Jim English deserted one of his crew in trouble!” the captain snarled, taking another step forward.

  Death smiled. His long arms were extended. From his bony fingers sparks leaped and scintillated. The two men halted, staggered back. The guns dropped from their palsied hands. A peculiar look crept over their faces, an imbecilic, vacuous look. Captain English grinned sheepishly.

  “I—I wonder—” he said, stepping back into the hut again and smiled.

  The shrieks from the interior of the cave were growing weaker now. One by one they died down...

  Then silence.

  “The captain here, and the engineer are a grade higher than the riff-raff below,” Death told Nina. “I need them for the future. They will give me no more trouble since they are subject to my will. I might have done likewise with the others, but my elementals needed nourishment, since they are likely to be inside the cavern for some time.

  “Meanwhile, as I remarked before, dead men tell no tales. With the exception of these two men whose memories of this incident are a blank and will remain so until I will otherwise, not a single soul is left to tell the story of our entrance to his country. This cavern, which houses the submarine, can be entered only through this fissure in the rock, which you will notice as I close this door, can be observed only by the closest scrutiny.

  “The other entrance, as you know, is under water. And I feel certain that my elementals, whose cages I opened just as we left, will effectually guard the place against any prying eyes. The Sea Gull and all of her crew are at the bottom of the ocean. The airplane vanished in flames.

  “No, I think, my dear, that we have effectually covered our tracks. Even your friend, Inspector Ricks, would have some trouble in locating us, since this is probably the most inaccessible bit of shore along the coast—a place where no ship would ever think of landing. Holm, the only person capable of running us down, is a prisoner in the cave under the old house.

  “And now—Egypt!”

  The night was dark, moonless. The two cars, driven up to the stone hut, were loaded down with the bags, suitcases and satchels of the party. The native drivers looked at the Zombi fearfully, but made no comment, nor asked any questions.

  Death escorted Nina to the leading machine, assisted her to the back seat and indicated that Jimmy should take the place beside the driver. The other two Zombi were in the rear car with the submarine officers.

  The drivers seemed to know their destination, for the instant the party was loaded, they started off. Again Holm was forced to a sort of grudging admiration at Death’s foresight, and once more Doctor Death forestalled the question he would have liked to have asked.

  “As you know from past association with me, I have agents in every inhabited part of the globe,” he told Nina, a little touch of pride in his voice. “Some of them have drawn princely salaries for years without stirring a hand. The one thing that I demand is absolute and implicit obedience. The moment the Egyptian minister divulged the secret to me, thinking me Hallenberg, I cabled my agent in Cairo ordering that these arrangements be made. The men in these cars have been waiting, I imagine, for days. They would have remained here for years, drawing their salaries for doing nothing, unless I cabled my agent otherwise.”

  They came to a canal or river—Jimmy was unable to tell which in the darkness. Here, again, Death’s wonderful organization demonstrated its power. Moored to the bank was a hastily built ferry manned by two swarthy natives in dark galabcyehs. There were lanterns on the bank to mark the approach to the boat; the roadway had been leveled down to a gradual slope.

  SALAAMING gravely, the two boatmen took their places in the bow of the craft, each with a long pole in his hand. These poles they used to steady the hastily built ferry until the first car had been driven onto it. Unfastening the moorings, they poled it across without the passengers even going to the trouble of dismounting. The other side had also been leveled and the car negotiated the bank without trouble.

  Again the improvised ferry swung across the stream. The second car was driven aboard. The prow of the boat nuzzled gently against the bank and, a moment later, the second car was beside the first.

  As they started away, Jimmy could see that the boatmen had already stripped off their clothing and were up to their shoulders in the water dismantling the boat. A third man was backing a truck toward the approach. Death chuckled again.

  “The power of money, my dear,” he told Nina. “Within half an hour that flatboat will be in pieces and on that truck following us. By morning it will be a dozen or more miles away—perhaps at our destination, since these men are to assist us with our excavations. Anyone coming past this spot in the morning would fail to recognize the fact that this was used as a crossing, since even the tracks of the cars will be obliterated.”

  “You already know the location of the secret for which you are seeking?” the girl asked.

  Doctor Death nodded.

  “On the basis of information furnished Yusef, my agent, he should have it located,” he answered. “The papyrus was rather definite, although it will probably take a certain amount of research work before we can be absolutely certain that we are on the right track. This papyrus, secured by Harmachis from a certain dealer in Egyptian curios in New York, was written by a high priest of Anubis, the jackal-headed god, who was, as you will remember, a member of the family of Osiris and presided over mummification.

