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

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “Fishy, hell!” exclaimed Healy. “And I’m going to put ’em over the hurdles myself and find out what all this peacock stuff is about!”

  “See you in the morning, John,” said Farrell as he stepped to the door. “And never mind having me tailed. No one’s going to pop me off until after pay day!”

  CHAPTER V

  Inside the Peacock

  Dubois, the clerk at the desk, greeted Farrell as he stepped from the elevator to the main floor of the Union Club, the morning following the death of Parr.

  “A gentleman left a message for you about half an hour ago.”

  “Thanks, Dubois,” acknowledged Farrell. He opened the envelope.

  Good work, making arrangements to raise that money. Remember Burnham and Parr, and forget this nonsense about chasing us with machine guns.

  The peacock-seal authenticated the message beyond any doubt. The brazen assurance of the enemy was shaking Farrell, despite his determination to fight it to a finish. The assassination of Burnham and Parr had savored of executions rather than murders. And this was the morning of the twenty-first. One hundred thousand by midnight or else—!

  Before leaving New Orleans, Farrell stopped at police headquarters to get the overnight developments that had resulted from the arrest of Gordon and Rubenstein.

  “Another souvenir for you,” Farrell replied to Healy’s greeting, and presented the morning’s reminder from the peacock.

  “Hell’s hinges!” exclaimed Healy, as he read the note. “They are watching you closely. Are you paying off, or will you smoke ’em out?”

  “So far, I’m still for shooting it out,” declared Farrell, “even though they’re wise to my plan. But what’s really eating at me is what’s happened to Lydia Wilson. She knows too much and they’re going to cut her throat, just on general principles.”

  Farrell shook his head, bit the tip off a cigar, and sank into a chair.

  “What did Gordon and Rubenstein have to say about Nuri?”

  “A page full,” affirmed Healy. “But they’ve got the guts to claim they don’t know anything about those peacock notes! And that’s only half the rich story. They handed us a hot one about the peacock being stuffed full of pearls smuggled in from the other side. Said they were trying to get the pearls, and later, return the peacock to Parr. I ask you, ain’t that a hot one?”

  “The devil you say!” exclaimed Farrell, sitting bolt upright and regarding Healy intently. “That ties in with my hunch on Parr, right from the start. Did you open the bird?”

  “They opened it,” answered Healy. “Funny hocus-pocus work, twisting its neck, and feeling around for hidden catches and the like, and click! It split right in half—though looking at it, you couldn’t have seen a sign of a seam anywhere—”

  “But the pearls?” persisted Farrell.

  “Empty!” grunted Healy. “What did you expect?”

  “Wait a minute!” countered Farrell. “Maybe there was something in it. Parr was squirming like he had worms, the minute I got him believing I read the inscription. You see, it may be the combination for opening the peacock. Get it?”

  “Uh-uh…maybe,” admitted Healy. “But where’n hell’s the pearls? They couldn’t have been taken at any time after Parr stepped out of the taxi, in front of the River Cafe, and you didn’t snitch them on your way to headquarters.”

  Farrell smiled.

  “I might have, if I’d known how to open the damned bird. But that the pearls weren’t in it when Gordon & Company opened it doesn’t prove there never were any.

  “It’s a cinch Gordon and Rubinstein didn’t keep that engagement just for their health. They believed it contained something they wanted. And then the unknown Mr. Nuri kills Parr the minute my back is turned. If he had wanted the peacock, he could have waylaid Parr on his way home, but Nuri didn’t want the peacock, because he knew it was empty. Parr was killed to keep him from talking to the police.”

  “Yeah, that’s reasonable,” agreed Healy. “But what of it? What’s that got to do with killing Burnham, and shaking you down for a hundred grand?”

  “That,” declared Farrell, “means that Nuri is higher up in this crew than Rubenstein and Gordon. Nuri is the guy that pulled the strings. Get him and you’ll know something. By the way, where did Gordon and his buddy say Nuri hung out?”

  “They didn’t know for sure,” replied Healy. “But they suspected it was at a Syrian restaurant on Decatur Street, not far from the River Café. Aswad’s place, they called it, whatever kind of name that is.”

