“Each one of these young girls was of an independent turn: She reveled in the new emancipation of her sex. Oh, but yes! So much she relished this new freedom that the ancient inhibitions were considered out of date. The good God, the gentle Christ Child, the Blessed Mother—ah bah, they were outmoded: she must follow after newer—or older—gods.
“Eh bien, exceedingly strange gods they were, too. In Berlin, Paris, London and New York there is a sect which preaches for its gospel ‘Do What Thou Wilt; This Shall Be the Whole of the Law.’ And as the little boy who eats too many bonbons inevitably achieves a belly-ache, so do the followers of this unbridled license reap destruction ultimately. But certainly.
“Each one of these young girls I find she has enlisted in this strange, new army of the freed. She has attended meetings where they made strange prayers to stranger gods, and—eventually she ends a cast-off plaything, eaten with drugs and surfeited with life, in the little, infamous Blue Houses of the East. Yes.
“I found them all. Some were dying, some were better dead, some had still a little way to tread the dreary path of hell-in-life, but all—all, my friends—were marked with this device upon their breasts. See, I have seen him so often I can draw him from memory.” Taking a black-oilcloth bound notebook from his pocket he tore out a leaf and scribbled a design upon it.
De Grandin and I stared at each other in blank amazement as he passed the sheet to us.
“Good Lord!” I ejaculated. “It’s exactly like—”
“Précisément; la même chose—it is the same that Mademoiselle of the Veil displayed,” de Grandin agreed. With shining eyes he turned to face Renouard. “Proceed, my friend,” he begged. “When you have done we have a tale to tell.”
“Ah, but I am far from done,” the Inspector replied. “Bien non. I did investigate some more, and I found much. I discovered, by example, that the society to which these most unhappy girls belonged was regularly organized, having grand and subordinate lodgers, like Freemasons, with a central body in control of all. Moreover, I did find that at all times and at all places where this strange sect met, there was a Russian in command, or very near the head. Does that mean anything to you? No?
“Very well, then, consider this: Last year the Union of the Militant Godless, financed by the Soviet government, closed four thousand churches in Russia by direct action. Furthermore, still well supplied with funds, they succeeded in doing much missionary work abroad. They promoted all sorts of atheistic societies, principally among young people. In America on the one hand they gave much help to such societies as ‘The Lost Souls’ among college students, and on the other they greatly aided fanatical religious sects which aim at the abolition of innocent amusement—in the name of Christ. Associations for making the Sabbath Day unpleasant by closing of the cinemas, the shops and all places of recreation, have received large grants of money from the known agents of this Godless Union. Moreover, we know for certain that much of the legislation fostered by these bodies has been directly proposed by Russian agents posing as staunch upholders of fundamental religion. You see? On the one side atheism is promoted among the young, on the other religion’s own ministers are whipped on by flattery or outright bribery to do such things as will make the churches hateful to all liberal-minded people. The scheme is beautifully simple, and it has worked well.
“Again: In England only half a year ago a clergyman was unfrocked for having baptized a dog, saying he would make it a good member of the Established Church. We looked this man’s antecedents up and found that he was friendly with some Russians who posed as émigrés—refugees from the Bolshevik oppression. Now this man, who has no fortune and no visible means of support, is active every day in preaching radical atheism, and in weaning his former parishioners from their faith. He lives, and lives well. Who provides for him? One wonders.
“Defections in the clergy of all churches have been numerous of late, and in every instance one or more Russians are found on friendly terms with the apostate man of God.
“Non, hear me a little further,” he went on as de Grandin was about to speak. “The forces of disorder, and of downright evil, are dressing their ranks and massing their shock troops for attack. Far in the East there is the mutter of a distant drum, and from the fastnesses of other lands the war-drum’s beat is answered. Consider:
“In the Congo there is renewed activity by the Leopard Men, those strange and diabolical societies whose members disguise themselves as leopards, then seek and kill their prey by night. The authorities are taking most repressive measures, but still the Leopard Societies flourish more than ever, and the blacks are fast becoming unruly. There will be difficulties.
