The Yellow Claw

by Sax Rohmer

  XV

  CAVE OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON

  When the car stopped at the end of a short drive, Soames had not theslightest idea of his whereabouts. The blinds at the window of thelimousine had been lowered during the whole journey, and now hedescended from the step of the car on to the step of a doorway. He wasin some kind of roofed-in courtyard, only illuminated by the headlampsof the car. Mr. Gianapolis pushed him forward, and, as the door wasclosed, he heard the gear of the car reversed; then--silence fell.

  "My grip!" he began, nervously.

  "It will be placed in your room, Soames."

  The voice of the Greek answered him from the darkness.

  Guided by the hand of Gianapolis, he passed on and descended a flight ofstone steps. Ahead of him a light shone out beneath a door, and, as hestumbled on the steps, the door was thrown suddenly open.

  He found himself looking into a long, narrow apartment.... He pulled upshort with a smothered, gasping cry.

  It was a cavern!--but a cavern the like of which he had never seen,never imagined. The walls had the appearance of being rough-hewnfrom virgin rock--from black rock--from rock black as the rocks ofShellal--black as the gates of Erebus.

  Placed at regular intervals along the frowning walls, to right and left,were spiral, slender pillars, gilded and gleaming. They supported anarchwork of fancifully carven wood, which curved gently outward to thecenter of the ceiling, forming, by conjunction with a similar, oppositecurve, a pointed arch.

  In niches of the wall were a number of grotesque Chinese idols. Thefloor was jet black and polished like ebony. Several tiger-skin rugswere strewn about it. But, dominating the strange place, in the centerof the floor stood an ivory pedestal, supporting a golden dragon ofexquisite workmanship; and before it, as before a shrine, an enormousChinese vase was placed, of the hue, at its base, of deepest violet,fading, upward, through all the shades of rose pink seen in an Egyptiansunset, to a tint more elusive than a maiden's blush. It contained amass of exotic poppies of every shade conceivable, from purple so darkas to seem black, to poppies of the whiteness of snow.

  Just within the door, and immediately in front of Soames, stood a slimman of about his own height, dressed with great nicety in a perfectlyfitting morning-coat, his well-cut cashmere trousers falling accuratelyover glossy boots having gray suede uppers. His linen was immaculate,and he wore a fine pearl in his black poplin cravat. Between two yellowfingers smoldered a cigarette.

  Soames, unconsciously, clenched his fists: this slim man embodied thevery spirit of the outre. The fantastic surroundings melted from theken of Soames, and he seemed to stand in a shadow-world, alone with anincarnate shadow.

  For this was a Chinaman! His jet black lusterless hair was not shaven inthe national manner, but worn long, and brushed back from his slantingbrow with no parting, so that it fell about his white collar behind,lankly. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, which magnified his oblique eyesand lent him a terrifying beetle-like appearance. His mephistopheleaneyebrows were raised interrogatively, and he was smiling so as toexhibit a row of uneven yellow teeth.

  Soames, his amazement giving place to reasonless terror, fell back astep--into the arms of Gianapolis.

  "This is our friend from Palace Mansions," said the Greek. He squeezedSoames' arm, reassuringly. "Your new principal, Soames, Mr. Ho-Pin, fromwhom you will take your instructions."

  "I have these instructions for Mr. Soames," said Ho-Pin, in a metallic,monotonous voice. (He gave to r half the value of w, with a hint of thepresence of l.) "He will wremain here as valet until the search fowr himbecomes less wrigowrous."

  Soames, scarce believing that he was awake, made no reply. He foundhimself unable to meet the glittering eyes of the Chinaman; he glancedfurtively about the room, prepared at any moment to wake up from whatseemed to him an absurd, a ghostly dream.

  "Said will change his appeawrance," continued Ho-Pin, smoothly, "so thathe will not wreadily be wrecognized. Said will come now."

  Ho-Pin clapped his hands three times.

  The door at the end of the room immediately opened, and a thick-set manof a pronounced Arabian type, entered. He wore a chauffeur's livery ofdark blue; and Soames recognized him for the man who had driven the car.

  "Said," said Ho-Pin very deliberately, turning to face the new arrival,"ahu hina--Lucas Effendi--Mr. Lucas. Waddi el--shenta ila beta oda.Fehimt?"

  Said bowed his head.

  "Fahim, effendi," he muttered rapidly.

  "Ma fihsh."...