  “Better and better!” exulted Farrell. “Did you raid the joint?”

  “Yeah, and drew a blank. All blanks!” growled Healy from the right of his cigar. Then he gave a detailed account of Aswad’s restaurant, patronized by Syrians and Armenians, for the sake of its native cooking, served on the ground floor, and the highly alcoholic ’araki served upstairs.

  “These winding passages in back of the main room wouldn’t fool anyone. We just had to break down a few doors, and even at that, the poor saps didn’t get all their liquor ditched.”

  Farrell pondered for a moment, and regarded his cigar ash.

  “That peacock gang,” he finally remarked, “know all about me arming my boat. And with what you’ve just told me, I’m going to spring a surprise they won’t have time to dope out.”

  “I’ll go to Pass Christian tonight, to establish my presence. After dark, I’ll run my boat into the Gulf and come ashore at Waveland in a canoe. You pick me up there and drive me back to New Orleans, and I’ll start the show.”

  Healy frowned, and scratched his head.

  “Where’s the surprise?” he demanded.

  “I’m going to Aswad’s disguised as a native,” replied Farrell, “and while they are hunting me all over New Orleans or Pass Christian to knife me for not paying off, I’ll be in the safest place in the world: right in their own hangout. You pick me up half an hour after sunset, right where the road leaves the seawall.”

  CHAPTER VI

  Yezidee Den

  Shortly before sunset, Farrell cruised about in the neighborhood of Cat Island. After tossing empty oil cans overboard, he turned the wheel over to old Isaac, then with bursts of machine gun fire riddled them. But as the sun approached the horizon, Farrell abandoned his target practice and set to work with a razor. A few strokes removed his moustache. With tweezers he began shaping his eyebrows until they rose from a thin line to decided points at the middle.

  As they headed out toward Waveland, Farrell stained his entire body.

  “Not bad, not half bad,” he commented, as he regarded his make-up in the mirror. “Now for the last touch.”

  Farrell’s four front teeth matched their mates perfectly. His dentist had been a master of his profession, and had fashioned a removable bridge that was a work of art. Farrell plucked the platinum anchors between thumb and forefingers, removed the bridge, and for a moment considered the craftsmanship which so neatly camouflaged a gap left by a pistol butt in the course of a heated argument in Mexico.

  “Isaac,” he pronounced painstakingly, “take these teeth and put ’em in my dresser. And now unlash that canoe. I’m going over the side. You’d better leave the house and spend the next few days with friends. Lay low until I come back. Understand?”

  “Yassah. Mistah Glenn. Yo’all’s takin’ a trip fo’ yo’ health an’ ain’t nobody s’posed to know,” replied the old negro with a knowing grin.

  Whereupon Farrell went over the side and into the canoe. As he paddled toward Waveland, Isaac started up the motors and headed back toward the pier at Pass Christian.

  Farrell, when he came within wading depth of the breakwater that lines the coast for miles, set the canoe adrift and started ashore. A glance at his watch assured him that he had timed his maneuvers so that Healy, if he was on time, would pass within a few minutes.

/>   His machine gun practice, Farrell reflected as he seated himself on the breakwater, should have given any observers the impression that he was determined to shoot it out. At all events, they would scarcely expect to find him in their midst, and disguise, being a matter of gesture and mannerism rather than striking external changes, did not particularly worry Farrell.

  A car was approaching the turn in the road that leads at right angles away from the breakwater.

  “Hi, buddy, give me a lift!” Farrell hailed, jerking his thumb.

  “I’m stopping at Waveland,” said the man at the wheel as he slowed down and glanced about him. The driver was John Healy.

  “That’s all right,” countered Farrell. “Gimme a lift that far. Been hiking all day. Ain’t et since yester-day.”

  Healy tossed him a quarter.

  “Get yourself some grub and beat it!” he growled.

  “Thanks, John, but I’d rather ride,” insisted Farrell.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Healy. “That ought to fool them.”

  “It’d better,” said Farrell as he stepped into the car. “My hide if it doesn’t.”