  “Anubis was”—he lowered his voice almost to a whisper although Jimmy had heard him tell Nina that the fellah behind the wheel spoke no English—“a living, breathing entity and not a mythical god as has always been supposed. Anubis perfected the art of mummifying. And, while working at his process, Osiris was so pleased that he presented Anubis with a certain token which contained a magic formula which would make it possible for all those who had been mummified by his process to rise again.

  “It is to the tomb of Anubis—Anubis, the jackal-headed—the god of the mummy—t
hat we are on our way,” he ended reverently. “All this is set forth in the papyrus. There is no question as to the authenticity of the screed. The fact that it was written in the original Egyptian, which is vastly different from that of later years, caused it to be overlooked and left unread.

  “The tomb of Amenemhat, the high priest who wrote the screed, had been opened and desecrated some time in the past—probably by the ghouls—with which Egypt abounds—men who know not and care nothing for history, but who rob the tombs for the purpose of selling their contents to tourists and collectors. That is how the papyrus found its way to New York.

  WHAT is death?” he mused, after a moment’s silence. He was talking as much to himself as to his young companion. “Neither life nor death is understood by science—the science which I intend to destroy. It tells us that man is composed of certain minerals—water. The touching of certain vitals—their disturbance by even the hundredth part of an inch—and what follows? That which we call death.

  “But what is this stoppage of life? I put a bullet into the chest of Hallenberg. That bullet, entering his heart, caused this condition we call death. It separated his soul from his body. But that physical body, if put upon the scales, would have been found to weigh no more or less than it had before the leaden pellet entered his heart.” He spoke earnestly, his eyes set in a fanatical stare.

  “What, then, was gone? Only the vital spark. And this spark—this thing we call life—is not dead, but lives forever. You have seen me extract it from the body. You have seen me transfer it from one body to another.

  “What does this demonstrate? Only that the thing called life is now as it was in the beginning. Man goes on and on and on. Life is but the thought of the Creator. You have read of—possibly seen—grains of wheat taken from the tombs of those buried in the early dynasties, cultivated.

  “In our own New York scientists brought back several grains of the cereal found in a fourteenth dynasty tomb which sprouted. It did not yield. But why? Because they did not understand the art of cultivating it as had the early Egyptians. Yet nevertheless, life is there, just as it is in every mummy case in this land of Egypt.

  “In our own case, it is different,” he went on, warming up to this subject, “we make no attempt to keep the physical body. Instead, we allow it to disintegrate—to go back to the dust from which it was made. But the Egyptians were more far-sighted. They preserved the physical body by means of mummification. Why?

  “Because, as I tell you, Anubis, the jackal-headed, knew these things—had this secret handed to him by Osiris. He realized that, sooner or later, someone would be fitted to take charge of the secret—someone who would raise the dead and restore the glory that was once ancient Egypt’s. I am that man.”

  “How does it come that the tomb of Anubis—great as he was—has been overlooked by scientists so long?” Nina asked.

  Doctor Death nodded.

  “Your point is well taken,” he answered. “Because Egypt is filled with tombs. Only those of people of known prominence are opened by the expeditions licensed by the government. Why should they bother to excavate the burying places of those who had little standing in the past?

  “Anubis knowing these things—realizing that, when the time arrived, the right man would be appointed by the Creator—elected to be buried in an obscure place. As a result, his tomb has been undisturbed while those of men and women of lesser standing have been desecrated.”

  Dawn was breaking in the east as they swung around a hill and came out in a small valley, desolate looking in the dull, gray of the rising sun. In the background towered a high cliff. They entered the valley.

  “We have arrived,” Doctor Death said in an awed, hushed voice. “In the heart of that mountain lies the body of Anubis, the jackal-headed—god of mummification and custodian of the secret of life.”

  Chapter XV

  Mask of Zombi

  CLOSE to a wadi at the foot of the cliff stood a group of tumbledown stone huts, long since gone to ruin and decay. Cut into the hill was what must at one time have been a quarry, probably for the purpose of providing the stone with which the huts were built.

  Across the front of this opening a sort of screen had been erected, making of the interior a great room. Seen from a little distance, the screen had every indication of being a part of the hillside. In front of it were grouped several motor trucks. They parked their own cars alongside and dismounted.

  A man stepped forward from a little group of fellahin standing beside the trucks. He was tall, dignified, clad in spotless white. He raised his hand in salutation and made a profound bow.

  “Greetings!” he said. “I trust that you have found everything to your satisfaction.”