  Again Said bowed his head, then, glancing at Soames:--

  "Ta'ala wayyaya!" he said.

  Soames, looking helplessly at Gianapolis--who merely pointed to thedoor--followed Said from the room.

  He was conducted along a wide passage, thickly carpeted and having itswalls covered with a kind of matting kept in place by strips of bamboo.Its roof was similarly concealed. A door near to the end, and on theright, proved to open into a square room quite simply furnished in themanner of a bed-sitting room. A little bathroom opened out of it in onecorner. The walls were distempered white, and there was no window.Light was furnished by an electric lamp, hanging from the center of theceiling.

  Soames, glancing at his bag, which Said had just placed beside thewhite-enameled bedstead, turned to his impassive guide.

  "This is a funny go!" he began, with forced geniality. "Am I to livehere?"

  "Ma'lesh!" muttered Said--"ma'lesh!"

  He indicated, by gestures, that Soames should remove his collar; he wasmarkedly unemotional. He crossed to the bathroom, and could be heardfilling the hand-basin with water.

  "Kursi!" he called from within.

  Soames, seriously doubting his own sanity, and so obsessed with a senseof the unreal that his senses were benumbed, began to take off hiscollar; he could not feel the contact of his fingers with his neck inthe act. Collarless, he entered the little bathroom....

  "Kursi!" repeated Said; then: "Ah! ana nesit! ma'lesh!"

  Said--whilst Soames, docile in his stupor, watched him--went back,picked up the solitary cane chair which the apartment boasted, andbrought it into the bathroom. Soames perceived that he was to be treatedto something in the nature of a shampoo; for Said had ranged a numberof bottles, a cake of soap, and several towels, along a shelf over thebath.

  In a curious state of passivity, Soames submitted to the operation. Hishair was vigorously toweled, then fanned in the most approved fashion;but this was no more than the beginning of the operation. As he leanedback in the chair:

  "Am I dreaming?" he said aloud. "What's all this about?"

  "Uskut!" muttered Said--"Uskut!"

  Soames, at no time an aggressive character, resigned himself to theincredible.

  Some lotion, which tingled slightly upon the scalp, was next appliedby Said from a long-necked bottle. Then, fresh water having been pouredinto the basin, a dark purple liquid was added, and Soames' head dippedtherein by the operating Eastern. This time no rubbing followed, butafter some minutes of vigorous fanning, he was thrust back intothe chair, and a dry towel tucked firmly into his collar-band. Heanticipated that he was about to be shaved, and in this was notdisappointed.

  Said, filling a shaving-mug from the hot-water tap, lathered Soames'chin and the abbreviated whiskers upon which he had prided himself. Thenthe razor was skilfully handled, and Soames' face shaved until his chinwas as smooth as satin.

  Next, a dark brown solution was rubbed over the skin, and even uponhis forehead and right into the roots of the hair; upon his throat, hisears, and the back of his neck. He was now past the putting of questionsor the raising of protest; he was as clay in the hands of the silentOriental. Having fanned his wet face again for some time, Said, breakingthe long silence, muttered:

  "Ikfil'iyyun!"

  Soames stared. Said indicated, by pantomime, that he desired him toclose his eyes, and Soames obeyed mechanically. Thereupon the Orientalbusied himself with the ex-butler's not very abundant lashes for fiveminutes or more. Then the busy finge
rs were at work with his inadequateeyebrows: finally:--

  "Khalas!" muttered Said, tapping him on the shoulder.

  Soames wearily opened his eyes, wondering if his strange martyrdom werenearly at its end. He discovered his hair to be still rather damp, but,since it was sparse, it was rapidly drying. His eyes smarted painfully.

  Removing all trace of his operations, Said, with no word of farewell,took up his towels, bottles and other paraphernalia and departed.

  Soames watched the retreating figure crossing the outer room, but didnot rise from the chair until the door had closed behind Said. Then,feeling strangely like a man who has drunk too heavily, he stood upand walked into the bedroom. There was a small shaving-glass upon thechest-of-drawers, and to this he advanced, filled with the wildestapprehensions.

  One glance he ventured, and started back with a groan.

  His apprehensions had fallen short of the reality. With one handclutching the bedrail, he stood there swaying from side to side, andstriving to screw up his courage to the point whereat he might ventureupon a second glance in the mirror. At last he succeeded, looking longand pitifully.

  "Oh, Lord!" he groaned, "what a guy!"

