by Sax Rohmer
Seton paused. Margaret was biting her lip hard, and Rita was looking down so that her face could not be seen.
“The shock consequent upon the deed sobered the half crazy woman,” continued the speaker. “Her usual resourcefulness returned to her. Self-preservation had to be considered before remorse. Mrs. Irvin had swooned, and” — he hesitated— “Mrs. Sin saw to it that she did not revive prematurely. Mareno was summoned from the room above. The outer door was locked.
“It affords evidence of this woman’s callous coolness that she removed from the Kazmah premises, and — probably assisted by her brother, although he denies it — from the person and garments of the dead man, every scrap of evidence. They had not by any means finished the task when you knocked at the door, Gray. But they completed it, faultlessly, after you had gone.
“Their unconscious victim, and the figure of Kazmah, as well as every paper or other possible clue, they carried up to the Cubanis office, and from thence across the roof to Sir Lucien’s study. Next, while Mareno went for the car, Mrs. Sin rifled the safe, bureaus and desks in Sir Lucien’s flat, so that we had the devil’s own work, as you know, to find out even the more simple facts of his everyday life.
“Not a soul ever came forward who noticed the big car being driven into Albemarle Street or who observed it outside the flat. The chances run by the pair in conveying their several strange burdens from the top floor, down the stairs and out into the street were extraordinary. Yet they succeeded unobserved. Of course, the street was imperfectly lighted, and is but little frequented after dusk.
“The journey to Limehouse was performed without discovery — aided, no doubt, by the mistiness of the night; and Mareno, returning to the West End, ingeniously inquired for Sir Lucien at his club. Learning, although he knew it already, that Sir Lucien had not been to the club that night, he returned the car to the garage and calmly went back to the flat.
“His reason for taking this dangerous step is by no means clear. According to his own account, he did it to gain time for the fugitive Mrs. Sin. You see, there was really only one witness of the crime (Mrs. Irvin) and she could not have sworn to the identity of the assassin. Rashid was warned and presumably supplied with sufficient funds to enable him to leave the country.
“Well, the woman met her deserts, no doubt at the hands of Sin Sin Wa. Kerry is sure of this. And Sin Sin Wa escaped, taking with him an enormous sum of ready money. He was the true genius of the enterprise. No one, his wife and Mareno excepted — we know of no other — suspected that the real Sin Sin Wa was clean-shaven, possessed two eyes, and no pigtail! A wonderfully clever man!”
The native servant appeared to announce that dinner was served; African dusk drew its swift curtain over the desert, and a gun spoke sharply from the Citadel. In silence the party watched the deepening velvet of the sky, witnessing the birth of a million stars, and in silence they entered the gaily lighted dining-room.
Seton Pasha moved one of the lights so as to illuminate a small oil painting which hung above the sideboard. It represented the head and shoulders of a savage-looking red man, his hair close-cropped like that of a pugilist, and his moustache trimmed in such a fashion that a row of large, fierce teeth were revealed in an expression which might have been meant for a smile. A pair of intolerant steel-blue eyes looked squarely out at the spectator.
“What a time I had,” said Seton, “to get him to sit for that! But I managed to secure his wife’s support, and the trick was done. You are down to toast Kismet, Margaret, but I am going to propose the health, long life and prosperity of Chief Inspector Kerry, of the Criminal Investigation Department.”
THE GOLDEN SCORPION
CONTENTS
PART I. THE COWLED MAN
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
PART II. STATEMENT OF GASTON MAX
I. THE DANCER OF MONTMARTRE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
II. “LE BALAFRE”
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
PART III. AT THE HOUSE OF AH-FANG-FU
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
PART IV. THE LAIR OF THE SCORPION
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
PART I. THE COWLED MAN
CHAPTER I
THE SHADOW OF A COWL
Keppel Stuart, M.D., F. R. S., awoke with a start and discovered himself to be bathed in cold perspiration. The moonlight shone in at his window, but did not touch the bed, therefore his awakening could not be due to this cause. He lay for some time listening for any unfamiliar noise which might account for the sudden disturbance of his usually sound slumbers. In the house below nothing stirred. His windows were widely open and he could detect that vague drumming which is characteristic of midnight London; sometimes, too, the clashing of buffers upon some siding of the Brighton railway where shunting was in progress and occasional siren notes from the Thames. Otherwise — nothing.
He glanced at the luminous disk of his watch. The hour was half-past two. Dawn was not far off. The night seemed to have become almost intolerably hot, and to this heat Stuart felt disposed to ascribe both his awakening and also a feeling of uncomfortable tension of which he now became aware. He continued to listen, and, listening and hearing nothing, recognized with anger that he was frightened. A sense of some presence oppressed him. Someone or something evil was near him — perhaps in the room, veiled by the shadows. This uncanny sensation grew more and more marked.
Stuart sat up in bed, slowly and cautiously, looking all about him. He remembered to have awakened once thus in India — and to have found a great cobra coiled at his feet. His inspection revealed the presence of nothing unfamiliar, and he stepped out on to the floor.
A faint clicking sound reached his ears. He stood quite still. The clicking was repeated.
