by Sax Rohmer
Rugs and carpets strewed the floor and the air was heavy with the smell of musk, a perfume which I detest, it having characterized the personality of a certain Arab lady who sold me so marvelous a Damascus scimitar that I was utterly deceived by it until too late.
Raising a heavy curtain draped in a door shaped like an old-fashioned keyhole, and embellished with an intricate mass of fretwork carving, my guide went out, leaving me alone with my reflections. This interval was very brief, however, and was terminated by the reappearance of the girl, who this time made her entrance through a second doorway masked by the paneling. A faint musical splashing sound greeted me through the opening; and when my guide beckoned me to enter and I obeyed, I found myself in a chamber of barbaric beauty and in the presence of the celebrated Sháhmarâh.
The apartment, save for one end being wholly occupied by a magnificent mushrabîyeh screen, was walled with what looked like Verde Antico marble or green serpentine. An ebony couch having feet shaped as those of a leopard and enriched with gleaming bronze, having the skins of leopards cast across it, and, upon the skins, silken soft cushions wrought in patterns of green and gold, stood upon the mosaic floor at the head of three shallow steps which descended to a pool where a fountain played, softly musical; wherein lurked gleaming shapes of silver and gold. Bright mats were strewn around, and at one corner of the pool a huge silver mibkharah sent up its pencilings of aromatic smoke.
Upon this couch Sháhmarâh reclined, and I perceived immediately that her reputation for beauty was richly deserved. There was something leopardine in her pliant shape, which seemed to harmonize with the fierce black and gold of the skins upon which she was stretched; she had the limbs of a Naiad and the eyes of an Egyptian Circe. Upon her head she wore a rabtah, or turban, of pure white, secured and decorated in front by a brooch of ancient Egyptian enamel-work probably fourteenth dynasty, and for which I would gladly have given her one hundred pounds. If I have forgotten what else she wore it may be because my senses were in somewhat of a turmoil as I stood before her in that opulent apartment — which I suddenly recognized, and not without discomfiture, to be the meslakh of the hammám. I can only relate, then, that the image left upon my mind was one of jewels and dusky peach-like loveliness. Jewels there were in abundance, clasped about the warm curves of her arms and overloading her fingers; she wore gold bands thickly encrusted with gems about her ankles (the slim ankles of a dancing girl); and a fiery ruby of the true pigeon’s-blood color gleamed upon the first toe of her left foot, the nails of which were highly manicured and stained with henna.
Fixing her wonderful eyes upon me —
“You have brought the veil?” she said.
“The merchant Ali Mohammed ordered me to convey to him the price agreed upon, O jewel of Egypt,” I mumbled, “ere I yielded up this a poor man’s only treasure.”
Sháhmarâh sat upright upon the couch. Her delicate brows were drawn together in a frown, and her eyes, rendered doubly luminous by the pigment with which they were surrounded, glared fiercely at me, whilst she stamped one bare foot upon a cushion lying on the mosaic floor.
“The veil!” she cried imperiously. “I will send the merchant Ali Mohammed an order on the treasury of the Bey.”
“O moon of the Orient,” I replied, “O ravisher of souls, I am but a poor ugly old woman basking in the radiance of beauty and loveliness. Would you ruin one so old and feeble and helpless? I must have the price agreed upon; let it be counted into this bag” — and concealing my tell-tale hands as much as possible, I bent humbly and placed a leather wallet upon a little table beside her which bore fruits, sweetmeats, and a long-necked gold flagon. “When it is done, the yashmak of pearls, which only thy dazzling perfection might dare to wear, shall be yielded up to thee, O daughter of musk and ambergris.”
There fell a short silence, wherein the fountain musically plashed and Sháhmarâh shot little inquiring glances laden with venom into the mists of my black veil, and others which held a query over my shoulder at her confidant.
“I might have you cast into a dungeon beneath this palace,” she hissed at me, bending lithely forward and extending a jeweled forefinger. “No one would miss thee, O mother of afflictions.”
“In that event,” I crooned quaveringly, “O tree of pearls, the veil could never be thine; for the merchant Ali Mohammed, who awaits me at the gate, refuses to deliver it up until the price agreed upon has been placed in his hands.”
