“M’sieu’,” she whispered, leaning impulsively across the table, “do not look at once, I implore you, but in a moment glance casually at the table at the far corner of the room and tell me if you see anyone there!”
Restraining an impulse to wheel in my chair, I held myself steady a moment, then with elaborate unconcern surveyed the room slowly. At the table indicated by the girl sat four men in dinner clothes. Leanness—the cadaverous emaciation of dissecting-room material—was their outstanding characteristic. Their cheeks were gaunt and hollow, their lips so thin that the outline of the teeth could be marked through them, and every articulation of their skulls could be traced through the tightly stretched. saddle-brown skin of their faces. But a second’s study of their death’s-head countenances revealed a more sinister feature. Their eyes were obliquely set, like cats’, yellow-green and cruel, with long slits for pupils. Changeless in expression they were; set, fixed, inscrutable, pitiless as any panther’s—waiting, watching, seeing all, revealing nothing. I shuddered in spite of myself as I forced my gaze to travel casually over the remainder of the room.
De Grandin was speaking in a low, suppressed whisper, and in his little round blue eyes there snapped and sparkled the icy flashes which betrayed excitement. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “I see four monkey-faced heathen seated at that table. Hindus they are by their features, perhaps Berbers from Africa, but devil’s offspring by their eyes, which are like razors. Do they annoy you? I will order them away, I will pull their crooked noses—pardieu, I shall twist their flap-ears before I boot them from the place if you do but say the word!”
“Oh, no, no!” the girl breathed with a frightened shudder, and I could see it was as if a current of cold horror, something nameless and terrible, flowed from the strange men to her. “Do not appear to notice them, sir, but—Aristide!” she beckoned to a waiter hurrying past with a tray of glasses.
“Yes, Ma’mselle?” the man answered, pausing with a smile beside her chair.
“Those gentlemen in the corner by the orchestra”—she nodded ever so slightly toward the macabre group—“have you ever seen them here before?”
“Gentlemen, Ma’mselle?” the waiter replied with a puzzled frown as he surveyed the table intently. “Surely, you make the joke with Aristide. That table, she are vacant—the only vacant one in the place. It are specially reserved and paid for, but—”
“Never mind,” the girl interrupted with a smile, and the man hurried off on his errand.
“You see?” she asked simply.
“Barbe d’une poule bleu, but I do not!” de Grandin asserted. “But—”
“Hush!” she interrupted. “Oh, do not let them think we notice them; it would make them frenzied. When the lights go out for the next number of the show, I shall ask a great favor of you, sir. You are a chivalrous gentleman and will not refuse. I shall take a package from my handbag—see, I trust you perfectly—and pass it to you beneath the table, and you will take it at once to 849 Algonquin Avenue and await me there. Please!” Her warm soft fingers curled themselves about his hand with an appealing pressure. “You will do this for me? You will not fail?—you are not afraid?”
“Mademoiselle,” he assured her solemnly, returning her handclasp with compound interest, “I shall do it, though forty thousand devils and devilkins bar the way.”
As the lights in the big central chandelier dimmed and the spotlight shot its effulgence over the dancing-floor, a petite blonde maiden arrayed in silver trunks, bandeau and slippers pranced out between the rows of tables and began singing in a rasping, nasal voice while she strutted and jiggled through the intricate movements of the Baltimore.
“Come, Friend Trowbridge,” ordered de Grandin abruptly, stowing something in his pocket at the same time. “We go, we leave; allez-vous-en!”
I followed stumblingly through the comparative darkness of the dining-room, but paused on the threshold for a final backward glance. The zone of spotlight on the dancing-floor made the remainder of the place inky black by contrast, and only the highlights of the table napery, the men’s shirt-fronts and the women’s arms and shoulders showed indistinctly through the gloom, but it seemed to me the oblique, unchanging eyes of the sinister quartet at the corner table followed us through the dark and shone with sardonic phosphorescence, as the questing eyes of hungry cats spy out the movements of mice among the shadows.
