"Mrs. M'Gregor"--he leaned across the table and rested his hands upon her shoulders--"you are a second mother to me, your care makes me feel like a boy again; and in these grey days it's good to feel like a boy again. You think I am laughing at you, but I'm not. The strange tradition of your family is associated with a tragedy in your life; therefore I respect it. But have no fear with regard to Mlle. Dorian. In the first place she is a patient; in the second--I am merely a penniless suburban practitioner. Good-night, Mrs. M'Gregor. Don't think of waiting up. Tell Mary to show Mademoiselle in here directly she arrives--that is if she really returns."
Mrs. M'Gregor stood up and walked slowly to the door. "I'll show Mademoiselle in mysel', Mr. Keppel," she said--"and show her out."
She closed the door very quietly.
By Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER III. THE SCORPION'S TAIL
SEATING himself at the writing-table, Stuart began mechanically to arrange his papers. Then from the tobacco jar he loaded his pipe, but his manner remained abstracted. Yet he was not thinking of the phantom piper but of Mlle. Dorian.
Until he had met this bewilderingly pretty woman he had thought that his heart was for evermore proof against the glances of bright eyes. Mademoiselle had disillusioned him. She was the most fragrantly lovely creature he had ever met, and never for one waking moment since her first visit had he succeeded in driving her bewitching image from his mind. He had tried to laugh at his own folly, then had grown angry with himself, but finally had settled down to a dismayed acceptance of a wild infatuation.
He had no idea who Mlle. Dorian was; he did not even know her exact nationality, but he strongly suspected that there was a strain of Eastern blood in her veins. Although she was quite young, apparently little more than twenty years of age, she dressed like a woman of unlimited means, and although all her visits had been at night he had had glimpses of the big car which had aroused Mrs. M'Gregor's displeasure.
Yes--so ran his musings, as, pipe in mouth, he rested his chin in his hands and stared grimly into the fire--she had always come at night and always alone. He had supposed her to be a Frenchwoman, but an unmarried French girl of good family does not make late calls, even upon a medical man, unattended. Had he perchance unwittingly made himself a party to the escapade of some unruly member of a noble family? From the first he had shrewdly suspected the ailments of Mlle. Dorian to be imaginary--Mlle. Dorian? It was an odd name.
"I shall be imagining she is a disguised princess if I wonder about her any more!" he muttered angrily.
Detecting himself in the act of heaving a weary sigh, he coughed in self-reproval and reached into a pigeon-hole for the MS. Of his unfinished paper on "Snake Poisons and Their Antidotes." By chance he pulled out the brief account, written the same morning, of his uncanny experience during the night. He read it through reflectively.
It was incomplete. A certain mental laziness which he had noted upon awakening had in some way obscured the facts. His memory of the dream had been imperfect. Even now, whilst recognizing that some feature of the experience was missing from his written account, he could not identify the omission. But one memory arose starkly before him--that of the cowled man who had stood behind the curtains. It had power to chill him yet. The old incredulity returned and methodically he re-examined the contents of some of the table drawers. Ere long, however, he desisted impatiently.
"What the devil could a penniless doctor have hidden in his desk that was worth stealing!" he said aloud. "I must avoid cold salmon and cucumber in future."
He tossed the statement aside and turned to his scientific paper. There came a knock at the door.
"Come in!" snapped Stuart irritably; but the next moment he had turned, eager-eyed, to the servant who had entered.
"Inspector Dunbar has called, sir."
"Oh, all right," said Stuart, repressing another sigh. "Show him in here."
There entered, shortly, a man of unusual height, a man gaunt and square both of figure and face. He wore his clothes and his hair untidily. He was iron grey and a grim mouth was ill concealed by the wiry moustache. The most notable features of a striking face were the tawny leonine eyes, which could be fierce, which could be pensive and which were often kindly.
"Good-evening, doctor," he said--and his voice was pleasant and unexpectedly light in tone. "Hope I don't intrude."
"Not at all, Inspector," Stuart assured him. "Make yourself comfortable in the armchair and fill your pipe.
"Thanks," said Dunbar. "I will." He took out his pipe and reached out a long arm for the tobacco jar. "I came to see if you could give me a tip on a matter that has cropped up."
