“Manchu,” observed my host. “Of princely rank. Yet he thinks to be my servant the greater honor.”
I nodded casually, as though the matter were commonplace and butlers who were Manchu princes, wine lifted from King Alfonso, goblets of an Arabian Nights’ Caliph and Cellini compotes everyday affairs. I realized that the game which had begun in Battery Park a few hours before had reached its second stage and I was determined to maintain my best poker face and manner.
“You please me, James Kirkham,” the voice was totally devoid of expression, the lips scarcely moved as it rolled forth. “You are thinking—‘I am a prisoner, my place in the outer world is being filled by a double whom even my closest friends do not suspect of being other than I; this man speaking is a monster, ruthless and conscienceless, a passionless intellect which could—and would—blow me out if he desired as carelessly as he would blow out a candle flame.’ In all that, James Kirkham, you are right.”
He paused. I found it better not to look into those jewel-bright blue eyes. I lighted a cigarette and nodded, fixing my attention on the glowing tip.
“Yes, you are right,” he went on. “Yet you ask no questions and make no appeals. Your voice and hands are steady, your eyes untroubled. But back of all, your brain is keenly alert, poised on tiptoe to seize some advantage. You are feeling out for danger with the invisible antennae of your nerves like any jungleman. Every sense is alive to catch some break in the net you feel around you. There is a touch of terror upon you. Yet outwardly you show no slightest sign of all this—only I could detect it. You please me greatly, James Kirkham. Yours is the true gambler’s soul!”
He paused again, studying me over the rim of his goblet. I forced myself to meet his gaze and smile.
“You are now thirty-five,” he continued. “I have watched you for years. I was first attracted to you by your work in the French Espionage Service during the second year of the war.”
My fingers stiffened involuntarily about my glass. None, I had thought, had known of that hazardous work except the Chief and myself.
“It happened that you ran counter to no plans of mine,” the toneless voice rolled on. “So you—lived. You next came to my notice when you undertook to recover the Spiradoff emeralds from the Communists in Moscow. You ingeniously left with them the imitations and escaped with the originals. I did not care for them, I have much finer ones. So I allowed you to return them to those who had commissioned you. But the audacity of your plan and the cool courage with which you carried it out entertained me greatly. I like to be entertained, James Kirkham. Your indifferent acceptance of the wholly inadequate reward showed that it had been the adventure which had been the primal appeal. It had been the game and not the gain. You were, as I had thought, a true gambler.”
And now despite myself I could not keep astonishment from my face. The Spiradoff affair had been carried out in absolute secrecy. I had insisted upon none except the owner knowing how the jewels had been recovered. They had been resold for their value as gems and not with their histories attached…not even the Communists had as yet discovered the substitution, I had reason to believe, and would not until they tried to sell them. Yet this man knew!
“It was then I decided I would—collect—you,” he said. “But the time was not fully ripe. I would let you run awhile. You went to China for Rockbilt on the strength of a flimsy legend. And you found the tomb wherein, true enough, the jade plaques of that legend lay on the moldering breast of old Prince Sukantse. You took them and were captured by the bandit Kin-Wang. You found the joint in that cunning thief’s armor. You saw, and took, the one chance to escape with your loot. Gambler he was, and you knew it. And there in his tent you played him for the plaques with two years’ slavery to him as your forfeit if you lost.
“The idea of having you as a willing slave amused him. Besides, he recognized of what value your brain and courage would be to him. So he made the bargain. You detected the cards he had cunningly nicked before the game had gone far. I approve the dexterity and skill with which you promptly nicked others in the identical fashion. Kin-Wang was confused. Luck was with you. You won.”
I half arose, staring at him, fascinated.
“I do not wish to mystify you further.” He waved me back into my seat. “Kin-Wang is sometimes useful to me. I have many men in many lands who do my bidding, James Kirkham. Had you lost, Kin-Wang would have sent me the plaques, and he would have looked after you more carefully than his own head. Because he knew that at any time I might demand you from him!”
I leaned back with a sigh, the feeling that some inexorable trap had closed upon me, oppressive.
“Afterwards,” his eyes never left me, “afterwards, I tested you again. Twice did my messengers try to take the plaques from you. Purposely, in neither of those efforts had I planned for sure success. Else you would have lost them. I left in each instance a loophole that would enable you to escape had you the wit to see it. You had the wit—and again I was vastly entertained. And pleased.
“And now,” he leaned forward a trifle, “we come to tonight. You had acquired a comfortable sum out of the jades. But there seemed to be a waning interest in the game you know so well. You cast your eyes upon another—the fool’s gamble, the stock market. It did not fit in with my plans to let you win at that. I knew what you had bought. I manipulated. I stripped you, dollar by dollar, leisurely. You are thinking that the method I took was more adapted to the wrecking of some great financier than the possessor of a few thousands. Not so. If your thousands had been millions the end would have been the same. That was the lesson I wished to drive home when the time came. Have you learned the lesson?”
I repressed with difficulty a gust of anger.
“I hear you,” I answered, curtly.
“Heed!” he whispered, and a bleakness dulled for a breath the sparkling eyes.