“He is a Jew, and a son of Jews, who eats without washing! a devourer of pork, and an unclean insect,” she cried.
She extended the jeweled hand towards the girl who stood behind me and who, having loosened her wraps, proved to be a comely but shrewd-looking Assyrian. “Let the money be counted into the bag,” she ordered, “that we may be rid of the presence of this garrulous and hideous old hag.”
“O fountain of justice,” I exclaimed; “O peerless houri, to behold whom is to swoon with delight and rapture.”
From a locked closet the Assyrian girl took a wooden coffer, and before my gratified eyes began to count out upon the little table notes and gold until a pile lay there to have choked a miser with emotion. (The ready-money transactions of the East have always delighted me.) But, with the chinking of the last piece of gold upon the pile —
“There is no more,” said the girl. “It is one hundred pounds short.”
“It is more than enough!” cried Sháhmarâh. “I am ruined. Give me the veil and go.”
“O vision of paradise,” I exclaimed in anguish, “the merchant Ali Mohammed would never consent. In lieu of the remainder” — I pointed to the antique enamel in her turban— “give me the brooch from thy rabtah.”
“O sink of corruption!” was her response, her whole body positively quivering with rage, “it is not for thy filthy claws. Here!” — she pulled a ring containing a fair-sized emerald from one of her fingers and tossed it contemptuously upon the pile of money— “thou art more than repaid. The veil! the veil!”
I turned to the girl who had counted out the gold.
“O minor moon, whom even the glory of paradise cannot dim,” I said, “put the money in the wallet, for my hands are old and infirm, and give it to me.”
The Assyrian scooped the gold and notes into the leather bag with the utmost unconcern, and as though she had been shelling peas into a basket. The profound disregard for wealth exhibited in the harêm of Yûssuf Bey was extraordinary; and I mentally endorsed the opinion expressed by Abû Tabâh that the ruin of the Bey was imminent.
Securing the heavy wallet to the girdle which I wore beneath my veilings, I placed upon the table where the money had lain a small silken packet.
“Here is the veil,” I said; “for my story of the merchant, Ali Mohammed, who had refused to yield it up, was but a stratagem to test the generosity of thy soul, as thy refusal to give me the price agreed upon was but a subterfuge to test my honesty.”
Heedless of the words, Sháhmarâh snatched up the packet, tore off the wrappings, and in a trice was standing upright before me wearing the yashmak of pearls.
I think I had never seen a figure more barbarically lovely than that of this soulless Egyptian so adorned.
“My mirror, Sáfiyeh! my mirror!” she cried.
And the girl placing a big silver mirror in her hand, she stood there looking into its surface, her wonderful eyes swimming with ecstasy and her slim body swaying in a perfect rapture of admiration for her own beauty.
Suddenly she dropped the mirror upon the cushions and threw wide her arms.
“Am I not the fairest woman in Egypt?” she exclaimed. “I tread upon the hearts of men and my power is above the power of kings!”
Then a subtle change crept over her features; and ere I could utter the first of the honeyed compliments ready upon my tongue —
“Send Amineh to warn Mahmûd that the old woman is about to depart,” she directed her attendant; and, turning to me: “Wait in the outer room. Thy presence is loathsome to me, O
mother of calamities.”
“I hear and obey,” I replied, “O pomegranate blossom” — and, following the direction of her rigidly extended finger, I shuffled back to the little octagonal apartment and the masked door was slammed almost upon my heels.
This room, which possessed no windows, was solely illuminated by a silken-shaded lantern, but I had not long to wait in that weird half-light ere my conductress, again closely muffled in her shawls, opened the door at the head of the steps and signed to me to descend.
“Lead the way, my beautiful daughter,” I said; for I had no intention of submitting myself to the risk of a dagger in the back.
She consented without demur, which served to allay my suspicions somewhat, and in silence we went down the uncarpeted stairs and out into the trellis-covered walk. The shadow beneath the high wall had deepened and widened since we had last skirted the gardens, and I felt my way along with my hand cautiously outstretched.
At a point within sight of the flower-grown arbor beneath which I knew the gate to be concealed, my guide halted.
“I must return, mother,” she said quickly. “There is the gate, and Mahmûd will open it for you.”
