Works of Sax Rohmer

by Sax Rohmer

  Annesley seemed on the point of refusing, when:

  “I have acquired a reputed Leonardo,” continued Madame, “and I wish you to see it.”

  There was something so like a command in the words that Deacon stared at his companion in frank surprise. The latter avoided his glance, and:

  “Come!” said Madame de Medici.

  As of old the great Catherine of her name might have withdrawn with her suite, so now the lady of the tiger skins withdrew from the gallery, the two men following obediently, and one of them at least a happy courtier.

  III

  TWIN POOLS OF AMBER

  The white-robed Chinese servant entered and placed fresh perfume upon the burning charcoal of the silver incense-burner. As the scented smoke began to rise he withdrew, and a second servant entered, who facially, in dress, in figure and bearing, was a duplicate of the first. This one carried a large tray upon which was set an exquisite porcelain tea-service. He placed the tray upon a low table beside the divan, and in turn withdrew.

  Deacon, seated in a great ebony chair, smoked rapidly and nervously — looking about the strangely appointed room with its huge picture of the Madonna, its jade Buddha surmounting a gilded Burmese cabinet, its Persian canopy and Egyptian divan, at the thousand and one costly curiosities which it displayed, at this mingling of East and West, of Christianity and paganism, with a growing wonder.

  To one of his blood there was delight, intoxication, in that room; but something of apprehension, too, now grew up within him.

  Madame de Medici entered. The garish motor-coat was discarded now, and her supple figure was seen to best advantage in one of those dark silken gowns which she affected, and which had a seeming of the ultra-fashionable because they defied fashion. She held in her hand an orchid, its structure that of an odontoglossum, but of a delicate green colour heavily splashed with scarlet — a weird and unnatural-looking bloom.

  Just within the doorway she paused, as Deacon leaped up, and looked at him through the veil of the curved lashes.

  “For you,” she said, twirling the blossom between her fingers and gliding toward him with her tigerish step.

  He spoke no word, but, face flushed, sought to look into her eyes as she pinned the orchid in the button-hole of his coat. Her hands were flawless in shape and colouring, being beautiful as the sculptured hands preserved in the works of Phidias.

  The slight draught occasioned by the opening of the door caused the smoke from the incense-burner to be wafted toward the centre of the room. Like a blue-gray phantom it coiled about the two standing there upon a red and gold Bedouin rug, and the heavy perfume, or the close proximity of this singularly lovely woman, wrought upon the high-strung sensibilities of Deacon to such an extent that he was conscious of a growing faintness.

  “Ah! You are not well!” exclaimed Madame with deep concern. “It is the perfume which that foolish Ah Li has lighted. He forgets that we are in England.”

  “Not at all,” protested Deacon faintly, and conscious that he was making a fool of himself. “I think I have perhaps been overdoing it rather of late. Forgive me if I sit down.”

  He sank on the cushioned divan, his heart beating furiously, while Madame touched the little bell, whereupon one of the servants entered.

  She spoke in Chinese, pointing to the incense-burner.

  Ah Li bowed and removed the censer. As the door softly reclosed:

  “You are better?” she whispered, sweetly solicitous, and, seating herself beside Deacon, she laid her hand lightly upon his arm.

  “Quite,” he replied hoarsely; “please do not worry about me. I am wondering what has become of Annesley.”

  “Ah, the poor man!” exclaimed Madame, with a silver laugh, and began to busy herself with the teacups. “He remembered, as he was looking at my new Leonardo, an appointment which he had quite forgotten.”

  “I can understand his forgetting anything under the circumstances.”

  Madame de Medici raised a tiny cup and bent slightly toward him. He felt that he was losing control of himself, and, averting his eyes, he stooped and smelled the orchid in his buttonhole. Then, accepting the cup, he was about to utter some light commonplace when the faintness returned overwhelmingly, and, hurriedly replacing the cup upon the tray, he fell back among the cushions. The stifling perfume of the place seemed to be choking him.

  “Ah, poor boy! You are really not at all well. How sorry I am!”