“There is someone downstairs in my study!” muttered Stuart.
He became aware that the fear which held him was such that unless he acted and acted swiftly he should become incapable of action, but he remembered that whereas the moonlight poured into the bedroom, the staircase would be in complete darkness. He walked barefooted across to the dressing-table and took up an electric torch which lay there. He had not used it for some time, and he pressed the button to learn if the torch was charged. A beam of white light shone out across the room, and at the same instant came another sound.
If it came from below or above, from the adjoining room or from
Outside in the road, Stuart knew not. But following hard upon the mysterious disturbance which had aroused him it seemed to pour ice into his veins, it added the complementary touch to his panic. For it was a kind of low wail — a ghostly minor wail in falling cadences — unlike any sound he had heard. It was so excessively horrible that it produced a curious effect.
Discovering from the dancing of the torch-ray that his hand was trembling, Stuart concluded that he had awakened from a nightmare and that this fiendish wailing was no more than an unusually delayed aftermath of the imaginary horrors which had bathed him in cold perspiration.
He walked resolutely to the door, threw it open and cast the beam of light on to the staircase. Softly he began to descend. Before the study door he paused. There was no sound. He threw open the door, directing the torch-ray into the room.
Cutting a white lane through
the blackness, it shone fully upon his writing-table, which was a rather fine Jacobean piece having a sort of quaint bureau superstructure containing cabinets and drawers. He could detect nothing unusual in the appearance of the littered table. A tobacco jar stood there, a pipe resting in the lid. Papers and books were scattered untidily as he had left them, surrounding a tray full of pipe and cigarette ash. Then, suddenly, he saw something else.
One of the bureau drawers was half opened.
Stuart stood quite still, staring at the table. There was no sound in the room. He crossed slowly, moving the light from right to left. His papers had been overhauled methodically. The drawers had been replaced, but he felt assured that all had been examined. The light switch was immediately beside the outer door, and Stuart walked over to it and switched on both lamps. Turning, he surveyed the brilliantly illuminated room. Save for himself, it was empty. He looked out into the hallway again. There was no one there. No sound broke the stillness. But that consciousness of some near presence asserted itself persistently and uncannily.
“My nerves are out of order!” he muttered. “No one has touched my papers. I must have left the drawer open myself.”
He switched off the light and walked across to the door. He had actually passed out intending to return to his room, when he became aware of a slight draught. He stopped.
Someone or something, evil and watchful, seemed to be very near again. Stuart turned and found himself gazing fearfully in the direction of the open study door. He became persuaded anew that someone was hiding there, and snatching up an ash stick which lay upon a chair in the hall he returned to the door. One step into the room he took and paused — palsied with a sudden fear which exceeded anything he had known.
A white casement curtain was drawn across the French windows … and outlined upon this moon-bright screen he saw a tall figure. It was that of a cowled man!
Such an apparition would have been sufficiently alarming had the cowl been that of a monk, but the outline of this phantom being suggested that of one of the Misericordia brethren or the costume worn of old by the familiars of the Inquisition!
His heart leapt wildly, and seemed to grow still. He sought to cry out in his terror, but only emitted a dry gasping sound.
The psychology of panic is obscure and has been but imperfectly explored. The presence of the terrible cowled figure afforded a confirmation of Stuart’s theory that he was the victim of a species of waking nightmare.
Even as he looked, the shadow of the cowled man moved — and was gone.
Stuart ran across the room, jerked open the curtains and stared out across the moon-bathed lawn, its prospect terminated by high privet hedges. One of the French windows was wide open. There was no one on the lawn; there was no sound.
“Mrs. M’Gregor swears that I always forget to shut these windows at night!” he muttered.
He closed and bolted the window, stood for a moment looking out across the empty lawn, then turned and went out of the room.
CHAPTER II
THE PIBROCH OF THE M’GREGORS
Dr. Stuart awoke in the morning and tried to recall what had occurred during the night. He consulted his watch and found the hour to be six a. m. No one was stirring in the house, and he rose and put on a bath robe. He felt perfectly well and could detect no symptoms of nervous disorder. Bright sunlight was streaming into the room, and he went out on to the landing, fastening the cord of his gown as he descended the stairs.
His study door was locked, with the key outside. He remembered having locked it. Opening it, he entered and looked about him. He was vaguely disappointed. Save for the untidy litter of papers upon the table, the study was as he had left it on retiring. If he could believe the evidence of his senses, nothing had been disturbed.
Not content with a casual inspection, he particularly examined those papers which, in his dream adventure, he had believed to have been submitted to mysterious inspection. They showed no signs of having been touched. The casement curtains were drawn across the recess formed by the French windows, and sunlight streamed in where, silhouetted against the pallid illumination of the moon, he had seen the man in the cowl. Drawing back the curtains, he examined the window fastenings. They were secure. If the window had really been open in the night, he must have left it so himself.
“Well,” muttered Stuart— “of all the amazing nightmares!”
He determined, immediately he had bathed and completed his toilet, to write an account of the dream for the Psychical Research Society, in whose work he was interested. Half an hour later, as the movements of an awakened household began to proclaim themselves, he sat down at his writing-table and commenced to write.
