E. Hoffmann Price's Pierre d'Artois: Occult Detective & Associates

by E. Hoffmann Price

  His half-coherent hints, his jerky and meaningless gestures, his nervous glances about him as he sought to anticipate and, at times, evade d’Artois’ questions made it plain that Graf Erich was indeed being driven to death by some terror of his own evocation.

  “You, Monsieur,” he finally said, jabbing his forefinger like a sword-thrust at d’Artois, “doubtless know already what I have sought to hint. Look at this.”

  He reached into a drawer and produced a sheet of paper on which were drawn astrological charts and cabalistic figures.

  “An experiment in an ancient magic,” continued Graf Erich. “I need not name those symbols. You understand them. And you”—he glanced at Farrell—“would do well not to understand.”

  Farrell nodded his whole-hearted agreement, and shivered as he caught the full force of Graf Erich’s glance.

  “In a word, I evoked her. Lilith, the Demon Queen of Zemargad.”

  “Diable!” exclaimed d’Artois. “But why did she attempt to assassinate Mademoiselle Diane? And with this dagger! Yours, Graf Erich!”

  The Count turned paper-white at d’Artois’ accusing words and gesture.

  “Jealousy,” he replied in a low voice. “Insane jealousy of Diane, to whom I recently began paying my respects.

  “As to the method of evocation? I assembled five adepts, and caused them to put themselves into a state of catalepsy induced by auto-hypnosis. You understand the principle and purpose?”

  “Quite,” assured d’Artois.

  “She is their thought-image,” continued Graf Erich. “Thought is in the last analysis electrical energy. And all matter is, ultimately, electrical energy. They—the Five—concentrated, all on the same image and same concept, and achieved what you might call resonance.

  “You know what resonance will do in electrical circuits. Further comment on my part would be insulting to your intelligence; not so?”

  D’Artois nodded his agreement. Farrell felt that his intelligence would be none the worse for a bit of additional insult, but he held his peace.

  “At all events, she materialized. And at first, she subsisted only on their vital force. She told me of those ancient days when bearded kings built monstrous ziggurâts on the plains of Babil. She spoke of Naram-sin of Agade. She spoke—”

  Graf Erich shivered as though an icy blast had been deflected into his marrow, and made a despairing gesture.

  “Herr Gott! And she spoke of other things. I listened…too long…and finally believed her outrageous claims. No living woman—”

  “I know,” muttered d’Artois. “Beautiful as no human woman ever could be. Like that one they still speak of as Bint el Kafir…others call her Agrat bat Mahhat. Many titles, but the same entity.”

  Farrell’s eyes widened at the ominous, half-understood names d’Artois and the dark Count pronounced in awed whispers, like the mutterings exchanged when a pair of necromancers encounter each other.

  “And then Diane entered the picture,” resumed Graf Erich. “You know the rest. Lilith—or a thought-image resembling that which Lilith was supposed to be—became wildly jealous of Diane. I tried to induce Diane to cut her long hair. But I dared not tell her why; and she laughed merrily and ignored my whim.”

  “Her hair?” wondered Farrell.

  But d’Artois, nodding, silenced him with a glance.

  “I knew, tonight, that that ax—”

  Graf Erich’s voice failed. He muttered inarticulately, then raised his head from his hands and regarded d’Artois with a sombre, smoldering glare.

  “And now—yes, I knew, even before you showed me that dagger. She told me how you had beaten her, flayed her with words of power, driven her into the night—”

  The Count paused and looked at d’Artois with wonder and respect.

  “But she defied me and challenged me to use the sole way that remains to send her back into the shadows.”

  “And that is?” wondered d’Artois.

  “Killing those adepts. Fellow students and disciples who trust me to the uttermost.”

  “Why not awaken them?” asked Farrell.

  Graf Erich shook his head.

  “At first she existed but as a figment of their imaginations; but their concentration became so intense that even when they are awakened from their trance, she will continue to exist. She is now not only their materialized thought-form, but also an accretion of disembodied energy and matter that has been attracted by the terrific vortex of power we have set up.”