“THIS IS THE CRAZIEST thing you’ve ever done,” I scolded as our taxi gathered speed over the slippery street. “What do we know about that girl? Nothing, except she’s an habitué of a none too reputable night club. She may be a dope peddler for all we know, and this may be just a scheme to have us carry her contraband stuff past the police; or it may be a plan for hold-up and robbery and those devilish-looking men her accomplices. I’d not put any sort of villainy past a gang like that, and—”
De Grandin’s slender, mocha-gloved fingers beat a devil’s tattoo on the silver knob of his ebony cane as he regarded me with a fixed, unwinking stare of disapproval. “All that you say may be true, my friend,” he admitted; “nevertheless, I have a mind to see this business through. Are you with me?”
“Of course, but—”
“There are no buts, cher ami. Unless I mistake rightly, we shall see remarkable things before we have done, and I would not miss the sight for half a dozen peaceful nights in bed.”
As we rounded a comer and turned into the wide, tree-bordered roadway of Algonquin Avenue another car sped past us through the storm, whirling skid-chains snarling savagely against its mudguards.
2
A REAL ESTATE AGENT’S SIGN announced that the substantial brownstone residence which was on Algonquin Avenue was for sale or rent on long-term lease and would be altered to suit the tenant. Otherwise the place was as much like every other house in the block as one grain of rice is like the others in a bag.
Hastening up the short flagstone path leading from the sidewalk, de Grandin mounted the low brownstone stoop, felt uncertainly a moment, located the old-fashioned pull doorbell and gave the brass knob a vigorous yank.
Through the mosaic of brightly stained glass in the front door panel we could descry a light in the hall, but no footsteps came in answer to our summons. “Morbleu, this is villainous,” the little Frenchman muttered as an especially vicious puff of wind hurled a barrage of sleet into his face. “Are we to stand here till death puts an end to our sufferings? I will not have it!” He struck a resounding blow on the door with the knob of his walking-stick.
As though waiting only the slightest pressure, the unlatched door swung back beneath the impact of his cane, and we found ourselves staring down a long, high-ceiled hall. Under the flickering light of an old-fashioned, prism-fringed gas chandelier we glimpsed the riotous colors of the Oriental rugs with which the place was carpeted, caught a flash of king-blue, rose and rust-red from the sumptuous prayer cloth suspended tapestrywise on the wall, but gave no second glance to the draperies, for at the far end of the passage was that which brought an excited “A-a-ah?” from de Grandin and a gasp of horror from me.
The place was a shambles. Hunched forward like a doll with a broken back, an undersized, dark-skinned man in white drill jacket, batik sarong and yellow turban squatted in a low, blackwood chair and stared endlessly before him into infinity with the glazed, half-pleading, half-expressionless eyes of the newly dead. A smear of red, wider than the palm of a man’s hand, and still slowly spreading, disfigured the left breast of his white jacket and told the reason for his death.
Half-way up the stairway which curved from the farther end of the hall another man, similarly attired, had fallen backward, apparently in the act of flight, and lay against the stair-treads like a worn-out tailor’s dummy carelessly tossed upon the carpet. His bare brown feet, oddly bent on flaccid ankles, pointed upward; head and hands, lolling downward with an awful awkwardness, were toward us, and I went sick with horror at sight of the open, gasping mouth and set, staring eyes in the reversed face. Under
his back-bent chin a terrific wound gaped in his throat like the butcher’s mark upon a slaughtered sheep.
“Grand Dieu!” de Grandin murmured, surveying the tragic relics a moment: “They were thorough, those assassins.”
Darting down the corridor he paused beside the corpses, letting his hand rest on each a moment, then turned away with a shrug. “Dead comme un mouton,” he observed almost indifferently, “but not long so, my friend. They are still soft and warm. If we could but—Dieu de Dieu—another? Oh, villainous! monstrous! infamous!”