“In Paris, London and Berlin again and yet again churches are despoiled of sacred plate and blessed vestments, the host is stolen from the altar, and every kind of sacrilege is done. A single instance of this sort of thing, or even several, might be coincidence, but when the outrages are perpetrated systematically, not once, but scores of times, and always at about the same time, though in widely separated places, coincidences become statistics. There can no longer be a doubt; the black mass is being celebrated regularly in all the greater cities of the world; yet we do not think mere insult to God is all that is intended. No, there is some central, underlying motive for this sudden and widespread revival of satanism. One wonders what.
“And here another puzzle rises: In Arabia, north of Irak, in the Kurdish mountains, is the headquarters of a strange people called the Yezidees. About them we know little, save that they have served the Devil as their god time out of mind. Had they been strong numerically, they would have been a problem, for they are brave and fierce, and much given to killing, but they are few in number and their Moslem neighbors ring them round so thoroughly that they have been forced back upon themselves and seldom do they trouble those who do not trouble them. But”—he paused impressively—“on Mount Lalesh, where their great temple stands, strange things have been brewing lately. What it is we do not clearly know, but their members have been gathering from all parts of the East, from as far as Mongolia, in some instances, to celebrate some sort of mystic ceremony. Not only that, but strangers—Europeans, Africans, white, black and yellow men, who have no business being there, have been observed en route to Kurdistan, like pilgrims journeying to Mecca. Less than a month ago a party of brigands waylaid some travelers near Aleppo. Our gendarmes rescued them—they were a party of Americans and Englishmen, with several Spaniards as well and all were headed for Kurdistan and Mount Lalesh. Again one wonders why.
“Our secret agents have been powerless to penetrate the mystery. We only know that many Russians have been sent to enter the forbidden city of the Yezidees; that the Yezidees, who once were poor, are now supplied with large amounts of ready cash; and that their bearing toward their neighbors has suddenly become arrogant.
“Wild rumors are circulated: There is talk of a revival of the cult of the Assassins, who made life terrible for the Crusaders and the Mussulmans alike. There are whispers of a prophetess to come from some strange land, a prophetess who will raise the standard of the Devil and lead his followers against the Crescent and Cross. Just what it is we do not surely know, but those of us who know the East can perceive that it means war. The signs are unmistakable; a revolution is fomenting. Some sort of unholy jihad will be declared, but where the blow will fall, or when, we can not even guess. India? Indo-China? Arabia? Perhaps in all at once. Who knows? London is preparing, so is Paris, and Madrid is massing troops in Africa—but who can fight a figure carved in smoke? We must know at whom to strike before we can take action, n’est-ce-pas?
“But this much I can surely tell: One single man, a so-mysterious man whose face I have not seen, but whose trail is marked as plainly as a snake’s track in the dust, is always found at hand where the strings of these far-separated things are joined and knotted in a cord. He was a prime mover in the societies to which those wretched girls belonged; he was among those friendly with the unfrocked Engl
ish clergyman; he was almost, but not quite, apprehended in connection with the rifling of the sanctuary of a church in Cologne; he has been seen in Kurdistan. Across France, England, Arabia and Egypt have I trailed him, always just a little bit too late. Now he is in America. Yes, parbleu, he is in this very city!
“C’est tout! I must find him, and finding him, I must achieve a method to destroy him, even if I have to stoop to murder. The snake may wiggle, even though his head has been decapitated, but God knows he can no longer bite when it is done. So do I.”
Jules de Grandin leaned across the desk and possessed himself of Renouard’s cigarette case, extracted from it a vile-smelling Maryland and lit it with a smile, “I know the answers to your problems—or some of them, at least—my friend,” he asserted. “This very night there came to us—to this very house—a deserter from the ranks of the accursed, and though she raved in wild delirium, she did let fall enough to tell us how to find this man you seek, and when we find him—” The hard, cold light, which always reminded me of winter sunshine glinting on a frozen stream, came into his eyes, and his thin lips tightened in an ugly line. “When we have found him,” he continued, “we shall know what to do. Name of an umbrella, we damn shall!
