The Mystery Megapack: 25 Modern and Classic Mystery Stories

by Talley, Marcia

  A strange feeling of uneasiness stirred Irma. The darkness, the closeness of the incense-filled air, made her apprehensive. Her employer led her to the end of the hall, where a naked oil lamp burned faintly. They came to a doorway whose heavy drapes of crimson velvet were held apart for their passage, then passed into the most magnificent room Irma had ever seen. She was struck with amazement at the strange richness of the furnishings.

  Silhouetted against the soft gray walls was mahogany furniture upholstered in dull reds and golds. A wealth of cushions lay recumbent upon the oriental rug. Bronze statues of rare eastern design showed dim outlines in the subdued light of the room.

  Advancing toward Irma was a remarkable man. He was tall and slender, and moved with a lithe, sinuous grace. His skin was a dark brown and his features sharply defined. A simple robe of white silk covered his body. Slender hands with long, tapering fingers extended beneath the loose sleeves of the robe. A pair of sandals was his only footwear.

  The man advanced until Irma saw his features clearly. His manner was conciliatory, but Irma recoiled in terror from the thick, curling lips and the mad fire of his dark eyes. He surveyed her critically for a moment, paying no heed to her obvious discomfort, then nodded to the lady who had brought Irma to the house.

  “Come, my child, we’ll wait upstairs,” the lady said.

  Hesitantly, Irma followed. She felt in peril from these strange people and resolved to flee when they left the house to re-enter the car. Coming to a door on the upper floor, her employer held it open for Irma to enter. Irma found herself in a small, but artistically furnished bedroom. She heard a sharp click behind her and turned to find herself alone and the door closed.

  She ran to the door. Her worst fears were realized. The door was locked! Irma screamed in terror, and her cries thundered back derisively from the walls. Exhausted after a time, she threw herself on the bed and sobbed. She began to think more clearly. Surely some hue and cry would be raised at her disappearance that would lead to her rescue.

  The hue and cry that was raised for Irma was the casual remark passed in a cheap rooming house some days later from a girl to her roommate: “Before you come in with me, I had a nice little kid here called Irma Rollins. She went out to the country to work. Some millionaire’s joint. Funny she don’t write.

  * * * *

  On the third day of her imprisonment Irma Rollins was on the point of

  complete collapse. She had touched no

  food since her capture. The stifling air of the room, whose only ventilation was through a small, grill-covered opening in the ceiling, and her sobbing, resulted in continual nausea. Food had been brought her regularly, and had as regularly been sent away.

  For the first two days every opening of the room’s heavy door marked a furious struggle in which the desperate girl fought to escape. But invariably she was overpowered and thrust back into the room. The tall and beautiful lady who had brought her to the brownstone house Irma had not seen since her imprisonment. She could hear no sounds of life, either from within the house or from the outside. The room was completely sound proof. And yet, not fifty feet away moved the daily life of a great American city. She told herself that it was all a hideous nightmare—that such a thing as her abduction was an impossibility in an American city, but the grim reality of that steel-walled room was too apparent.

  The sunshine never found its way into her prison, and terrified of the darkness, Irma had burned the electric lights continually. She never slept for longer than a half hour at a time. Occasionally the tall Hindu, whom she had seen in the white robe, visited her, His visits were terrifying experiences for Irma. His lips smiled in an attempt at reassurance, but his dark eyes blazed while he told her that a “signal honor” was being prepared for her. Sometimes he came in the long robe of white silk; at other times he wore conventional clothes.

  By the third day Irma had reached utter despair. She had searched the room for a means of ending her life, found none, and awaited her fate with apathy. The ominous threat that lay behind the blazing eyes of her captor did not escape her, and she felt the chill of death in his words, “a signal honor!”

  Irma lost track of time, but she believed it to be late night on the fourth day of her imprisonment when the door opened and the tall Hindu, accompanied by two servants, entered the room and locked the door.

  He was dressed in the long robe of white silk and his feet were sandaled. His eyes burned with magnetic fire. Irma shrank from him.

  “Come, my child, the hour has arrived!”

