The Dark Angel

by Seabury Quinn

  The ankles were sharp and shapely, the legs straight and well turned, with the leanness of youth, rather than the wasted look of death; the hips were narrow, the waist slender and the gentle swelling bosoms high and sharp. Making allowance for the early age at which women of the Orient mature, I should have said the girl died somewhere in her middle teens; certainly well under twenty.

  “Ah?” de Grandin murmured as the waxed sack slid over the body’s shoulders. “I think that here we have the explanation of those stains, Friend Trowbridge, n’est-ce-pas?”

  I looked and gulped back an exclamation of horrified amazement. The slim, tapering arms had been folded on the breast, in accordance with the Egyptian custom, but the humerus of the left arm had been cruelly crushed, a compound comminutive fracture having resulted, so that a quarter-inch or more of splintered bone thrust through the skin above and below the deltoid attachment. Not only this: the same blow which had crushed the arm had smashed the bony structure of the chest, the third and fourth left ribs being snapped in two, and through the smooth skin underneath the breast a prong of jagged bone protruded. A hemorrhage of considerable extent had followed, and the long-dried blood lay upon the body from left breast to hip in a dull, brown-red veneer. Waxed though the mummy-sack had been, the welling blood had found its way through some break in the coating, had soaked the tightly knotted outer bandages, and borne mute testimony of an ancient tragedy.

  The finely cut features were those of a woman in her early youth. Semitic in their cast, they had a delicacy of line and contour which bespoke patrician breeding. The nose was small, slightly aquiline, high-bridged, with narrow nostrils. The lips were thin and sensitive, and where they had retracted in the process of partial desiccation, showed small, sharp teeth of startling whiteness. The hair was black and lustrous, cut short off at the ears, like the modern Dutch bob affected by young women, parted in the middle and bound about the brows with a circlet of hammered gold set with small studs of lapis lazuli. For the rest, a triple-stranded necklace of gold and blue enamel, armlets of the same design and a narrow golden girdle fashioned like a snake composed the dead girl’s costume. Originally a full, plaited skirt of sheer white linen had been appended to the girdle, but the fragile fabric had not withstood the years of waiting in the grave, and only one or two thin wisps of it remained.

  “La pauvre!” exclaimed the Frenchman, gazing sadly at the broken little body. “I think, my friends, that we see here a demonstration of that ancient saying that the blood of innocents can not be concealed. Unless I am more wrong than I admit, this is a case of murder, and—”

  “But it might as well have been an accident,” I cut in. “I’ve seen such injuries in motor-wrecks, and this poor child might have been the victim of a chariot smashup.”

  “I do not think so,” he returned. “This case has all the marks of ritual murder, my friend. Observe the—”

  “I think we’d better wrap the body up again,” Hodgson broke in hastily. “We’ve gone as far as we can tonight, and—well, I’m rather tired, gentlemen, and if you don’t mind, we’ll call the session off.” He coughed apologetically, but there was the mild determination of weak men who have authority to make their wishes law in his manner as he spoke.

  “You mean that you’re afraid of something that might happen?” de Grandin countered bluntly. “You fear the ancient gods may take offense at our remaining here to speculate on the manner of this poor one’s death?”

  “Well,” Hodgson took his glasses off and wiped them nervously, “of course, I don’t believe those stories that they tell of these ‘unlucky’ mummies, but—you’re bound to admit there have been some unexplained fatalities connected with this case. Besides—well, frankly, gentlemen, this body’s less a mummy than a corpse, and I’ve a terrible aversion to being around the dead, unless they’ve been mummified.”

  De Grandin smiled sarcastically. “The old-time fears die hard,” he assented. “Nevertheless, Monsieur, we shall respect your sensibilities. You have been most kind, and we would not try your nerves still further. Tomorrow, if you do not mind, we shall pursue our researches. It may be possible that we shall discover something hitherto unknown about the rites and ceremonies of those old ones who ruled the world when Rome had scarce been thought of.”

  “Yes, yes; of course,” Hodgson coughed as he edged near the door. “I’m sure I shall be happy to give you a pass to the Museum tomorrow—only”—he added as an afterthought—“I must ask that you refrain from mutilating the body in any way. It belongs to the Museum, you know, and I simply can not give permission for an autopsy.”