“Farewell, O daughter of the willow branch,” I replied. “May Allah, the Great, the Compassionate, be with thee, and may thou marry a prince of Persia.”
Light of foot she sped away, and, my forebodings coming to a sudden climax, I crept forward with excessive caution, holding my clenched hand immediately in front of my face — a device which experience of the hospitable manners of the East had taught me.
It was well that I did so. Within three spaces of the gate a noose fell accurately over my head and was drawn tight with a strangling jerk!
But that it also encircled my upraised arm, its clasp must have terminated my worldly affairs.
My assailant had sprung upon me from behind; and, in the fleeting instant between the fall of the noose and its tightening, I turned about ... and thrust the nose of my Colt repeater (which I grasped in that protective upraised hand) fully into the grinning mouth of the negro gate-keeper!
There was a rattle and gleam of falling ivory, for several of the bowwab’s teeth had been dislodged by the steel barrel. Keeping the weapon firmly thrust into the man’s distended jaws, I circled around him, whilst his hands relaxed their hold upon the strangling-cord, and pushed him backward in the direction of the door.
“Open thou black son of offal!” I said, “or I will blow thee a cavity as wide as thy blubber mouth through the back of that fat and greasy neck! This was, no doubt, a stratagem of thy mistress to test my fitness to be entrusted with large sums of money?”
When, a few moments later, I stood in the lane outside the gardens of Yûssuf Bey, and felt with my hand the fat wallet at my waist, I experienced a thrill of professional satisfaction, for had I not successfully negotiated a duplicate veil, embroidered with imitation pearls which the excellent Suleyman Levi by dint of four days of almost ceaseless toil had made for me?...
From the shadows of the opposite wall Abû Tabâh stepped forth, stately.
“Quick!” I said. “I fear pursuit at any moment! Is the arabîyeh waiting?”
“You have it?” he demanded, some faint sign of human animation creeping over his impassive face.
“I have!” I replied. “I will give it to you in the arabîyeh.”
Side by side we passed down the deserted thoroughfare to where, beside a solitary palm, a pair-horse carriage was waiting. Appreciating something of my companion’s natural impatience, I pressed into his hand the famous sandalwood box which once had reposed in the tarbûsh of Ali Mohammed. The carriage rolled around a corner and out into the lighted Shâria Mobâdayân. Abû Tabâh opened the sandalwood box, and then, reverently, the inner box of silver. Within shimmered the pearls of the sacred burko. He did not touch the relic with his hands, but reclosed the boxes and concealed the reliquary beneath his black robe. I heard the crackle of notes; and a little packet surrounded by a band of elastic was pressed into my hand.
“Three hundred pounds, English,” said Abû Tabâh. “One hundred pounds in recompense for the commission you returned, and two hundred pounds for the recovery of the relic.”
I thrust the wad into the bag beneath my robe containing the other spoils of the evening. A second and even more grateful glow of professional joy warmed my heart. For in the reliquary which I had handed to Abû Tabâh reposed the second product of Suleyman Levi’s scientific toils; his four days’ labor having resulted in the production of two quite passable duplicates; although neither were by any means up to the standard of Messrs. Moses, Murphy & Co.
Coming to the house wherein I had endued my disguise, Abû Tabâh left me to metamorphose myself into a decently dressed Englishman suitable for admission to an hotel of international repute.
“Lîltâk sa’îda, Abû Tabâh,” I said.
In the open doorway he turned.
“Lîltâk sa’îda, Kernaby Pasha,” he replied, and smiled upon me very sweetly.
VI
It was after midnight when I returned to Shepheard’s, but I went straight to my room, and switching on the table-lamp, wrote a long letter to my principals. Something seemed to have gone wrong with the lock of my attaché-case, and my good humor was badly out of joint by the time that I succeeded in opening it. From underneath a mass of business correspondence I took out a large, sealed envelope, which I enclosed with a letter in one yet larger, to be registered to Messrs. Moses, Murphy & Co., Birmingham, in the morning. I turned in utterly tired but happy, to dream complacently of the smile of Abû Tabâh and of the party of holy men who had journeyed from Ispahân.
Exactly a fortnight later the following registered letter was handed to me as I was about to sit down to lunch —
The Hon. Neville Kernaby.