  * * * *

  As they cleared Waveland, Farrell continued, “Aswad’s has to be the right place. That raid of yours was too easy. They serve liquor on the ground floor. Why bother with that back room? There’s a chance that your raid last night carried you through a maze of passages and into the building next door.”

  “That’s possible!” admitted Healy.

  As they drove toward New Orleans, Farrell continued his argument.

  “Another thing I checked up with the Public Service, just before I left town this afternoon. I found out there’s been a sudden increase in the amount of power they use at Aswad’s—something behind the scenes. Meter spinning like a top, and hardly any lights burning in front. Get it?

  “And finally, Aswad’s is the only low class Syrian joint in town. In other words, the only place a gang like that could use as a front. Any place else they’d be too conspicuous, coming and going.”

  As they drove into New Orleans, and drew up along the curbing of upper Magazine Street, Farrell concluded the outline of his plans.

  “You cover the joint from the outside, but don’t try to crash it until I start the circus. They’re likely to cut that girl’s throat at the first sign of trouble. She knows too much. Camp on the job. I may be in there a couple of days.”

  “Hell’s fire, you may be there a lot longer,” was Healy’s pessimistic farewell as he grasped Farrell’s hand. “But here’s luck.”

  Farrell watched the tail light of Healy’s car disappear around the corner. Then he inspected his pistol, and shifted into a handier position the sheaths of the pair of long bladed knives at his belt. They were similar in design to those that had stabbed Burnham.

  Half an hour’s brisk walk brought Farrell to Canal Street, beyond whose bright lights lay the black shadows of Decatur Street, and the French Quarter.

  Aswad’s place, less than half a block from the River Café, was in the blackest of shadows cast by the warehouses across the street. It was on the ground floor of an old, dilapidated stone building. The one on its right had been recently razed.

  Farrell entered and took his place at a vacant table.

  The air was dense with the fumes of half a dozen gurgling, bubbling water-pipes the Syrian hangers-on were smoking. Backgammon and pinochle games were in progress. The players chattered and gesticulated with an enthusiasm entirely in contradiction of home-grown ideas on Oriental poise.

  Farrell called for coffee and a water-pipe, slouched back in his chair, and gazed about. At the rear of the dining room were two doors. One led to the lavatory. The other, presumably led to the back room which Healy’s men had vainly raided.

  Half an hour passed.

  Aswad’s place was grimy, dingy, greasy—but so far, it showed no sign of the sinister habitués that Farrell expected to encounter. His arrival had been scarcely noticed, just another stranger seeking a pipe and coffee, and an evening of idleness.

  “Ya Aswad! Shewayya ’araki!” roared a burly, ruddy faced fellow at Farrell’s right, indicating with a gesture that all at his table were to be served with more of the fiery liquor whose milky dregs still clouded their glasses.

  “Sell liquor openly enough,” reflected Farrell. “That supposed drinking room on the second floor must be a plant to side-track raiding parties looking for something else—peacocks, for instance. And sooner or later, someone will go in or out of that door to the right of the lavatory.”

  Farrell settled down to maintain a close watch on the unused door. He ordered more coffee, and called for fresh charcoal to complete the burning of the tobacco that was still in his pipe. He picked up and glanced at an Arabic newspaper lying on a vacant table.

  The sudden lull in the chatter of the natives startled Farrell. He glanced about and saw a newcomer stalk majestically across the room, and pause to greet the proprietor, oily, hook-nosed Aswad.

  “Business is picking up!” was Farrell’s thought. “That lad’s no Syrian merchant or Armenian pedlar. Looks like a Kurd and talks like one.”

  The proprietor paid his respectful compliments. The Kurd bowed, acknowledged the salutations of several of the patrons, then stalked toward the door.

  Farrell forced himself to continue drawing languidly at the mouthpiece of his pipe. He called for more coffee. As it was being served, he remarked, “I am a Kurd, and a stranger.”

  Then he paused and made a quick gesture with his left hand, and a sign with his fingers.

  “Do you know if any of the brethren will recognize me?”

  The proprietor’s eyebrows rose.

  “Allah alone is wise, all-knowing,” he evaded as his eyes shifted for a passing glance at the door.