Keppel Stuart was a dark, good-looking man of about thirty-two, an easy-going bachelor who, whilst not over ambitious, was nevertheless a brilliant physician. He had worked for the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and had spent several years in India studying snake poisons. His purchase of this humdrum suburban practice had been dictated by a desire to make a home for a girl who at the eleventh hour had declined to share it. Two years had elapsed since then, but the shadow still lay upon Stuart’s life, its influence being revealed in a certain apathy, almost indifference, which characterised his professional conduct.
His account of the dream completed, he put the paper into a pigeon-hole and forgot all about the matter. That day seemed to be more than usually dull and the hours to drag wearily on. He was conscious of a sort of suspense. He was waiting for something, or for someone. He did not choose to analyse this mental condition. Had he done so, the explanation was simple — and one that he dared not face.
At about ten o’clock that night, having been called out to a case, he returned to his house, walking straight into the study as was his custom and casting a light Burberry with a soft hat upon the sofa beside his stick and bag. The lamps were lighted, and the book-lined room, indicative of a studious and not over-wealthy bachelor, looked cheerful enough with the firelight dancing on the furniture.
Mrs. M’Gregor, a grey-haired Scotch lady, attired with scrupulous neatness, was tending the fire at the moment, and hearing Stuart come in she turned and glanced at him.
“A fire is rather superfluous to-night, Mrs. M’Gregor,” he said. “I found it unpleasantly warm walking.”
“May is a fearsome treacherous month, Mr. Keppel,” replied the old housekeeper, who from long association with the struggling practitioner had come to regard him as a son. “An’ a wheen o’ dry logs is worth a barrel o’ pheesic. To which I would add that if ye’re hintin’ it’s time ye shed ye’re woolsies for ye’re summer wear, all I have to reply is that I hope sincerely ye’re patients are more prudent than yoursel’.”
She placed his slippers in the fender and took up the hat, stick and coat from the sofa. Stuart laughed.
“Most of the neighbors exhibit their wisdom by refraining from becoming patients of mine, Mrs. M’Gregor.”
“That’s no weesdom; it’s just preejudice.” “Prejudice!” cried Stuart, dropping down upon the sofa.
“Aye,” replied Mrs. M’Gregor firmly— “preejudice! They’re no’ that daft but they’re well aware o’ who’s the cleverest physeecian in the deestrict, an’ they come to nane other than Dr. Keppel Stuart when they’re sair sick and think they’re dying; but ye’ll never establish the practice you desairve, Mr. Keppel — never — until—”
“Until when, Mrs. M’Gregor?”
“Until ye take heed of an auld wife’s advice and find a new housekeeper.”
“Mrs. M’Gregor!” exclaimed Stuart with concern. “You don’t mean that you want to desert me? After — let me see — how many years is it, Mrs. M’Gregor?”
“Thirty years come last Shrove Tuesday; I dandled ye on my knee, and eh! but ye were bonny! God forbid, but I’d like to see ye thriving as ye desairve, and that ye’ll never do whilst ye’re a bachelor.”
“Oh!” cried Stuart, laughing again— “oh, that’s it, is it? So you would like me
to find some poor inoffensive girl to share my struggles?”
Mrs. M’Gregor nodded wisely. “She’d have nane so many to share. I know ye think I’m old-fashioned, Mr. Keppel and it may be I am; but I do assure you I would be sair harassed, if stricken to my bed — which, please God, I won’t be — to receive the veesits of a pairsonable young bachelor—”
“Er — Mrs. M’Gregor!” interrupted Stuart, coughing in mock rebuke— “quite so! I fancy we have discussed this point before, and as you say your ideas are a wee bit, just a wee bit, behind the times. On this particular point I mean. But I am very grateful to you, very sincerely grateful, for your disinterested kindness; and if ever I should follow your advice — —”
Mrs. M’Gregor interrupted him, pointing to his boots. “Ye’re no’ that daft as to sit in wet boots?”
“Really they are perfectly dry. Except for a light shower this evening, there has been no rain for several days. However, I may as well, since I shall not be going out again.”
He began to unlace his boots as Mrs. M’Gregor pulled the white casement curtains across the windows and then prepared to retire. Her hand upon the door knob, she turned again to Stuart.
“The foreign lady called half an hour since, Mr. Keppel.”
Stuart desisted from unlacing his boots and looked up with lively interest. “Mlle. Dorian! Did she leave any message?”
“She obsairved that she might repeat her veesit later,” replied Mrs. M’Gregor, and, after a moment’s hesitation; “she awaited ye’re return with exemplary patience.”
“Really, I am sorry I was detained,” declared Stuart, replacing his boot. “How long has she been gone, then?”
“Just the now. No more than two or three minutes. I trust she is no worse.”
“Worse!”
“The lass seemed o’er anxious to see you.”
“Well, you know, Mrs. M’Gregor, she comes a considerable distance.”
“So I am given to understand, Mr. Keppel,” replied the old lady; “and in a grand luxurious car.”