  “Morbleu, but you are the shrewd guesser, Monsieur,” de Grandin answered with a laugh. “I think you must have read intention in my eyes. Very well; we consent. There shall be no post-mortem of the body made. Bon soir, Monsieur.”

  “I’M SORRY, DOCTOR DE Grandin,” Hodgson greeted us the next morning, “but I’m afraid you’ll not be able to pursue any further investigations with the mummy—the body, I mean—we unwrapped last night.”

  The little Frenchman stiffened in both body and manner. “You mean that you have altered your decision, Monsieur?” he asked with cold politeness.

  “Not at all. I mean the body’s disintegrated with exposure to the air, and only a few wisps of hair, the skull and some unarticulated bones remain. While they weren’t quite airtight, the bandages and the wax-coated shroud seem to have been able to keep the flesh intact, but exposure to our damp atmosphere has reduced them to a heap of bone and dust.”

  “U’m,” the Frenchman answered. “That is unfortunate, but not irreparable. I think our chance of finding out the cause and manner of the poor young lady’s death is not yet gone. Would you be good enough to lend us the ornaments, some of the mummy-cloth and several of the bones, Monsieur? We guarantee their safe return.”

  “Well,” Hodgson hesitated momentarily, “it’s not quite regular, but if you’re sure you will return them—”

  “Monsieur,” de Grandin’s voice broke sharply through the curator’s apologetic half-refusal, “I am Jules de Grandin; I am not accustomed to having my good faith assailed. No matter, the experiment which I have in mind will not take long, and you are welcome to accompany us. Thus you need never have the relics out of sight at any time. Will that assure you of their safe return?”

  Hodgson undid the buttons of his jacket, then did them up again. “Oh, don’t think I was doubting your bona fides,” he returned, “but this body cost the Museum a considerable sum, and was the indirect cause of our losing two valuable members of the staff. I’m personally responsible for it, and—”

  “No matter,” de Grandin interrupted, “if you will come with us I can assure you that the articles will be within your sight at all times, and you may have them back again this morning.”

  Accordingly, Hodgson superintending fussily, we selected the gold and lapis lazuli diadem, the broken humerus, one of the fractured ribs and several lengths of mummy-cloth which bore the dull-red blood stains, and thrust them into a traveling-bag. De Grandin paused to call a number on the ’phone, talked for a moment in a muted tone, then directed me to an address in Scotland Road.

  HALF AN HOUR’S DRIVE through the brisk winter air brought us to a substantial brownstone-fronted residence in the decaying but still eminently respectable neighborhood. Lace curtains hung at the tall windows of the first floor and the windows of the basement dining-room were neatly draped with scrim. Beside the carefully polished bell-pull a brass plate with the legend, Creighton, Clairvoyant, was set. A neat maid in black and white uniform responded to de Grandin’s ring and led us to a drawing-room rather overfurnished with heavy pieces of the style popular in the middle nineties. “Mrs. Creighton will be down immediately, sir; she’s expecting you,” she told him as she left the room.

  My experience with those who claim ability to “look beyond the veil” was limited, but I had always imagined that they set their stages more effectively than this. The carpet, patterned wi
th impossible roses large as cabbages, the heavy and not especially comfortable golden oak chairs upholstered in green plush, the stereotyped oil paintings of the Grand Canal, of Capri by moonlight and Vesuvius in action, were pragmatic as a plate of prunes, and might have been duplicated, item by item, in the “parlor” of half a hundred non-fashionable but respectable boarding-houses. Even the faint aroma of cooking food which wafted up to us from the downstairs kitchen had a reassuring and worldly tang which seemed entirely out of harmony with the ghostly calling of our hostess.

  Madame Creighton fitted her surroundings perfectly. She was short, stout and matronly, and her high-necked white linen blouse and plain blue skirts were far more typical of the busy middle-class housewife than of the self-admitted medium. Her eyes, brown and bright, shone pleasantly behind the lenses of neat, rimless spectacles; her hair, already shot with gray, was drawn tightly back from her forehead and twisted in a commonplace knot above her occiput. Even her hands were plump, short-fingered, slightly workworn and wholly commonplace. Nowhere was there any indication of the “psychic” in her dress, face, form or manner.