  The sweet tones reached him as from a great distance; but as one dying in the desert turns his face toward the distant oasis, Deacon turned weakly to the speaker. She placed one fair arm behind his head, pillowing him, and with a peacock fan which had lain amid the cushions fanned his face. The strange scene became wholly unreal to him; he thought himself some dying barbaric chief.

  “Rest there,” murmured the sweet voice.

  The great eyes, unveiled now by the black lashes, were two twin lakes of fairest amber. They seemed to merge together, so that he stood upon the brink of an unfathomable amber pool — which swallowed him up — which swallowed him up.

  He awoke to an instantaneous consciousness of the fact that he had been guilty of inexcusably bad form. He could not account for his faintness, and reclining there amid the silken cushions, with Madame de Medici watching him anxiously, he felt a hot flush stealing over his face.

  “What is the matter with me!” he exclaimed, and sprang to his feet. “I feel quite well now.”

  She watched him, smiling, but did not speak. He was a “very young man” again, and badly embarrassed. He glanced at his wrist-watch.

  “Gracious heavens!” he cried, and noted that the tea-tray had been removed, “there must be something radically wrong with my health. It is nearly seven o’clock!”

  The note of the silver bell sounded in the ante-room.

  “Can you forgive me?” he said.

  But Madame, rising to her feet, leaned lightly upon his shoulder, toying with the petals of the orchid in his buttonhole.

  “I think it was the perfume which that foolish Ah Li lighted,” she whispered, looking intently into his eyes, “and it is you who have to forgive me. But you will, I know!” The silver bell rang again. “When you have come to see me again — many, many times, you will grow to love it — because I love it.”

  She touched the bell upon the table, and Ah Li entered silently. When Madame de Medici held out her hand to him Deacon raised the white fingers to his lips and kissed them rapturously; then he turned, the Gascon within him uppermost again, and ran from the room.

  A purple curtain was drawn across the lobby, screening the caller newly arrived from the one so hurriedly departing.

  IV

  THE LIVING BUDDHA

  It was past midnight when Colonel Deacon returned to the house. Rene was waiting for him, pacing up and down the big library. Their relationship was curious, as subsisting between ward and guardian, for these two, despite the disparity of their ages, had few secrets from one another. Rene burned to pour out his story of the wonderful Madame de Medici, of the secret house in Chinatown with its deceptively mean exterior and its gorgeous interior, to the shrewd and worldly elder man. That was his way. But Fate had an oddly bitter moment in store for him.

  “Hallo, boy!” cried the Colonel, looking into the library; “glad you’re home. I might not see you in the morning, and I want to tell you about — er — a lady who will be coming here in the afternoon.”

  The words died upon Rene’s lips unspoken, and he stared blankly at the Colonel.

  “I thought I knew all there was to know about pictures, antiques, and all that sort of lumber,” continued Colonel Deacon in his rapid and off-hand manner. “Thought there weren’t many men in London could teach me anything; certainly never suspected a woman could. But I’ve met one, boy! Gad! What a splendid creature! You know there isn’t much in the world I haven’t seen — north, south, east and west. I know all the advertised beauties of Europe and Asia — stage, opera, and ballet, and all
the rest of them. But this one — Gad!”

  He dropped into an arm-chair, clapping both his hands upon his knees. Rene stood at the farther end of the library, in the shadow, watching him.

  “She’s coming here to-morrow, boy — coming here. Gad! you dog! You’ll fall in love with her the moment you see her — sure to, sure to! I did, and I’m three times your age!”

  “Who is this lady, sir?” asked Rene, very quietly.

  “God knows, boy! Everybody’s mad to meet her, but nobody knows who she is. But wait till you see her. Lady Dascot seems to be acquainted with her, but you will see when they come to-morrow — see for yourself. Gad, boy!... what did you say?”

  “I did not speak.”

  “Thought you did. Have a whisky-and-soda?”

  “No, thank you, sir — good night.”

  “Good night, boy!” cried the Colonel. “Good night. Don’t forget to be in to-morrow afternoon or you’ll miss meeting the loveliest woman in London, and the most brilliant.”

  “What is her name?”

  “Eh? She calls herself Madame de Medici. She’s a mystery, but what a splendid creature!”

  Rene Deacon walked slowly upstairs, entered his bedroom, and for fully an hour sat in the darkness, thinking — thinking.