Shepheard’s Hotel,
Cairo, Egypt.
DEAR MR. NEVILLE KERNABY —
We are returning herewith the silken veil which you describe as “the authentic burko of the Seyyîdeh Nefîseh, stolen from her shrine in the Tombs of the Khalîfs.” Your statement that you can arrange for its purchase at the cost of one thousand pounds does not interest us, nor do we expect so high-salaried an expert as yourself to send us palpable and very inferior forgeries. We are manufacturers of duplicates, not buyers of same.
Yours truly,
LLOYD LLEWELLYN.
(For Messrs. Moses, Murphy & Co.).
I was positively aghast. Tearing open the enclosed package, I glared like a madman at the yashmak which it contained. The silk, in comparison with that of which the real veil was compared, was coarse as cocoanut matting; the embroidery was crude; the pearls shrieked “imitation” aloud! At a glance I knew the thing for one of the pair made by Suleyman Levi!
The truth crashed in upon my mind. Following my visit to the harêm of Yûssuf Bey, I had bestowed no more than a glance upon the envelope wherein, early on the morning of the same day, I had lovingly sealed the authentic veil; and a full hour had elapsed between the time of parting with the sugar-lipped one and my return to my rooms at the hotel.
I understood, now, why the lock of my attaché-case had been out of order on that occasion ... and I comprehended the sweet smile of Abû Tabâh!
THE DEATH-RING OF SNEFERU
I
The orchestra had just ceased playing; and, taking advantage of the lull in the music, my companion leaned confidentially forward, shooting suspicious glances all around him, although there was nothing about the well-dressed after-dinner throng filling Shepheard’s that night to have aroused misgiving in the mind of a cinema anarchist.
“I have a very big thing in view,” he said, speaking in a husky whisper. “I shall be one up on you, Kernaby, if I pull it off.”
He glanced sideways, in the manner of a pantomime brigand, at a party of New York tourists, our immediate neighbors, and from them to an elderly peer with whom I was slightly acquainted and who, in addition to his being stone deaf, had never
noticed anything in his life, much less attempted so fatiguing an operation as intrigue.
“Indeed,” I commented; and rang the bell with the purpose in view of ordering another cooling beverage.
True, I might be the Egyptian representative of a Birmingham commercial enterprise, but I did not gladly suffer the society of this individual, whose only claim to my acquaintance lay in the fact that he was in the employ of a rival house. My lack of interest palpably disappointed him; but I thought little of the man’s qualities as a connoisseur and less of his company. His name was Theo Bishop and I fancy that his family was associated with the tanning industry. I have since thought more kindly of poor Bishop, but at the time of which I write nothing could have pleased me better than his sudden dissolution.
Perhaps unconsciously I had allowed my boredom to become rudely apparent; for Bishop slightly turned his head aside, and —
“Right-o, Kernaby,” he said; “I know you think I am an ass, so we will say no more about it. Another cocktail?”
And now I became conscience-stricken; for mingled with the disappointment in Bishop’s tone and manner was another note. Vaguely it occurred to me that the man was yearning for sympathy of some kind, that he was bursting to unbosom himself, and that the vanity of a successful rival was by no means wholly responsible. I have since placed that ambiguous note and recognized it for a note of tragedy. But at the time I was deaf to its pleading.
We chatted then for some while longer on indifferent topics, Bishop being, as I have indicated, a man difficult to offend; when, having correspondence to deal with, I retired to my own room. I suppose I had been writing for about an hour, when a servant came to announce a caller. Taking an ordinary visiting-card from the brass salver, I read —
ABÛ TABH.
No title preceded the name, no address followed, but I became aware of something very like a nervous thrill as I stared at the name of my visitor. Personality is one of the profoundest mysteries of our being. Of the person whose card I held in my hand I knew little, practically nothing; his actions, if at times irregular, had never been wantonly violent; his manner was gentle as that of a mother to a baby and his singular reputation among the natives I thought I could afford to ignore; for the Egyptian, like the Celt, with all his natural endowments, is yet a child at heart. Therefore I cannot explain why, sitting there in my room in Shepheard’s Hotel, I knew and recognized, at the name of Abû Tabâh, the touch of fear.