“The piecemeal information which you have fits admirably with what we already know and better yet with that which we suspect. Listen to me carefully—”
The sudden jangle of the telephone broke in.
“Doctor Trowbridge?” called a deep bass voice as I snatched up the instrument and growled a gruff “hullo?”
“Yes.”
“Costello—Detective Sergeant Costello speakin’. Can you an’ Doctor de Grandin be ready in five minutes to go wid me? I’d not be afther askin’ ye to leave yer beds so early if it warn’t important, sor, but—”
“That’s all right, Sergeant, we haven’t been to bed as yet.” I told him. “We’re pretty well done in, but if this is important—”
“Important, is it? Glory be to God, if th’ foulest murther that iver disgraced th’ Shtate o’ Jersey ain’t important, then I can’t think what is. ’Tis out to th’ Convent o’ th’ Sacred Heart, by Rupleyville, sor, an’—I’ll take it kindly if ye’ll go along wid me, sor. Th’ pore ladies out there’ll be needin’ a docthor’s services, I’m thinkin’, an’ St. Joseph knows I’m afther needin’ all th’ expert help that Doctor de Grandin can give me, too.”
“All right, we’ll be waiting for you,” I replied as I put the monophone back in its hooks and turned to notify de Grandin and Renouard of our engagement.
8. “In Hoc Signo—”
THE QUERULOUS CRESCENDO OF a squad car’s siren sounded outside our door almost as I finished speaking, and we trooped down the front steps to join the big Irish policeman and two other plainclothes officers occupying the tonneau of the department vehicle. “Sure, Inspector Renouard,” Costello greeted heartily as he shook hands, “’tis glad I am to see ye this mornin’. There’s nothin’ to do in this case but wor-rk like th’ devil an trust in God, an’ th’ more o’ us there’s here to do it, th’ better our chances are. Jump in, gentlemen.” To the uniformed chauffeur he ordered: “Shtep on it, Casey.”
Casey stepped. The powerful Cadillac leaped forward like a mettlesome horse beneath the flailings of a lash, and the cold, sharp air of early winter morning was whipped into our faces with breathtaking force as we sped along the deserted road at nearly eighty miles an hour.
“What is it? What has happened?” de Grandin cupped his hands and shouted as we roared past the sleeping houses of the quiet suburb. Costello raised his gloved hand to his mouth, then shook his head. No voice was capable of bellowing above the screeching of the rushing wind.
Almost before we realized it we were drawn up before the tall graystone walls of the convent, and Costello was jerking vigorously at the bell-pull beside the gate. “From headquarters, Ma’am,” he announced tersely, touching his hat as the portress drew back the little wicket in the door and gazed at us inquiringly.
Something more than ordinary silence seemed to brood above the big bare building as we followed our conductress down the clean-swept corridor to the public reception parlor: rather, it seemed to me, the air was charged with a sort of concentrated, apprehensive emanation of sheer terror. Once, when professional obligations required my attendance at an execution, I had felt some such eerie sensation of concentrated horror and anticipation as the other witnesses and I sat mute within the execution chamber, staring alternately with fright-filled eyes at the grim electric chair and the narrow door through which we knew the condemned man would soon emerge.
As we reached the reception room and seated ourselves on the hard, uncomfortable chairs, I suddenly realized the cause of the curiously anxious feeling which possessed me. From every quarter of the building—seemingly from floors and walls and ceilings—there came the almost mute but still perceptible soft sibilation of a whispered chorus. Whisper, whisper, whisper; the faint, half audible susurration persisted without halt or break, endless and untiring as the lisping of the tide upon the sands. It worried me, it beat upon my ears like water wearing on a stone: unless it stopped, I told myself, I would surely shout aloud with all my might for no other reason than to drown its everlasting monotonous reiteration.