  The words fell on Irma as a death warrant. She begged and pleaded the inexorable Hindu for mercy. The two servants gripped her arms and struggling futilely she was led to a corner of the room. She freed one arm and turned in a frenzied attack upon the Hindu gripping the other. Kicking, biting, scratching, she fought with the abandon of despair. Her free arm was recovered by the Hindu. She was turned and dragged to the corner. A panel of steel slid along the wall and the opening revealed a narrow, iron staircase leading down. Dragged through the gap in the wall, Irma’s strength left her. Her body went limp in the Hindus’ arms.

  * * * *

  Roy had taken Margaret to a matinee that afternoon. Three days had passed since the episode of the Bengali’s garden. Roy had read and heard nothing of the dead Hindu. Margaret said nothing unusual had happened at the house.

  Roy went to his club after taking Margaret home. Going into the dining room a page stopped him. Roy followed the boy to a phone. Margaret was on the line. She was calling from a drug store and wanted to see him at once.

  Ten minutes later Roy stopped his car at the curb in front of the store. Margaret ran to him. “We’ve got to do something, Roy. When I was dressing for dinner, I heard a muffled cry. Someone is locked up in the house. There was just one cry. It sounded as if a door might have been opened for a second and then closed. There were no other sounds. When I came down to dinner, Ishan Das Babaji looked at me strangely. I pretended not to notice and after a while he relaxed and seemed relieved.”

  “Want to go to the police?” Roy asked.

  “Oh! What would we say?”

  “Just what you have said to me.”

  Margaret shook her head. “No, Roy, it’s no good. He’d fool them in some way. Besides, there’s Aunt Elizabeth. I just can’t bring her into trouble. Maybe I’m wrong, Roy. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe one of the servants got hurt accidentally. Can’t we do anything without going to the police? Think what a fool I’d look if we brought the police and found nothing wrong. If we could only be sure first.”

  “All right,” Roy agreed quickly. “Get me into the house, into your room tonight. I’ll find out.…”

  “But how, Roy? How can I get you in without their knowing?”

  “I’ll get you a rope. There’s a radiator in your room? Right. Tie the rope to the radiator. At one o’clock, I’ll wave you a signal from the street. You lower the rope to the ground.”

  Half an hour later Roy left Margaret a block from the old brownstone house.

  A few minutes before one Roy stood beside the high brick wall. Margaret’s windows were open and he saw the curtains stirring gently in the faint breeze.

  For ten minutes Roy remained close against the wall watching those fluttering curtains. He glanced at his watch. A minute after one. His eyes strained up to the windows. The room was dark. His eyes saw no sign of movement beyond those curtains. Five minutes, ten, dragged by, still Margaret failed to appear at the window.

  Roy made a sudden decision. He’d get close to the house and risk a whistle.

  He glanced up and down the street, climbed the wall, and ran to the cover of the house. Roy crept along the wall toward the open windows. The big house was dark, silent. He looked up at the window again and saw a rope that reached to the ground.

  Roy ran forward and jerked the rope in a signal. He moved away from the wall and watched. The curtains above fluttered idly. Roy pulled at the rope again. He tested it with his weight,
then began the ascent. His hands rested on the windowsill. He drew a knee up and whispered, “Margaret!”

  A curtain blew against his face. Roy flung the drape aside. Margaret lay on the bed. Roy called again, then scrambled into the room. He ran to the bedside. “Margaret! Margaret!” His hand clutched her wrist. Her pulse was resolute. Roy jerked the torch from his pocket. He snapped on the switch and turned the light full on her eyes. She lay back silent, deep in a drugged sleep.

  Roy turned away from the bed. His torch swept over the room. Pinned to the rope near the radiator Roy saw a white sheet of paper. There was a message on the paper:

  *

  “Roy darling: Terribly sleepy. Believe I am drugged. Lowering rope now at eleven-twenty. If it is not discovered and you find this, get police. Margaret.”

  *

  Roy dropped the note into a pocket. He drew his revolver, left the room and descended the stairs to the ground floor of the house.