  “Am I going mad?” he murmured. “Or is this witch driving all London mad?”

  He strove to recover something of the glamour which had mastered him when in the presence of Madame de Medici, but failed. Yet he knew that, once near her again, it would all return. His reflections were bitter, and when at last wearily he undressed and went to bed it was to toss restlessly far into the small hours ere sleep came to soothe his troubled mind.

  But his sleep was disturbed: a series of dreadfully realistic dreams danced through his brain. First he seemed to be standing upon a high mountain peak with eternal snows stretched all about him. He looked down, past the snow line, past the fir woods, into the depths of a lovely lake, far down in the valley below. It was a lake of liquid amber, and as he looked it seemed to become two lakes, and they were like two great eyes looking up at him and summoning him to leap. He thought that he leaped, a prodigious leap, far out into space; then fell — fell — fell. When he splashed into the amber deeps they became churned up in a milky foam, and this closed about him with a strangle grip. But it was no longer foam, but the clinging arms of Madame de Medici!...

  Then he stood upon a fragile bridge of bamboo spanning a raging torrent. Right and left of the torrent below were jungles in which moved tigerish shapes. Upon the farther side of the bridge Madame de Medici, clad in a single garment of flame-coloured silk, beckoned to him. He sought to cross the bridge, but it collapsed, and he fell near the edge of the torrent. Below were the raging waters, and ever nearing him the tigerish shapes, which now Madame was calling to as to a pack of hounds. They were about to devour him, when —— —

  He was crouching upon a ledge, high above a street which seemed to be vaguely familiar. He could not see very well, because of a silk mask tied upon his face, and the eyeholes of which were badly cut. From the ledge he stepped to another, perilously. He gained it, and crouching there, where there was scarce foothold for a cat, he managed fully to raise a window which already was raised some six inches. Then softly and silently — for he was bare-footed — he entered the room.

  Someone slept in a bed facing the window by which he had entered, and upon a table at the side of the sleeper lay a purse, a bunch of keys, an electric torch, and a Service revolver. Gliding to the table Rene took the keys and the electric torch, unlocked the door of the room, and crept down a thickly carpeted stair to a room below. The door of this also he opened with one of the keys in the bunch, and by the light of the torch found his way through a quantity of antique furniture and piled up curiosities to a safe set in the farther wall.

  He seemed, in his dream, to be familiar with the lock combination, and, selecting the correct key from the bunch, he soon had the safe open. The shelves within were laden principally with antique jewellery, statuettes, medals, scarabs; and a number of little leather-covered boxes were there also. One of these he abstracted, relocked the safe, and stepped out of the room, locking the door behind him. Up the stairs he mounted to the bedroom wherein he had left the sleeper. Having entered, he locked the door from within, placed the keys and the torch upon the table, and crept out again upon the dizzy ledge.

  Poised there, high above the thoroughfare below, a great nausea attacked him. Glancing to the right, in the direction of the window through which he had come, he perceived Madame de Medici leaning out and beckoning to him. Her arm gleamed whitely in the faint light. A new courage came to him. He succeeded, crouched there upon the narrow ledge, in relowering the window, and leaving it in the state in which he had found it, he stood up and essayed that sickly stride to the adjoining ledge. He accomplished it, knelt, and crept back into the room from which he had started....

  The head of an ivory image of Buddha loomed up out of the utter darkness, growing and growing until it seemed like a great mountain. He could not believe that there was so much ivory in the world, and he felt it with his fingers, wonderingly. As he did so it began to shrink, and shrink, and shrink, and shrink, until it was no larger than a seated human figure. Then beneath his trembling hands it became animate; it moved, extended ivory arms, and wrapped them about his neck. Its lips became carmine — perfumed; they bent to him... and he was looking into the bewitching face of Madame de Medici!

  He awoke, gasping for air and bathed in cold perspiration. The dawn was just breaking over London and stealing grayly from object to object in his bedroom.

  V

  THE IVORY GOD

  The great car, with its fittings of gold and ivory, drew up at the door of Colonel Deacon’s house. The interior was ablaze with tiger lilies, and out from their midst stepped the fairest of them all — Madame de Medici, and swept queenly up the steps upon the arm of the cavalierly soldier.