  “You brought the things?” she asked de Grandin when introductions were completed.

  Nodding, he placed the relics on the oaken table beside which she was seated. “These were discovered—” he began, but she raised her hand in warning.

  “Please don’t tell me anything about them,” she requested. “I’d rather my controls did all that, for one never can be sure how much information secured while one is conscious may be carried over into the subconscious while the trance is on, you know.”

  Opening a drawer in the table she took out a hinged double slate and a box of thin, white chalk.

  “Will you hold this, Doctor Trowbridge?” she asked, handing me the slate. “Take it in both hands, please, and hold it in your lap. Please don’t move it or attempt to speak to me until I tell you.”

  Awkwardly I took the blank-faced slate and balanced it on my knees while Mrs. Creighton drew a small crystal ball from a little green-felt bag, placed it on the table between the broken arm-bone and the fractured rib, then, with a snap of the switch, set an electric light in a gooseneck fixture standing on the table aglow. The luminance from the glowing bulb shone directly on the crystal sphere, causing it to glow as though with inward fire.

  For a little time—two minutes, perhaps—she gazed intently at the glass ball; then her eyes closed and her head, resting easily against the crocheted doily on the back of her rocking-chair, moved a little sidewise as her neck muscles relaxed. For a moment she rested thus, her regular breathing only slightly audible.

  Suddenly, astonishingly, I heard a movement of the chalk between the slates. I had not moved or tilted them, there was no chance the little pencil could have rolled, yet unquestionably the thing was moving. Now, I distinctly felt it as it traveled slowly back and forth across the tightly folded leaves of the slate, gradually increasing its speed till it seemed like a panic-stricken prisoned thing rushing wildly round its dungeon in search of escape.

  I had a momentary wild, unreasoning desire to fling that haunted slate away from me and rush out of that stuffy room, but pride held me in my chair, pride made me grip those slates as a drowning man might grip a rope; pride kept my gaze resolutely on Mrs. Creighton and off of the uncanny thing which balanced on my knees.

  I could hear de Grandin breathing quickly, hear Hodgson moving restlessly in his chair, clearing his throat and (I knew this without looking) buttoning and unbuttoning his coat.

  Mrs. Creighton’s sleep became troubled. Her head rolled slowly, fretfully from side to side, and her breathing became stertorous; once or twice she gave vent to a feeble moan; finally the groaning, choking cry of a sleeper in a nightmare. Her smooth, plump hands clenched nervously and doubled into fists, her arms and legs twitched tremblingly; at length she straightened stiffly in her chair, rigid as though shocked by a galvanic battery, and from her parted lips there came a muffled, strangling cry of horror. Little flecks of foam formed at the corners of her mouth, she arched her body upward, then sank back with a low, despairing whimper, and her firm chin sagged down toward her breast—I knew the symptoms! No medical practitioner can fail to recognize those signs.

  “Madame!” de Grandin cried, rising from his chair and rushing to her side. “You are unwell—you suffer?”

  She struggled to a sitting posture, her brown eyes bulging as though a savage hand were on her throat, her face contorted with some dreadful fear. For a moment she sat thus; then, with a shake of her head, she straightened, smoothed her hair, and asked matter-of-factly: “Did I say anything?”

  “No, Madame, you said nothing articulate, but you seemed in pain, so I awakened you.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” she answered with a smile. “They tell me I often act that way when in a trance, but I never remember anything when I wake up, and I never seem any the worse because of anything I dream while I’m unconscious. If you had only waited we might have had a message on the slate.”

  “We have!” I interrupted. “I heard the pencil writing like mad, and nearly threw the thing away!”

  “Oh, I’m so glad,” responded Mrs. Creighton. “Bring it over, and we’ll see what it says.”

  The slate was covered with fine writing, the minute characters, distinct as script etched on a copper plate, running from margin to margin, spaces between the lines so narrow as to be hardly recognizable.

  For a moment we studied the calligraphy in puzzled silence; then.