  “Good God!” muttered Farrell in dismay as he caught the full import of Graf Erich’s statement, and its implication of independent life created by thought-concentration.

  “Something,” said d’Artois in a low, solemn tone, “must be done. And at once.” He slid the dagger slowly across the table toward Graf Erich. “You are responsible for the existence of this terrible creature from the shadows who not many minutes ago sought to murder Diane, and who would even now be repeating the attempt if her meeting with me had not sapped most of her energy. You must send her back to that nethermost hell where she belongs. And quickly!”

  “But how?—Herr Gott!—how?” despaired Graf Erich. He leaped to his feet, thrusting back his chair. For a moment he regarded d’Artois steadily; then he paled, losing the color he had somewhat regained. His eyes stared vacantly, through and past the old man.

  “I can not command you to kill your disciples,” said d’Artois slowly. “Neither can I permit you to hold your hand…”

  The evening was becoming a vortex of horror, whose center was the tense face of Graf Erich. His deep-set eyes shifted, and stared at the sparkling pommel of the dagger that lay on the table.

  Finally he spoke. His face was grim with a terrible determination.

  “I will settle it. Here and now.”

  He strode across the salon, knelt at the great fireplace, and fingered for an instant an embossed tile in the hearth. As the slab sank out of sight, Graf Erich descended the stairs that it had concealed.

  Farrell regarded d’Artois intently for a moment.

  “Is he crazy, or are we? Are there really—”

  He gestured, indicating the floor, and the foundations of the château. “Is he going to—”

  D’Artois nodded.

  “Yes. All five of them,” he affirmed, slowly shaking his head. “It is horrible, damnably so…his acolytes…his friends…but if he doesn’t—”

  D’Artois’ voice and gesture were remorseless, without pity, or passion, or prejudice. Farrell, now whiter than his shift-front, sat poised on the edge of his chair.

  “Isn’t there any other way?” Farrell muttered. He leaped to his feet.

  “Idiot!” snapped d’Artois, as he seized him by the arm. “If you stopped him, you would condemn her to death. If this horrifies you, remember that before you are many hours older—many minutes, perhaps—this will seem a pleasure excursion…”

  Farrell resumed his chair.

  They heard Graf Erich’s footsteps ring hollowly in some subterranean vault at the foot of the stairs. They heard a faint, metallic tinkle…then no sound at all—only the breathing of an awful silence, and the presence of fivefold death.

  Then at last came a familiar swish, and the impact of steel driven home. A heavier, likewise familiar sound.

  “Un…deux…” d’Artois counted; “trois…steady, there! quatre…”

  “Good Lord,” muttered Farrell, wondering whether the fifth stroke would ever fall.

  “Dieu de Dieu! He is collecting his courage, poor devil…they were his friends…cinq!”

  With a deep, weary sigh d’Artois sank back into his chair. They exchanged glances; and each saw the pallor of the other’s tanned features. Then d’Artois rose.

  “Five men have died so that Diane may live,” he said solemnly, and bowed his gray head for a moment, then added, �
��Grâce à Dieu!”

  But before Farrell could second the older man’s words of gratitude, there came from that subterranean slaughter-vault a voice whose amorous sweetness was an outrage and a blasphemy to ears that had heard the impact of steel on flesh, and the sound of bodies as they toppled one by one across the flags. That woman’s voice was the ultimate mockery. It told d’Artois and Farrell that Graf Erich’s terrible decision had been in vain.

  “Baali,” she was saying, “I know now beyond any doubt that you planned to drive me back again into unending darkness—me, Lilith, Queen of Zemargad.”

  Her laughter was crystal-clear and poison-sweet.

  “Cordieu,” muttered d’Artois, speaking as one stunned by a severe cudgeling, “even that failed… And now that female fiend is free and unhampered.”

  “Is she out of control?” demanded Farrell.

  D’Artois nodded. “Yes. She is living in her own right. Malignant, vengeful, satanically jealous. Human malice, and superhuman power—you saw her an hour ago.”

  The voice was speaking again:

  “Look at them, Baali! Lying in their blood. Sprawled across that pentacle at whose center I appeared when their old magic evoked me from the shadows of time and from the ghosts of memory. And now I shall go on with my plan.”