  Farrell realized that his conclusions were far from certainty. In the last analysis he would have to trust to American bluff with Oriental trimmings. And entering whatever rooms lay beyond the door might be very much easier than leaving them.

  Farrell drank his coffee, rose, and approached the door. He tapped. He felt that every eye in the dining room was regarding him. The chattering of the players ceased, and the pipes no longer bubbled and gurgled. The door opened. As Farrell stepped into the dimly illuminated cubicle, a figure emerged from the shadows and challenged him.

  “A slave of the peacock and a servant of the fire,” he replied in Arabic.

  The guardian, whose features Farrell could barely distinguish, muttered a phrase of assent. The door behind Farrell closed; bolts clicked into place; and before he could gain a clear picture of the cubicle, the lights flashed out, leaving him in absolute darkness. A hand urged him to his left. Farrell heard a grating, sliding sound as of panels moving.

  Then a switch clicked, and Farrell saw that he was in a passageway of brick. There was no sign of the maze that Healy had described. Farrell’s guide led the way up a flight of stairs.

  The door at the head of the stairs opened to admit them. His guide stepped aside, leaving Farrell to confront a bulky, pock-marked man who sat at a desk which commanded the entrance to what seemed to be an anteroom. Again Farrell heard a lock click, and a bolt slide home behind him, but he returned the unwavering scrutiny of the swarthy, unpleasant features of the inner guardian.

  Finally the man at the desk addressed Farrell in Arabic.

  “Whom do you seek?”

  “The Master, and the keeper of the Silver Peacock,” replied Farrell as he repeated the gesture with which he had accosted Aswad, the proprietor of the restaurant. Then he continued, quoting, “God created of fire seven bright spirits, even as a man lights seven tapers one after another; and the chief of these was Malik Tawus, to whom—”

  “No good!” snapped the man at the desk, interrupting with a peremptory gesture Farrell’s quotation from the Yezidee�
��s Al Yalvah. “You’re in the wrong place.”

  The speech was equivocal: it might either signify that Farrell had not yet satisfactorily established his identity as a servant of the Peacock, or, what increased his peril, that he was not in a rendezvous of Yezidees.

  Retreat was impossible, unless Farrell leaped to the doorkeeper’s desk and plunged through the fanlight in the wall behind it. Farrell advanced a pace. He heard the whirr of a buzzer. After an interval of a few seconds came an answering buzzer-note.

  “Tell Hassan about it,” directed the man at the desk, indicating with a gesture the opening that was revealed by the sliding aside of a panel.

  Farrell stepped across the threshold and into the sultry glare of a great bronze lamp that hung from the ceiling. He glanced about him and saw along the walls a dozen men sitting cross legged on the floor. Their features were as devoid of animation as though they were in a trance. They were dressed in the tropical worsteds worn at that season in New Orleans, which, with their alien features and posture was an incongruity that was heightened by the white turban and kaftan worn by the old man who sat on a cushioned platform at the further end of the room. Farrell advanced along the narrow carpet that led from the entrance to the dais of Hassan, the master of the show.

  “I heard your recital to Zayd,” began the old man with disconcerting abruptness as Farrell halted. “You have made a serious error in coming here. Our interest in peacocks is not what you think. We are not Yezidees.”

  Hassan’s eyes regarded Farrell with feline fierceness.

  Farrell knew then that his peril was acute. An impostor who ventures into a sanctuary of the Yezidees does so at the risk of his life; but it is equally dangerous for a Yezidee to mingle with fanatic Moslems. Hassan’s smile as he stroked his beard was no omen of a happy ending.

  “Prolonged of Life,” said Farrell with a nonchalance that he achieved with considerable effort, “Since I am intruding, give me your blessing and I will leave.”

  But Hassan gave neither his blessing nor his consent, which according to Oriental etiquette Farrell required before he might leave. Instead, Hassan spoke a single word, a fatal word that Farrell as a Yezidee could not ignore: Shaytan, the forbidden true name of Malik Tawus, the Lord Peacock, which no Yezidee might hear pronounced in his presence, and permit the speaker to live.