  All connoisseurs esteemed it a privilege to view the Deacon collection, and this afternoon there was a goodly gathering. Chairs and little white tables were dotted about the lawn in shady spots, and the majority of the company were already assembled; but when, in a wonderful golden robe, Madame de Medici glided across the lawn, the babel ceased abruptly as if by magic. She pulled off one glove and began twirling a great emerald between her slim fingers. It was suspended from a thin gold chain. Presently, descrying Annesley seated at a table with Lady Dascot, she raised the jewel languidly and peered through it at the two.

  “Why!” exclaimed Rene Deacon, who stood close beside her, “that was a trick of Nero’s!”

  Madame laughed musically.

  “One might take a worse model,” she said softly; “at least he enjoyed life.”

  Colonel Deacon, who listened to her every word as to the utterance of a Cumaean oracle, laughed with extraordinary approbation.

  There was scarce a woman present who regarded Madame with a friendly eye, nor a man who did not aspire to become her devoted slave. She brought an atmosphere of unreality with her, dominating old and young alike by virtue of her splendid pagan beauty. The lawn, with its very modern appointments, became as some garden of the Golden House, a pleasure ground of an emperor.

  But later, when the company entered the house, and Colonel Deacon sought to monopolize the society of Madame, an unhealthy spirit of jealousy arose between Rene and his guardian. It was strange, grotesque, horrible almost. Annesley watched from afar, and there was something very like anger in his glance.

  “And this,” said the Colonel presently, taking up an exquisitely carved ivory Buddha, “has a strange history. In some way a legend has grown up around it — it is of very great age — to the effect that it must always cause its owner to lose his most cherished possession.”

  “I wonder,” said the silvern voice, “that you, who possess so many beautiful things, should consent to have so ill-omened a curiosity in your house.”

  “I do not
fear the evil charm of this little ivory image,” said Colonel Deacon, “although its history goes far to bear out the truth of the legend. Its last possessor lost his most cherished possession a month after the Buddha came into his hands. He fell down his own stairs — and lost his life!”

  Madame de Medici languidly surveyed the figure through the upraised emerald.

  “Really!” she murmured. “And the one from whom he procured it?”

  “A Hindu usurer of Simla,” replied the Colonel. “His daughter stole it from her father together with many other things, and took them to her lover, with whom she fled!”

  Madame de Medici seemed to be slightly interested.

  “I should love to possess so weird a thing,” she said softly.

  “It is yours!” exclaimed the Colonel, and placed it in her hands.

  “Oh, but really,” she protested.

  “But really I insist — in order that you may not forget your first visit to my house!”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “How very kind you are, Colonel Deacon,” she said, “to a rival collector!”

  “Now that the menace is removed,” said Colonel Deacon with laboured humour, “I will show you my most treasured possession.”

  “So! I am greatly interested.”

  “Not even this rascal Rene,” said the Colonel, stopping before a safe set in the wall, “has seen what I am about to show you!”

  Rene started slightly and watched with intense interest the unlocking of the safe.

  “If I am not superstitious about the ivory Buddha,” continued the Colonel, “I must plead guilty in the case of the Key of the Temple of Heaven!”

  “The Key of the Temple of Heaven!” murmured a lady standing immediately behind Madame de Medici. “And what is the Key of the Temple of Heaven?”

  The Colonel, having unlocked the safe, straightened himself, and while everyone was waiting to see what he had to show, began to speak again pompously:

  “The Temple of Heaven stands in the outer or Chinese City of Pekin, and is fabulously wealthy. No European, I can swear, had ever entered its secret chambers until last year. One of its most famous treasures was this Key. It was used only to open the special entrance reserved for the Emperor when he came to worship after his succession to the throne — that was, of course, before China became a Republic. The Key is studded almost all over with precious stones. Last year a certain naval man — I’ll not mention his name — discovered the secret of its hiding-place. How he came by that knowledge does not matter at present. One very dark night he crept up to the temple. He found the Keeper of the Key — a Buddhist priest — to be sleeping, and he succeeded, therefore, in gaining access and becoming possessed of the Key.”