  D’Artois started violently as he caught the sinister implication.

  “Quick!” he snapped. “Before it’s too late.”

  And Farrell, crossing the room in three great bounds, charged after d’Artois, and into the violet glow of the circular vault that was at the foot of the steep staircase.

  He stared in horrified bewilderment as he sought to convince himself that his first glance had not been a hideous illusion.

  Graf Erich, red-handed, shrank against the curved wall of the vault. He stared at the luminescent figure of a woman whose long, ornately dressed dark hair sparkled with bluish highlights, and whose imperiously carried head was crowned with a tall, curiously wrought diadem. Her jewels and her costume and her dark eyes suggested an antiquity that no living creature could have; and in that insane, purple light, she seemed even more unreal than in the moonlight and mists on the Lachepaillet wall as she sought Diane with a dagger.

  At Graf Erich’s feet lay the sword that had done its vain, red work.

  D’Artois was advancing across the floor, seeking to avoid touching those whose heads and blood had become so terribly intermingled. As he stepped forward, he gestured with his hands, and chanted.

  That dark, imperious woman for an instant shrank before the fierce eyes of d’Artois; and then she smiled as if in sudden remembrance.

  “Meddler,” she murmured in low, clean-cut syllables, “that will not work a second time. I have gained too much strength for you, as well as for him.”

  Her laugh was mocking as she became a shimmering haze that thinned and spread, dividing like the tentacles of an octopus. D’Artois, seeing the enemy flowing away in a five-branched mist, halted, lowered his arms, and ceased his chant. He was bewildered by the defiance and mockery that had accompanied the apparent surrender of the apparition.

  As the last trace of luminous vapor flattened out, and writhed serpent-like among those who lay on the floor, the evening’s horror reached its apex. There was a rustling and a sighing, and an unbelievable stirring among those dead forms sprawled across the dark, slippery tiles.

  D’Artois turned to Graf Erich.

  “What kind of deviltry is this?” he demanded. “Quick! Tell me, before it’s too late!”

  Graf Erich’s reply was an inarticulate groan, and a despairing gesture. Farrell, as he saw those dead forms stir and twitch, wondered if his own face was as stricken as that of the Count.

  The vault had become a swamp of dark blood and darker things which paddled about in it. Then, as their motion became more directed and more terribly distinct, Farrell saw the pattern of the devilish manifestation: they were closing in on Graf Erich to exact their vengeance.

  Farrell stooped and snatched the curved sword from the floor. In the extremity of his terror he scarcely realized what he did.

  They were on their feet now, tottering, but momentarily becoming more steady. Horrible, blood-drenched headless trunks, guided by some omniscience toward their slayer, were closing in on him. Their hands were flexing, opening and closing as if to test their newly gained strength. A faint, luminous cloud of mist enveloped the monstrously animated dead, and supported them when they faltered, guided their steps, directed those lifeless hands.

  Yet Farrell’s terror did not reach its climax until he heard Graf Erich’s outcry as they closed in, seeking remorselessly to tear him limb from limb. Then he heard no more. He lashed out with his blade, hacking, hewing, slashing with a blind, outraged frenzy. The curved scimitar bit and sheared through flesh and bone; but Farrell saw that his sweeping cuts were vain. The portions that he had shorn off persisted in their awful advance, twitching, crawling, squirming with diabolical animation as though Farrell’s devastating cuts had been puffs of wind; and then they closed in and joined those that had escaped the shearing steel.

  The time of the ghastly melee could scarcely have been more than a few seconds; but each of those seconds was a lingering lifetime of red horror to Farrell, whose blade rose and fell with no result other than to multiply the grotesque, sanguinary morsels that were clutching at Graf Erich.

  “Stand clear!” d’Artois cried. And as the red blade sank again, d’Artois leaped in from the rear, pinioned the sword-arm, and dragged Farrell from his futile task. “You can’t save him.”

  Farrell stared at that which had overwhelmed Graf Erich.

  “Look! They are dying now.”

  A hand relaxed its death-grip, and dropped. Other fragments one by one subsided from their unnatural motion.