  “Mort de ma vie, we have triumphed over Death and Time, my friends!” de Grandin cried excitedly. “Attendez, si’l vous plait.” Opening the slates before him like a book he read:

  Revered and awful judges of the world, ye awful ones who sit upon the parapets of hell, I answer guilty to the charge ye bring against me. Aye, Atoua, who now stands on the brink of deathless death, whose body waits the crushing stones of doom, whose spirit, robbed for ever of the hope of fleshly tegument, must wander in Amenti till the end of time has come, confesses that the fault was hers, and hers alone.

  Behold me, awesome judges of the living and the dead, am I not a woman, and a woman shaped for love? Are not my members beautiful to see, my lips like apricots and pomegranates, my eyes like milk and beryl, my breasts like ivory set with coral? Yea, mighty ones, I am a woman, and a woman formed for joy.

  Was it my fault or my volition that I was pledged to serve the great All-Mother, Isis, or ever I had left the shelter of my mother’s flesh? Did I abjure the blissful agony of love and seek a life of sterile chastity, or was the promise spoken for me by another’s lips?

  I gave all that a woman has to give, and gave it freely, knowing that the pains of death and after death the torment of the gods awaited me, nor do I deem the price too great to pay.

  Ye frown? Ye shake your dreadful heads upon which rest the crowns of Amun and of Kneph, of Seb and Tem, of Suti and Osiris’ mighty self? Ye say that I speak sacrilege? Then hear me yet awhile: She who stands in chains before ye, shorn of reverence as a priestess of Great Mother Isis, shorn of all honor as a woman, tells ye these things to your teeth, knowing that ye can not do her greater hurt than that she stands already judged to undergo. Your reign and that of those ye serve draws near its end. A little while ye yet may strut and preen yourselves and mouth the judgments of your gods, but in the days that wait your very names shall be forgot, save when some stranger delves into your tombs and drags your violated bodies forth for men to make a show of. Aye, and the very gods ye serve shall be forgotten—they shall sink so low that none shall call their names, not even as a curse, and in their ruined temples none shall do them reverence, and no living thing be found, save only the white-bellied lizard and the fearful jackal.

  And who shall do this thing? An offspring of the Hebrews! Yea, from the people ye despise a child shall spring, and great shall be His glory. He shall put down your gods beneath his feet and spoil them of all glory and respect; they shall become but shadow-go
ds of a forgotten past.

  My name ye’ve stricken from the roll of priestesses, no writing shall be graven on my tomb, and I shall be forgotten for all time by gods and men. So reads your judgment. I give ye, then, the lie. Upon a day far in the future strange men from a land across the sea shall open wide my tomb and take my body from it, nor shall my flesh taste of corruption until those strangers look upon my face and see my broken bones, and seeing, wonder how I died. And I shall tell them. Yea, by Osiris’ self I swear that though I have been dead for centuries, I shall relate the manner of my judgment and my death, and they shall know my name and weep for me, and on your heads they shall heap curses for this thing ye do to me.

  Pile now your stones of doom upon my breast, break my bones and still the fevered beating of my heart. I go to death, but not from out the memory of men as ye shall go. I have spoken.

  Below the writing was a little scrawl of drawing, as crudely executed as a child’s rough chalk-sketch on a wall; yet as we looked at it we seemed to see the outline of a woman held upon the ground by kneeling slaves while a man above her poised a heavy rock to crush her exposed breast and another stood in readiness to aid the executioner:

  “Cordieu!” de Grandin exclaimed as we gazed upon the drawing. “I shall say she told the truth, my friends. She was a priestess of the goddess Isis, and as such was sworn to lifelong chastity, with awful death by torture as the penalty for violation of her vow. Undoubtlessly she loved not wisely, but too well, as women have been wont to love since time began, and upon discovery she was sentenced to the death decreed for those who did forget their obligations to the goddess. Her chest was broken in with stones, and without benefit of mummification her mutilated body was put in a casket void of any writing which might give a clue to her identity. Without a single invocation to the gods who held the fate of her poor spirit in their hands, they buried her. But did she triumph? Who says otherwise? We know her name, Atoua, we know the reason and the manner of her death. But those old priests who judged her and decreed her doom—who knows their names, yes, parbleu, who knows or cares a single, solitary damn where their vile mummies lie? They are assuredly gone into oblivion, while she—tiens, at least she is a personality to us, and we are very much alive.”