“So too,” he went on, “it was of tonight. I could have had you caught up bodily and carried here, beaten or drugged, bound and gagged. Such methods are those of the thug, the unimaginative savage in our midst. You could have had no respect for the mind behind such crude tactics. Nor would I have been entertained.
“No, the constant surveillance which at last forced you out into the open, your double now enjoying himself at your Club—a splendid actor, by the way, who studied you for weeks—in fact, all your experiences were largely devised to demonstrate to you the extraordinary character of the organization to which you have been called.
“And I say again that your conduct has pleased me. You could have fought Consardine. Had you done so you would have shown yourself lacking in imagination and true courage. You would have come here just the same, but I would have been disappointed. And I was greatly diverted by your attitude toward Walter and Eve—a girl whom I have destined for a great work and whom I am training now for it.
“You have wondered how they came to be in that particular subway station. There were other couples at South Ferry, the elevated station and at all approaches to the Battery within five minutes after you had seated yourself there. I tell you that you had not one chance of escape. Nothing that you could have done that had not been anticipated and prepared for. Not all the police in New York could have held you back from me tonight.
“Because, James Kirkham, I had willed your coming!”
I had listened to this astonishing mixture of subtle flattery, threat and colossal boasting with ever-increasing amazement. I stood back from the table.
“Who are you?” I asked, directly. “And what do you want of me?”
The weird blue eyes blazed out, intolerably.
“Since everything upon this earth toward which I direct my will does as that will dictates,” he answered, slowly, “you may call me—Satan!
“And what I offer you is a chance to rule this world with me—at a price, of course!”
CHAPTER FIVE
The two sentences tingled in my brain as though charged with electricity. Absurd as they might have sounded under a
ny other circumstances, here they were as far removed from absurdity as anything I have ever known.
Those lashless, intensely alive blue eyes in the immobile face were—Satanic! I had long sensed the diabolic touch in every experience I had undergone that night. In the stillness of the huge body, in the strangeness of the organ pipe voice that welled, expressionless, from the almost still lips was something diabolic too—as though the body were but an automaton in which dwelt some infernal spirit, some alien being that made itself manifest through eyes and voice only. That my host was the exact opposite of the long, lank, dark Mephisto of opera, play and story made him only the more terrifying. And it has long been my experience that fat men are capable of far greater deviltries than thin men.
No, this man who bade me call him Satan had nothing of the absurd about him. I acknowledged to myself that he was—dreadful.
A bell rang, a mellow note. A light pulsed on a wall, a panel slid aside and Consardine stepped into the room. Vaguely, I noted that the panel was a different one than that through which the Manchu butler had gone. At the same time I recalled, aimlessly it seemed, that I had seen no stairway leading up from the great hall. And on the heels of that was recollection that I had noticed neither windows nor doors in the bedroom to which I had been conducted by the valet. The thoughts came and went without my mind then taking in their significance. That was to come later.
I arose, returning Consardine’s bow. He seated himself without salutation or ceremony at Satan’s right.
“I have been telling James Kirkham how entertaining I have found him,” said my host.
“And I,” smiled Consardine. “But I am afraid my companions did not. Cobham was quite upset. That was really cruel of you, Kirkham. Vanity is one of Cobham’s besetting sins.”
So Walter’s name was Cobham. What was Eve’s, I wondered.
“Your stratagem of the rag-doll was—demoralizing,” I said. “I thought I was rather restrained in my observations upon Mr. Cobham. There was so much more opportunity, you know. And after all, so much provocation.”
“The rag-doll was a diverting idea,” observed Satan. “And effective.”
“Diabolically so,” I spoke to Consardine. “But I find that was to have been expected. Just before you entered I discovered that I have been dining with—Satan.”
“Ah, yes,” said Consardine, coolly. “And you are no doubt expecting me to produce a lancet and open a vein in your wrist while Satan puts in front of you a document written in brimstone and orders you to sign away your soul in your blood.”
“I am expecting no such childish thing,” I replied with some show of indignation.
Satan chuckled; his face did not move but his eyes danced.
“Obsolete methods,” he said. “I gave them up after my experiences with the late Dr. Faustus.”
“Perhaps,” Consardine addressed me, blandly, “you think I may be the late Dr. Faustus. No, no—or if so, Kirkham,” he looked at me slyly, “Eve is not Marguerite.”
“Let us say, not your Marguerite,” amended Satan.
I felt the blood rush up into my face. And again Satan chuckled. They were playing with me, these two. Yet under that play the sinister note persisted, not to be mistaken. I felt uncomfortably like a mouse between a pair of cats. I had a sudden vision of the girl as just such another helpless mouse.
“No,” it was Satan’s sonorous voice. “No, I have become more modern. I still buy souls, it is true. Or take them. But I am not so rigorous in my terms as of old. I now also lease souls for certain periods. I pay well for such leases, James Kirkham.”
“Is it not time that you ceased treating me like a child?” I asked coldly. “I admit all that you have said of me. I believe all that you have said of yourself. I concede that you are—Satan. Very well. What then?”