  “Let’s get out of here,” added Farrell.

  “Tais-toi,” replied d’Artois, shortly. “There is something worse in the wind. She dematerialized in order to destroy Graf Erich. Now the next move—”

  “Lord! Look at that!” interrupted Farrell.

  A misty exhalation was creeping from the gory butchery that concealed the hapless Count. It was as though the ghosts of serpents were writhing and twining, seeking in the farthest dim nooks of the vault a refuge from the violet glow.

  “Quick! Do you drive as though the devil were after you!” exclaimed d’Artois as he saw the eerie manifestation. “Arouse Diane, and bring her here, at once!”

  “But why—”

  “Because she—it—that fiend will be seeking Diane in her apartment. By taking Diane away, you will gain time, since materialization is not instantaneous—but hurry! I’ll wait here.”

  D’Artois led the way upstairs to the salon.

  “He has books and charts here,” explained d’Artois as he took the steps three at a bound. “I will study this thing out. It fooled him. But I know now that the death of those five adepts has nothing to do with her. Thus one fatal side-issue is eliminated—hurry, mon ami! I have the hunch!”

  D’Artois, softly cursing, tore out one drawer after another of the tables and cabinets in the salon.

  “Grâce à Dieu!” he muttered as he heard the Daimler crunch down the driveway and start thundering down the river road. Then he proceeded with his search, leaving the salon, and working his way into the study of Graf Erich.

  A bed of coals glowed sullenly in the grate at the farther end. By the red glare d’Artois saw that the walls of the study were hung with black arras embroidered in silver to depict the monstrous and unhallowed images of obscure Asian myths. One medallion represented a woman mounted on a lion, and receiving the adoration of three bearded kings. Another depicted a woman who drove a chariot drawn by a quadriga of grotesque monsters that no sane artist could have limned; and on the mantel was a chrysoprase statuette of Agrat bat Mahhat in all her evil loveliness.

/>   All at a glance: then d’Artois found the wall switch, snapped on the lights, and continued his search for the saving clue that might yet thwart that vengeful demon-beauty before she found and killed Diane.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Chrysoprase Statuette

  Some fifteen minutes later d’Artois heard the Daimler drawing up in front of the château. He went to the door to meet Farrell and Diane.

  “Do tell me what this is all about! As if I’ve not had my fill of mystery for tonight, with that nightmare of a woman!”

  Diane had quite recovered from the shock of her encounter with what she supposed was a madwoman who waylaid her on her front steps. Then, as they stepped into the study, “Where’s Graf Erich?”

  “He has been detained,” said d’Artois, “and presents his regrets. You were right. Those seeming accidents were the work of a malignant entity bent on your destruction.”

  “Aren’t you consoling!” exclaimed Diane. Her laugh, however, was forced. “And was she—oh, where did he get that? The very image of her!”

  “Where?” wondered Farrell.

  “That little green statuette,” replied Diane. “Why, it’s an absolute likeness of that girl that tried to stab me!”

  “Coincidence, my dear,” declared d’Artois. “And now let’s get to work.”

  He indicated with a gesture the heap of diagrams and manuscripts he had been studying during Farrell’s absence, then thrust aside the table at the center of the room and rolled up several small Persian rugs that masked the tiled floor. He took a lump of chalk and laid out a circle, which he divided into quadrants. Each quadrant was then marked with cabalistic symbols, some drawn from memory, others from consultation of the scrolls and heavily bound vellum books he had selected from their cases and laid out for reference.

  “What in the world is he doing?” whispered Diane, after having watched d’Artois in silent wonder.

  Farrell, still horrified by the memory of what he had seen, and the older man’s hints about what might be seen before the evening was over, shook his head.

  A bowl of beaten copper served as an improvised censer, which d’Artois filled with coals from the grate. He added a handful of incense which he had found in a compartment of one of the cabinets; and as the fumes rose in thick, bluish clouds, pervading the room with a stifling, resinous sweetness, d’Artois said, “Step into those quadrants. That’s right. Number two, and number four. I’ll occupy number one, and then command her to materialize in the remaining sector, and, pardieu, I’ll cook her to a turn!”