  The stairs led to the reception hall. So far Roy was on familiar ground. Passing the portières of the drawing room, he continued toward the rear of the house. A chill gripped him as he heard the faint outcries of a girl. The sound came from above and Roy retraced his steps and ran lightly up the stairs. He tried the door of every room on the second floor, but could gain admittance to none except Margaret’s.

  Roy listened at every door. This part of the house seemed deserted. He returned to the ground floor and stole to the end of the reception hall, where, cautiously pushing aside the heavy drapes, he passed into a room of oriental splendor, lighted by many naked oil lamps. Roy was making his way toward an open door at the far end of the room when he heard the notes of subdued, low-pitched music. The music was weirdly barbaric and was accompanied by muffled drumbeats.

  The music stirred something remote and primitive within Roy. He listened for a moment spellbound before continuing toward the open door. The door consisted of a panel of steel that slid up and down, and worked, apparently, by means of a counterweight and inlaid rollers, which, when the door was open, were visible.

  From beyond came the sound of chanting voices accompanied by the low-pitched music. Roy could see only a corner of the room from which the notes issued. A thick carpet of rich purple covered the floor and the walls were hung with velvet drapes of the same color. The drapes hung loosely and reached to the floor. They offered a fair chance of concealment. Roy stepped cautiously to the threshold of the door, jumped into the room and behind the end of a drape.

  He waited for the cry that meant his discovery, but the chanting and music continued. Working his way along the wall, Roy came to a place where two of the drapes overlapped. Here he paused and drawing the drapes slightly apart, looked out upon a scene that amazed him.

  The room was a large and lofty one. Its occupants were grouped at the opposite end. Three of the Hindu servants comprised the primitive orchestra. They played before a huge and hideous idol.

  The idol reached to a height of about twelve feet and was the figure of a woman. She was black, with a great outpointed tongue of flaming red that extended to her waistline. Venomous teeth glistened against the black background of her face, and around her neck was a string of skulls. From her shoulders extended four arms of startling size; two were extended in a gesture of welcome; the third held a great and awesome sword, and from the fourth there hung the severed head of a mighty giant.

  The awful idol touched on a chord of memory and Roy recalled the circumstances. It was while in Calcutta on a world tour with his father that he had made a pilgrimage to the temple at Kali-Ghat, a short distance from Calcutta. The three-hundred-year-old temple was not, as Roy recalled it, an impressive affair. It was the hideous atrocities perpetrated in the name of worship that left an indelible imprint on his mind, for here was worshipped the terrifying goddess, Kali, “Kali, the Divine Mother!”

  Kali, Roy remembered as a savage virago who demanded great quantities of blood from her worshippers under pain of pestilence and famine. Her worship was accompanied by self-inflicted tortures. Her votaries ran sharply-pointed canes through their muscles and tongues, and in excesses of devotion, caused themselves to be swung on high while suspended by iron hooks passed through the muscles of the back.

  This hideous monster is worshipped at midnight throughout Bengal as a great warrior, the giver of victory, and the protector and avenger of her people. Bloody sacrifices of animals are made daily at her altar, while, a few generations ago, Roy knew, the sacrifices were human, and as recently as March, 1925, a young girl was sacrificed to the goddess Kali at Mandla, near Jabalapur.

  Roy heard the sound of footfalls approaching the door through which he had come. He flattened against the wall, withdrawing his eye from the aperture between the drapes. A small procession passed his hiding place and Roy again peered out.

  He saw a group of white-robed people move across the room toward the image of the hideous idol. A convulsion of rage shook his body when he saw that the group consisted of four Hindus dragging the unconscious form of a young white girl followed by Ishan Das Babaji.

  In fascinated horror Roy watched the Hindus, including Ishan Das Babaji, remove the long robes of silk, revealing themselves clad in the native dhoti, a loose garment that extended from the waist to their bare feet, and wearing the janeo, or sacred thread, bandoleer-fashion over one shoulder.

  The Hindu servants dragged the captive white girl to a concave indentation in the floor. This indentation was oval in shape and about six feet in length. It was lined with porcelain. In the center of the oval stood a wooden block about two feet square.