"Something in my line?" asked Stuart, a keen professional look coming momentarily into his eyes.
"It's supposed to be a poison case, although I can't see it myself," answered the detective--to whom Keppel Stuart's unusual knowledge of poisons had been of service in the past; "but if what I suspect is true, it's a very big case all the same."
Laying down his pipe, which he had filled but not lighted, Inspector Dunbar pulled out from the inside pocket of his tweed coat a bulging note-book and extract therefrom some small object wrapped up in tissue paper. Unwrapping the object, he laid it upon the table.
"Tell me what that is, doctor," he said, "and I shall be obliged."
Stuart peered closely at that which lay before him. It was a piece of curiously shaped gold, cunningly engraved in a most unusual way. Rather less than an inch in length, it formed a crescent made up of six oval segments joined one to another, the sixth terminating in a curled point. The first and largest segment ended jaggedly where it had evidently been snapped off from the rest of the ornament--if the thing had formed part of an ornament. Stuart looked up, frowning in a puzzled way.
"It is a most curious fragment of jewellery--possibly of Indian origin," he said.
Inspector Dunbar lighted his pipe and tossed the match-end into the fire. "But what does it represent?" he asked.
"Oh, as to that--I said a curious fragment advisedly, because I cannot imagine any woman wearing such a beastly thing. It is the tail of a scorpion."
"Ah!" cried Dunbar, the tawny eyes glittering with excitement. "The tail of a scorpion! I thought so! And Sowerby would have it that it represented the stem of a Cactus or Prickly Pear!"
"Not so bad a guess," replied Stuart. "There are resemblances--not in the originals but in such a miniature reproduction as this. He was wrong, however. May I ask where you obtained the fragment?"
"I'm here to tell you, doctor, for now that I know it's a scorpion's tail I know that I'm out of my depth as well. You've travelled in the East and lived in the East--two very different things. Now, while you were out there, in India, China, Burma and so on, did you ever come across a religion or a cult that worshipped scorpions?"
Stuart frowned throughfully, rubbing his chin with the mouthpiece of his pipe. Dunbar watched him expectantly.
"Help yourself to whisky-and-soda, Inspector," said Stuart absently. "You'll find everything on the side-table yonder. I'm thinking."
Inspector Dunbar nodded, stood up and crossed the room, where he busied himself with syphon and decanter. Presently he returned, carrying two full glasses, one of which he set before Stuart. "What's the answer, doctor?" he asked.
"The answer is no. I am not acquainted with any sect of scorpion-worshippers, Inspector. But I once met with a curious experience at Su-Chow in China, which I have never been able to explain, but which may interest you. It wanted but a few minutes to sunset, and I was anxious to get back to my quarters before dusk fell. Therefore I hurried up my boy, who was drawing the rickshaw, telling him to cross the Canal by the Wu-Men Bridge. He ran fleetly in that direction, and we were actually come to the steep acclivity of the bridge, when suddenly the boy dropped the shafts and fell down on his knees, hiding his face in his hand.
"'Shut your eyes tightly, master!' he whispered. 'The Scorpion is coming!'
"I stared down at him in amazement, as was
natural, and not a little angrily; for his sudden action had almost pitched me on my head. But there he crouched, immovable, and staring up the slope I saw that it was entirely deserted except for one strange figure at that moment crossing the crown of the bridge and approaching. It was the figure of a tall and dignified Chinaman, or of one who wore the dress of a Chinaman. For the extraordinary thing about the stranger's appearance was this: he also wore a thick green veil!"
"Covering his face?"
"So as to cover his face completely. I was staring at him in wonder, when the boy, seeming to divine the other's approach, whispered, 'Turn your head away! Turn your head away!'"
"He was referring to the man with the veil?"
"Undoubtedly. Of course I did nothing of the kind, but it was impossible to discern the stranger's features through the thick gauze, although he passed quite close to me. He had not proceeded another three paces, I should think, before my boy had snatched up the shafts and darted across the bridge as though all hell were after him! Here's the odd thing, though: I could never induce him to speak a word on the subject afterwards! I bullied him and bribed him, but all to no purpose. And although I must have asked more than a hundred Chinamen in every station of society from mandarin to mendicant, 'Who or what is The Scorpion?' one and all looked stupid, blandly assuring me that they did not know what I meant."