There was a slight pause. Consardine lighted a cigar, poured himself some brandy and pushed aside a candle that stood between us, so I thought, that he could have a clearer view of my face. Satan for the first time turned his eyes away from me, looking over my head. I had come to the third stage of this mysterious game.
“Did you ever hear the legend of the seven shining footsteps of Buddha?” he asked me. I shook my head.
“It was that which made me change my ancient methods of snaring souls,” he said gravely. “Since it caused the beginning of a new infernal epoch, the legend is important. But it is important to you for other reasons as well. So listen.
“When the Lord Buddha, Gautama, the Enlightened One,” he intoned, “was about to be born, he was seen gleaming like a jewel of living light in his Mother’s womb. So filled with light was he that he made of her body a lantern, himself the holy flame.”
For the first time there was expression in the voice, a touch of sardonic unctuousness.
“And when the time came for him to be delivered, he stepped forth from his Mother’s side, which miraculously closed behind him.
“Seven footsteps the infant Buddha took before he halted for the worship of the devis, genü, rishis and all the Heavenly hierarchy that had gathered round. Seven shining footsteps they were, seven footsteps that gleamed like stars upon the soft greensward.”
“And, lo! Even as Buddha was being worshipped, those shining footsteps of his stirred and moved and marched away, beginning the opening of the paths which later the Holy One would traverse. Seven interesting little John the Baptists going before him—Ho! Ho! Ho!” laughed Satan, from unchanged face and motionless lips.
“West went one and East went one,” he continued. “One North and one South—opening up the paths of deliverance to the whole four quarters of the globe.”
“But what of the other three? Ah—alas! Mara, the King of Illusion, had watched with apprehension the advent of Buddha, because the light of Buddha’s words would be a light in which only the truth had shadow and by it would be rendered useless the snares by which mankind, or the most of it, was held in thrall by Mara. If Buddha conquered, Mara would be destroyed. The King of Illusion did not take kindly to the idea, since his supreme enjoyment was in wielding power and being entertained. In that,” commented Satan, apparently quite seriously, “Mara was much like me. But in intelligence much inferior, because he did not realize that truth, aptly manipulated, creates far better illusions than do lies. However—”
“Before those laggard three could get very far away, Mara had captured them!”
“And then by wile and artifice and sorcery Mara seduced them. He taught them naughtiness, schooled them in delicious deceptions—and he sent them forth to wander!”
“What happened? Well, naturally men and women followed the three. The paths they picked out were so much pleasanter, so much more delectable, so much softer and more fragrant and beautiful than the stony, hard, austere, cold trails broken by the incorruptible four. Who could blame people for following them? And besides, superficially, all seven footprints were alike. The difference, of course, was in the ending. Those souls who followed the three deceitful prints were inevitably led back into the very heart of error, the inner lair of illusion, and were lost there: while those who followed the four were freed.”
“And more and more followed the naughty prints while Mara waxed joyful. Until it seemed that there would be none left to take the paths of enlightenment. But now Buddha grew angry. He sent forth a command and back to him from the four quarters of the world came hurrying the shining holy quartette. They tracked down the erring three and made them prisoners.”
“Now arose a problem. Since the erring three were of Buddha, they could not be destroyed. They had their rights, inalienable. But so deep had been their defilement by Mara that they could not be cleansed of their wickedness.”
“So they were imprisoned for as long as the world shall last. Somewhere near the great temple of Borobudur in Java, there is a smaller, hidden temple. In it is a throne. To reach that throne, one must climb seven steps. On each of these steps gleams one of Buddha’s seven baby footprints. Each looks prec
isely like the other—but, oh, how different they are. Four are the holy ones, guarding the wicked three. The temple is secret, the way to it beset with deadly perils. He who lives through them and enters that temple may climb to the throne.”
“But—as he climbs he must set his foot on five of those shining prints!”
“Now, after he has done this, hear what must befall. If of those five steps he has taken he has set his feet upon the three naughty prints, behold, when he reaches the throne, all of earthly desire, all that the King of Illusion can give him, is his for the wishing. To the enslavement and possible destruction of his soul, naturally. But if, of the five, three have been the holy prints, then is he freed of all earthly desire, freed of all illusion, free of the wheel, a Bearer of the Light, a Vessel of Wisdom—his soul one with the Pure One, eternally.”
“Saint or sinner—if he steps on the three unholy footprints, all worldly illusions are his, willy-nilly.”
“And sinner or saint—if he treads on three of the holy footprints, he is freed of all illusion, a blessed soul forever in Nirvana!”
“Poor devil!” murmured Consardine.
“Such is the legend.” Satan turned his gaze upon me again. “Now I never tried to collect those interesting footprints. They could have served no purpose of mine. I have no desire to turn sinners into saints, for one thing. But they gave me the most entertaining idea I have had for—shall I say—centuries?
“Life, James Kirkham, is one long gamble between the two inexorable gambles of birth and death. All men and all women are gamblers, although most are very poor ones. All men and all women have at least one desire during their lives for which they would willingly stake their souls—and often even their lives. But life is such a crude game, haphazardly directed, if directed at all, and with such confusing, conflicting, contradictory and tawdry rules.
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 91