  A long, curved knife, approaching a cutlass in size, was placed in the hands of Ishan Das Babaji by one of the servants. The girl was lifted to the block. Knife in hand, Ishan Das Babaji advanced toward her.

  Roy watched the proceedings in a chill of horror. With the full realization that here, in an American city, a young girl was to be offered as a sacrifice to a barbaric goddess, Roy, galvanized with action. He flung caution aside and burst from his hiding place. At the sound of the sudden movement, the Hindus turned and sprang to meet him.

  Roy pointed his gun at the foremost Hindu, pressed the trigger, and the Hindu folded up like a jack-knife. The second Hindu closed with Roy. Roy fired as the man seized his gun hand. The grip on his hand relaxed; the Hindu slipped down. But Roy was borne to the floor by the other five Hindu servants. He fired one more shot, which missed, and the gun was wrenched from his hand. The Hindus were engrossed in getting the revolver. When Roy lost the weapon, he squirmed from beneath the Hindus and. jumped up. His feet were pulled from under him and he was down again. This time they held him. His hands and feet were bound with a thin, tough cord. After he was secured, the Hindus lifted Roy to his feet and held him before Ishan Das Babaji.

  The tall, distinguished Bengali had stood aside during the struggle. He surveyed the disheveled Roy with mad hate flashing from his burning eyes. His thin lips twitched in ungovernable rage and he was unable to speak. Slowly he settled into a calm, and then, speaking quietly, and outwardly composed, said in impressive solemnity:

  “Mr. Martin, you have come to look on at the worship of Mother Kali! Kali, the Divine, the Protector and Avenger of her people! Kali, who, when she has drunk her fill of the blood of whites, will come to the succor of her people and cast aside the yoke of white domination!” The solemnity of the voice changed, and a cynical note was suggested, as he concluded, “A signal honor shall be yours!”

  Roy made no answer to the Bengali’s words. A heavy depression settled on him at the hopelessness of the situation. He turned to look for the girl and saw her on one of the many piles of cushions that lay against the walls of the room. At a command from Ishan Das Babaji, two of the Hindus arose and walked to a small table on which there stood a number of bowl-like vessels of gold. Each picked up two of the vessels and walked to the Bengali’s side. Two others lifted the girl from the piled cushions.

  The Bengali took a step forward and stood wit
h arm upraised above the girl’s neck.

  The horror of the thing he was about to witness turned Roy into a raving madman. He pulled at the cords that tied him until they cut deep into his flesh. He hurled wild, bitter oaths at the Bengali. And in a frenzied attempt to attack the Bengali bound as he was, Roy fell helplessly to the floor.

  The Bengali spoke a command in Hindustani to the servants and two of them dragged Roy to a pile of cushions where they left him.

  Ishan Das Babaji turned again to the girl who lay unconscious across the block and began a chanting invocation to Kali.

  Roy grew calmer and strove desperately to think of some plan of escape. He was bound so tightly that he could not make the slightest movement of hands or feet. A short distance from him there stood on a small stand one of the oil lamps that provided the room with its dim light. Roy saw a chance—a desperately remote one—and seized it.

  On a writhing movement he advanced on the lamp. His movements were unnoticed by the worshipping Hindus. He reached the lamp and got to his

  knees beside it. His back to the lamp, Roy held his wrists above the naked flame. A fearful scream echoed through the long room. The girl had recovered consciousness.

  Two of the Hindus jumped forward and held the screaming girl across the block of sacrifice. Ishan Das Babaji ceased his chanting and raised the great knife high above his head.

  The cords that bound Roy’s wrists snapped. Unmindful of seared flesh, Roy reached to his pocket, secured his knife, and cut the cords that bound his ankles.

  He seized the lamp and hurled it at the Bengali. The lamp struck Ishan Das Babaji on the side of the head. The Bengali dropped. The scanty clothing of the mad fiend burst into flame. The Hindu servants rushed about their master endeavoring to extinguish the flames. Roy ran to other lamps and threw them on the drapes and cushions. Oil-soaked, they blazed in a dozen fires.