"H'm!" said Dunbar, "it's a queer yarn, certainly. How long ago would that be, doctor?"
"Roughly--five years."
"It sounds as though it might belong to the case. Some months back, early in the winter, we received instructions at the Yard to look out everywhere in the press, in buffets, theatres, but particularly in criminal quarters, for any reference (of any kind whatever) to a scorpion. I was so puzzled that I saw the Commissioner about it, and he could tell me next to nothing. He said the word had come through from Paris, but that Paris seemed to know no more about it than we did. It was associated in some way with the sudden deaths of several notable public men about that time; but as there was no evidence of foul play in any of the cases, I couldn't see what it meant at all. Then, six weeks ago, Sir Frank Narcombe, the surgeon, fell dead in the foyer of a West-End theatre--you remember?"
"Perfectly--an extraordinary case. There should have been an autopsy."
"It's curious you should say so, doctor, because we had the tip to press for one; but Sir Frank's people had big influence, and we lost. This is the point, though. I was working day and night for a week or more, cross-questioning Tom, Dick and Harry and examining shoals of papers to try and find some connection between Sir Frank Narcombe and a scorpion! Paris information again! Of course I found no trace of such a thing. It was a devil of a job, because I didn't really know what I was looking for. I had begun to think that the scorpion-hunt had gone the way of a good many other giant gooseberries, when last night the River Police got the grapnel on a man off Hanover Hole--a rich spot for 'finds.' He was frightfully battered about; he seemed to have got mixed up with a steamer's propeller blades. The only two things by which me may ultimately be identified are a metal disk which he wore on a chain around his wrist and which bore the initials G.M. and the number 49685 and--that."
"What?" said Stuart.
"The scorpion's tail. It was stuck in the torn lining of his jacket pocket."
CHAPTER IV. MADEMOISELLE DORIAN
THE telephone bell rang.
Stuart reached across for the instrument and raised the receiver. "Yes," he said--"Dr. Stuart speaking. Inspector Dunbar is here. Hold on."
He passed the instrument to Dunbar, who had stood up on hearing his name mentioned. "Sergeant Sowerby at Scotland Yard wishes to speak to you, Inspector."
"Hullo," said Dunbar--"that you, Sowerby. Yes--but I arrived here only a short time ago. What's that?--Max! Did you say Max? Good God! what does it all mean! Are you sure of the number--49685? Poor chap--he should have worked with us instead of going off alone like that. But he was always given to that sort of thing. Wait for me. I'll be with you in a few minutes. I can get a taxi. And, Sowerby--listen! It's 'The Scorpion' case right enough. That bit of gold found on the dead man is not a cactus stem; it's a scorpion's tail!"
He put down the telephone and turned to Stuart, who had been listening to the words with growing concern. Dunbar struck his open palm down on to the table with a violent gesture.
"We have been asleep!" he exclaimed. "Gaston Max of the Paris Service has been at work in London for a month, and we didn't know it!"
"Gaston Max!" cried Stuart--"then it must be a big case indeed."
As a student of criminology the name of the celebrated Frenchman was familiar to him as that of the foremost criminal investigator in Europe, and he found himself staring at the fragment of gold with a new and keener interest.
"Poor chap," continued Dunbar--"it was his last. The body brought in from Hanover Hole has been identified as his."
"What! it is the body of Gaston Max!"
"Paris has just wired that Max's reports ceased over a week ago. He was working on the case of Sir Frank Narcombe, it seems, and I never knew! But I predicted a long time ago that Max would play the lone-hand game once too often. The identification disk is his. Oh! there's no doubt about it, unfortunately. The dead man's face is unrecognizable, but it's not likely there are two disks of that sort bearing the initials G.M. and the number 49685. I'm going along now. Should you care to come, doctor?"
"I am expecting a patient, Inspector," replied Stuart--"er--a special case. But I hope you will keep me in touch with this affair?"