  Beyond doubt he was strangely changed. By nature, Luke Soames had hairof a sandy color; now it was of so dark a brown as to seem black in thelamplight. His thin eyebrows and scanty lashes were naturally almostcolorless; but they were become those of a pronounced brunette. He wasof pale complexion, but to-night had the face of a mulatto, or of onelong in tropical regions. In short, he was another man--a man whom hedetested at first sight!

  This was the price, or perhaps only part of the price, of hisindiscretion. Mr. Soames was become Mr. Lucas. Clutching the top ofthe chest-of-drawers with both hands, he glared at his own reflection,dazedly.

  In that pose, he was interrupted. Said, silently opening the door behindhim, muttered:

  "Ta'ala wayyaya!"

  Soames whirled around in a sudden panic, his heart leaping madly. Theimmobile brown face peered in at the door.

  "Ta'ala wayyaya!" repeated Said, his face expressionless as a mask. Hepointed along the corridor. "Ho-Pin Effendi!" he explained.

  Soames, raising his hands to his collarless neck, made a swallowingnoise, and would have spoken; but:

  "Ta'ala wayyaya!" reiterated the Oriental.

  Soames hesitated no more. Reentering the corridor, with itsstraw-matting walls, he made a curious discovery. Away to the left itterminated in a blank, matting-covered wall. There was no indication ofthe door by which he had entered it. Glancing hurriedly to the right,he failed also to perceive any door there. The bespectacled Ho-Pinstood halfway along the passage, awaiting him. Following Said in thatdirection, Soames was greeted with the announcement:

  "Mr. King will see you."

  The words taught Soames that his capacity for emotion was by no meansexhausted. His endless conjectures respecting the mysterious Mr. Kingwere at last to be replaced by facts; he was to see him, to speak withhim. He knew now that it was a fearful privilege which gladly he wouldhave denied himself.

  Ho-Pin opened a door almost immediately behind him, a door the existenceof which had not hitherto been evident to Soames. Beyond, was a darkpassage.

  "You will follow me, closely," said Ho-Pin with one of his piercingglances.

  Soames, finding his legs none too steady, entered the passage behindHo-Pin. As he did so, the door was closed by Said, and he found himselfin absolute darkness.

  "Keep close behind me," directed the metallic voice.

  Soames could not see the speaker, since no ray of light penetratedinto the passage. He stretched out a groping hand, and, although he wasconscious of an odd revulsion, touched the shoulder of the man in frontof him and maintained that unpleasant contact whilst they walked on andon through apparently endless passages, extensive as a catacomb. Manycorners they turned; they turned to the right, they turned to the left.Soames was hopelessly bewildered. Then, suddenly, Ho-Pin stopped.

  "Stand still," he said.

  Soames became vaguely aware that a door was being closed somewhere nearto him. A lamp lighted up directly over his head... he found himself ina small library!

  Its four walls were covered with book-shelves from floor to ceiling, andthe shelves were packed to overflowing with books in most unusual andbizarre bindings. A red carpet was on the floor and a red-shaded lamphung from the ceiling, which was conventionally white-washed. Althoughthere was no fireplace, the room was immoderately hot, and heavy withthe perfume of roses. On three little tables were great bowls filledwith roses, and there were other bowls containing roses in gaps betweenthe books on the open shelves.

  A tall screen of beautifully carved sandalwood masked one corner ofthe room, but beyond it protruded the end of a heavy writing-table uponwhich lay some loose papers, and, standing amid them, an enormous silverrose-bowl, brimming with sulphur-colored blooms.

  Soames, obeying a primary instinct, turned, as the light leaped intobeing, to seek the door by which he had entered. As he did so, theformer doubts of his own sanity returned with renewed vigor.

  The book-lined wall behind him was unbroken by any opening.

  Slowly, as a man awaking from a stupor, Soames gazed around the library.

  It contained no door.

  He rested his hand upon one of the shelves and closed his eyes. Beyonddoubt he was going mad! The tragic events of that night had proved toomuch for him; he had never disguised from himself the fact that hismental capacity was not of the greatest. He was assured, now, thathis brain had lost its balance shortly after his flight from PalaceMansions, and that the events of the past two hours had been phantasmal.He would presently return to sanity (or, blasphemously, he dared topetition heaven that he would) and find himself...? Perhaps in the handsof the police!

  "Oh, God!" he groaned--"Oh, God!"

  He opened his eyes...