The tap of light soled shoes and the gentle rustle of a skirt brought relief from the oppressive monotone, and the Mother Superior of the nunnery stood before us. Costello bowed with awkward grace as he stepped forward. De Grandin and Renouard were frigidly polite in salutation; for Frenchmen, especially those connected with official life, have not forgotten the rift between the orders and the Government of France existing since the disestablishment of 1903.
“We’re from headquarters, Mother,” Costello introduced: “We came as quickly as we could. Where is it—she—the body, if ye please?”
Mother Mary Margaret regarded him with eyes which seemed to have wept so much that not a tear was left, and her firm lips trembled as she answered: “In the garden, officer. It’s irregular for men to enter there, but this is an emergency to which the rules must yield. The portress was making her rounds a little before matins when she heard somebody moving in the garden and looked out. No one was visible, but something looked strange to her, so she went out to investigate. She came to me at once, and I called your office on the ’phone immediately. Then we rang the bell and summoned all the sisters to the chapel. I told them what I thought they ought to know and then dismissed them. They are in their cells now, reciting the rosary for the repose of her soul.”
Costello nodded shortly and turned to us, his hard-shaven chin set truculently. “Come on, gentlemen; let’s git goin’,” he told us. “Will ye lead us to th’ gate?” he added to the Mother Superior.
The convent gardens stretched across a plot of level ground for several hundred feet behind the building. Tall evergreens were marshaled in twin rows about its borders, and neatly trimmed privet hedges marked its graveled paths. At the far end, by a wall of ivy-covered masonry some twelve feet high, was placed a Calvary, a crucifix, nine or ten feet high, set in a cairn, which overlooked the whole enclosure. It was toward this Costello led us, his blue-black jaw set bellicosely.
De Grandin swore savagely in mingled French and English as the light, powdery snow rose above the tops of his patent leather evening pumps and chilled his silk-shod feet. Renouard looked round with quick, appraising glances. I watched Costello’s face, noting how the savage scowl deepened as he walked.
I think we recognized it simultaneously.
Renouard gave a short half-scream, half-groan.
“Sacré nom de sacré nom de sacré nom!” de Grandin swore.
“Jasus!” said Costello.
I felt a sinking in the middle of my stomach and had to grasp Costello’s arm to keep from falling with the sudden vertigo of overpowering nausea. The lifeless figure on the crucifix was not a thing of plaster or of painted wood, it was human—flesh and blood!
Nailed fast with railway
spikes through outstretched hands and slim crossed feet, she hung upon the cross, her slender, naked body white as carven ivory. Her head inclined toward her left shoulder and her long, black hair hung loosed across the full white breasts which were drawn up firmly by the outspread arms. Upon her head had been rudely thrust an improvised crown of thorns—a chaplet of barbed wire cut from some farmer’s fence—and from the punctures that it made, small streams of coral drops ran down. Thin trickles of blood oozed from the torn wounds in her hands and feet, but these had frozen on the flesh, heightening the resemblance to a tinted simulacrum. Her mouth was slightly opened and her chin hung low upon her breast, and from the tongue which lay against her lower lip a single drop of ruby blood, congealed by cold even as it fell, was pendent like a ruddy jewel against the flesh.
Upon her chest, above her breasts, glowed the tattooed mark which we had seen when she appealed to us for help a scant four hours earlier.
Above the lovely, thorn-crowned head where the replica of Pontius Pilate’s inscription had been set, another legend was displayed, an insulting, mocking challenge from the murderers: “In Hoc Signo—in this sign,” and then a grim, derisive picture of a leering devil’s face:
“Ah, la pauvre!” de Grandin murmured. “Poor Mademoiselle of the Veil, were not all the bars and bolts of the hospital enough to keep you from them after all? I should have stayed with you, then they would not—” He broke off, staring meditatively at the figure racked upon the cross, his little, round blue eyes hardening as water hardens with a sudden frost.
Renouard tugged at his square-cut beard, and tears welled unashamed in his bright, dark eyes.
Costello looked a moment at the pendent figure on the crucifix, then, doffing his hat, fell to his knees, signed himself reverently and began a hasty, mumbled prayer for the dying.
The Dark Angel Page 23