  Doctor Death acknowledged the salutation with a curt bow.

  “Excellent so far, Yusef,” he answered. “I compliment you on the manner in which you have carried out my instructions.”

  He turned to Nina.

  “It would be best if you looked over your new quarters and rested, my dear,” he said, leading the way behind the curtain, the fellahin following with the various boxes and bags with which the baggage carriers of the two cars had been loaded.

  She shrugged her shoulders non-committally and followed him into the cavern. Jimmy Holm knew that again she was under the spell of his magnetism—that for the nonce she was little more than a puppet.

  The two Zombi climbed stiffly out of the second car and approached Jimmy who, standing a little to one side, was staring straight to the front, his face wearing the dumb, vacant expression of the others.

  The animated dead men approached him from either side. He paid no attention to them. Then, like a bolt out of a clear sky, they leaped upon him.

  It was useless battling these dead things, as Jimmy knew from past experience, since they were immune to pain. Yet fight he did, putting every ounce of his strength into the struggle. He threw them off. They sprang upon him again. He rocked them from head to foot with his blows, seeking a chance to dodge away from them. But without avail.

  SLOWLY, their cold, clammy hands fastened themselves about him, bearing him down. His breath was slowly squeezed from his body. He went down, the two of them upon him. They held him in a vise-like grasp while Yusef, the head man, came running up with a cotton rope which he twisted about him, binding his wrists, his ankles, even fastening his arms to his sides. The task completed he arose. The two Zombi also got up, leaving Jimmy, trussed like a fowl for the spit, upon the hot sand.

  There was an angry glitter in Death’s eyes as he glared down at his captive.

  “Fool!” he snarled. “You have much to learn—and so have I. I have yet to learn the meaning of love and duty—love and duty that will carry a man to the lengths that you have gone. And you, my young friend—”

  He gazed at the detective with a cynical smile.

  “You,” he finally went on, “have to learn things, also. One of them is that a Zombi never perspires. It is fortunate for you that you were able to keep out of my sight most of the time during our voyage else I would have noticed it before. The moment you were seated in the automobile ahead of me I saw the tiny drops of perspiration standing out on your neck and—knew.

  “The death of the radio operator on the Sea Gull explains itself to me,” he went on musingly. “Likewise, the sudden disappearance of the sailor aboard the submarine. It is unfortunate that I did not discover you in time to leave you in the cavern with the sailors. The elementals that I have left there will be hungry before I return. Meanwhile—what did you learn in the wireless room? Did you have the time to send a message?”

  Jimmy Holm snarled like an angry cat.

  “To hell with you!” he exploded.

  Death turned away.

  “It is fortunate that Miss Fererra has retired to the quarters Yusef prepared for her,” he said. “Else she might be prone to make trouble. Meanwhile, Yusef, see that our young friend is properly fastened and securely guarded. But, no, I will set the two Zombi ov
er him. They cannot be corrupted. As soon as I have a moment’s time, I want to interrogate him.”

  The head man bowed low.

  “It shall be as you order, master,” he responded. “May my life be forfeited if he escapes.”

  “It probably will be,” Death growled. “He has too much information in his head for him to get away. I lack the time to interrogate him now. It is necessary, more than ever, that we push our work. Once we have discovered the secret—bah!”

  He snapped his bony fingers.

  “Then let them come—the more the better!” he snarled. “They will die by millions when the hordes of ancient Egypt spring upon them. Their bullets will avail them nothing. Gas—all known methods of modern warfare will be of no avail against those whom we will raise from the grave.

  “The world will be destroyed. Science, invention—everything—will be wiped out. We will go back to our original state. And you, Yusef, will be one of my right hand men.”

  “I do not understand,” the head man responded. “Yet if you, my master, will it, so be it. But these men who stare straight ahead—your servants? My men already fear them, thinking them jinn.”

  Death made no response.

  “My tracks are covered,” he muttered to himself as he walked away. “Yet—yet I am curious. How did he make his escape from the elemental cage? Can it be that his will is stronger than my own? No. There was some other way. Nina? I wonder... I wonder. And did he get any message away after killing the wireless operator?”

  Again he shrugged his shoulders.

  “Kismet!” he growled. “As our Oriental friends say, ‘It is fate.’”

  He followed Nina behind the screen.

  It appeared that Yusef was as much of a jewel as Death had claimed he was. Close to the little depression where the head man had decided the opening to the tomb of Anubis was to be found, was a smaller hole, evidently cut into the hillside to avoid carrying the huge rocks so far in the building of the huts.