  A woman stood before the sandalwood screen! She had the pallidly duskyskin of a Eurasian, but, by virtue of nature or artifice, her cheekswore a peachlike bloom. Her features were flawless in their chiseling,save for the slightly distended nostrils, and her black eyes weremagnificent.

  She was divinely petite, slender and girlish; but there was that inthe lines of her figure, so seductively defined by her clinging Chinesedress, in the poise of her small head, with the blush rose nestlingamid the black hair--above all in the smile of her full red lips--whichdiscounted the youth of her body; which whispered "Mine is a soul oldin strange sins--a soul for whom dead Alexandria had no secrets, thatlearnt nothing of Athenean Thais and might have tutored Messalina"...

  In her fanciful robe of old gold, with her tiny feet shod inridiculously small, gilt slippers, she stood by the screen watchingthe stupefied man--an exquisite, fragrantly youthful casket of ancient,unnameable evils.

  "Good evening, Soames!" she said, stumbling quaintly with her English,but speaking in a voice musical as a silver bell. "You will here beknown as Lucas. Mr. King he wishing me to say that you to receive twopounds, at each week."...

  Soames, glassy-eyed, stood watching her. A horror, the horror ofinsanity, had descended upon him--a clammy, rose-scented mantle. Theroom, the incredible, book-lined room, was a red blur, surrounding theblack, taunting eyes of the Eurasian. Everything was out of focus; past,present, and future were merged into a red, rose-haunted nothingness...

  "You will attend to Block A," resumed the girl, pointing at him with alittle fan. "You will also attend to the gentlemen."...

  She laughed softly, revealing tiny white teeth; then paused, head tiltedcoquettishly, and appeared to be listening to someone's conversation--tothe words of some person seated behind the screen. This fact broke inupon Soames' disordered mind and confirmed him in his opinion that hewas a man demented. For only one slight sound broke the silence of theroom. The red carpet below the little tables was littered withrose petals, and, in the super-heated atmosphere, other petals keptfalling--softly, with a gentle rustling. Just that sound there was...and no oth
er. Then:

  "Mr. King he wishing to point out to you," said the girl, "that he holdreceipts of you, which bind you to him. So you will be free man, andhave liberty to go out sometimes for your own business. Mr. King hewishing to hear you say you thinking to agree with the conditions and besatisfied."

  She ceased speaking, but continued to smile; and so complete was thestillness, that Soames, whose sense of hearing had become nervouslystimulated, heard a solitary rose petal fall upon the corner of thewriting-table.

  "I... agree," he whispered huskily; "and... I am... satisfied."

  He looked at the carven screen as a lost soul might look at the gate ofHades; he felt now that if a sound should come from beyond it he wouldshriek out, he would stop up his ears; that if the figure of the Unseenshould become visible, he must die at the first glimpse of it.

  The little brown girl was repeating the uncanny business of listeningto that voice of silence; and Soames knew that he could not sustain hispart in this eerie comedy for another half-minute without breaking outinto hysterical laughter. Then:

  "Mr. King he releasing you for to-night," announced the silver bellvoice.

  The light went out.

  Soames uttered a groan of terror, followed by a short, bubbling laugh,but was seized firmly by the arm and led on into the blackness--onthrough the solid, book-laden walls, presumably; and on--on--on, alongthose interminable passages by which he had come. Here the air wascooler, and the odor of roses no longer perceptible, no longer stiflinghim, no longer assailing his nostrils, not as an odor of sweetness, butas a perfume utterly damnable and unholy.

  With his knees trembling at every step, he marched on, firmly supportedby his unseen companion.

  "Stop!" directed a metallic, guttural voice.

  Soames pulled up, and leaned weakly against the wall. He heard the clapof hands close behind him; and a door opened within twelve inches of thespot whereat he stood.

  He tottered out into the matting-lined corridor from which he hadstarted upon that nightmare journey; Ho-Pin appeared at his elbow, butno door appeared behind Ho-Pin!

  "This is your wroom," said the Chinaman, revealing his yellow teeth in amirthless smile.

  He walked across the corridor, threw open a door--a real, palpabledoor... and there was Soames' little white room!

  Soames staggered across, for it seemed a veritable haven ofrefuge--entered, and dropped upon the bed. He seemed to see therose-petals fall--fall--falling in that red room in the labyrinth--theroom that had no door; he seemed to see the laughing eyes of thebeautiful Eurasian.

  "Good night!" came the metallic voice of Ho-Pin.

  The light in the corridor went out.