"Well, I shouldn't have suggested your coming to the Yard if I hadn't wanted to do that. As a matter of fact, this scorpion job seems to resolve itself into a case of elaborate assassination by means of some unknown poison; and although I should have come to see you in any event, because you have helped me more than once, I came to-night at the suggestion of the Commissioner. He instructed me to retain your services if they were available."
"I am honoured," replied Stuart. "But after all, Inspector, I am merely an ordinary suburban practitioner. My reputation has yet to be made. What's the matter with Halesowen of Upper Wimpole Street? He's the big man."
"And if Sir Frank Narcombe was really poisoned--as Paris seems to think he was--he's also a big fool," retorted Dunbar bluntly. "He agreed that death was due to heart trouble."
"I know he did; unsuspected ulcerative endocarditis. Perhaps he was right."
"If he was right," said Dunbar, taking up the piece of gold from the table, "what was Gaston Max doing with this thing in his possession?"
"There may be no earthly connection between Max's inquiries and the death of Sir Frank."
"On the other hand--there may! Leaving Dr. Halesowen out of the question, are you open to act as expert adviser in this case?"
"Certainly; delighted."
"Your fee is your own affair, doctor. I will communicate with you later, if you wish, or call again in the morning."
Dunbar wrapped up the scorpion's tail in the piece of tisue paper and was about to replace it in his note-case. Then:
"I'll leave this with you, doctor," he said. "I know it will be safe enough, and you might like to examine it at greater leisure."
"Very well," replied Stuart. "Some of the engraving is very minute. I will have a look at it through a glass later."
He took the fragment from Dunbary, who had again unwrapped it, and, opening a drawer of the writing-table in which he kept his cheque-book and some few other personal valuables, he placed the curious piece of gold-work within and relocked the drawer.
"I will walk as far as the cab-rank with you," he said, finding himself to be possessed of a spirit of unrest. Whereupon the two went out of the room, Stuart extinguishing the lamps as he came to the door.
They had not left the study for more than two minutes ere a car drew up outside the house, and Mrs. M'Gregor ushered a lady into the room but lately quitted by Stuart and Dunbar, turning up the lights as she entered.
"The doctor has gone out but just the now, Miss Dorian," she said stiffly. "I am sorry that ye are so unfortunate in your veesits. But I know he'll be no more than a few minutes."
The girl addressed was of a type fully to account for the misgivings of the shrewd old Scotswoman. She had the slim beauty of the East allied to the elegance of the West. Her features, whilst cast in a charming European mould, at the same time suggested in some subtle way the Oriental. She had the long, almond-shaped eyes of the Egyptian, and her hair, which she wore unconventionally in a picturesque fashion reminiscent of the harêm, was inclined to be "fuzzy," but gleamed with coppery tints where the light touched its waves.
She wore a cloak of purple velvet having a hooded collar of white fox fur; it fastened with golden cords. Beneath it was a white and gold robe, cut with classic simplicity of line and confined at the waist by an ornate Eastern girdle. White stockings and dull gold shoes exhibited to advantage her charming little feet and slim ankles, and she carried a hand-bag of Indian beadwork. Mlle. Dorian was a figure calculated to fire the imagination of any man and to linger long and sweetly in the memory.
Mrs. Mm, palpably ill at ease, conducted her to an armchair.
"You are very good," said the visitor, speaking with a certain hesitancy and with a slight accent most musical and fascinating. "I wait a while if I may."
"Dear, dear," muttered Mrs. M'Gregor, beginning to poke the fire, "he has let the fire down, of course! Is it out? No . . . I see a wee sparkie!"
She set the poker upright before the nearly extinguished fire and turned triumphantly to Mlle. Dorian, who was watching her with a slight smile.
"That will be a comforting blaze in a few minutes, Miss Dorian," she said, and went towards the door.
"If you please," called the girl, detaining her--"do you permit me to speak on the telephone a moment? As Dr. Stuart is not at home, I must explain that I wait for him."
"Certainly, Miss Dorian," replied Mrs. M'Gregor; "use the telephone by all means. But I think the doctor will be back any moment now."
"Thank you so much."
The Golden Scorpion Page 2