Stepping through an arched doorway we had entered a large room to the left of the hall. A carved blackwood divan stood at the apartment’s farther end, and a peacock screen immediately behind it. A red-shaded lamp threw its softly diffused light over the place, mellowing, to some extent, the dreadful tableau spread before us. Full length among the gaudy, heaped-up pillows of the divan a woman reclined indolently, one bare, brown arm extended toward us, wrist bent, hand drooping, a long, thin cheroot of black tobacco held listlessly between her red-stained fingers. Small, she was, almost childishly so, her skin golden as sun-ripened fruit, her lips red as though stained with fresh pomegranate juice, and on the loose robe of sheer yellow muslin which was her only garment glowed a redder stain beneath the gentle swell of her left bosom. Death had been kinder to her than to the men, for her large, black-fringed eyes were closed as though in natural sleep, and her lips were softly parted as if she had gently sighed her life away. The illusion of slumber was heightened by the fact that on the henna-stained toes of one slender foot was balanced a red-velvet slipper heavily embroidered with silver thread while its mate had fallen to the floor, as though listlessly kicked off by its wearer.
Treading softly as though passing the sanctuary of a church, the little Frenchman approached the dead woman, felt her soft, rounded arm a moment, then pinched daintily at the cheroot between her dead fingers. “Parbleu, yes!” he nodded vigorously. “It was recent, most recent, Friend Trowbridge. The vile miscreants who did this deed of shame had but just gone when we arrived; for see, her flesh still glows with the warmth of life, and the memory of its fire still lingers in this cigar’s tobacco. Not more than ten, nor eight, nor scarcely six minutes can have passed since these poor ones were done to death.
“Eh bien”—he bent his left hand palm upward, consulting the tiny watch strapped to the under side of his wrist, and turned toward the door with a faint shrug—“anyone can deplore these deaths; it is for Jules de Grandin to avenge them. Come, we must notify the gendarmes and the coroner, then—”
“What about Mademoiselle Mutina?” I asked maliciously. “You promised to wait here for her, you know.”
He paused a moment, regarding me intently with his fixed, level stare. “Précisément,” he assented grimly, “what about her? It remains to be seen. As for my promise—Mordieu, when I was a little lad I promised myself I should one day be President of the République, but when I grew to a man’s estate I found too many important things to do.” He swung back the front door, thrust his collar up about his ears with a savage jerk and strode across the low porch into the howling storm.
What warned me to look up I shall never know, for the natural course to have followed would have been that taken by de Grandin and bend my head against the wind; but a subtle something, something so tangible that it was almost physical, seemed to jerk my chin up from my greatcoat collar just in time. From the areaway beneath the porch steps, staring at the retreating Frenchman with a malignancy utterly bestial, was a pair of oblique, yellow-green eyes.
“Look out, de Grandin!” I shrieked, and even as I called I realized the warning was too late, for an arm shot upward, poising a dully gleaming weapon—a dagger of some sort, I thought—for a throw.
Scarcely conscious of my act, I acted. Throwing both feet forward, I slipped on the glassy sleet with which the stone steps were veneered, and catapulted down them like a trunk sweeping down a baggage-chute. My feet landed squarely against the Frenchman’s legs, knocking him sprawling, and something whizzed past my ear with a deadly, whirring sound and struck against the flagstone path beyond with a brittle, crackling clash.
Fighting to regain my footing like a cat essaying the ascent of a slate gable, I scrambled helplessly on the sleet-glazed walk, saw de Grandin right himself with an oath and dive head-foremost toward the area where his assailant lurked.
For an instant everything was chaos. I saw de Grandin miss his step and lurch drunkenly over the icy footwalk; saw his brown-skinned assailant spring upon him like a panther on its prey; realized dimly that someone had charged across the narrow yard and sprung to my little friend’s aid; then was knocked flat once more by a vicious kick which missed my face only a hair’s breadth and almost dislocated my shoulder.
“Catch him, Friend Trowbridge—he flies!” de Grandin shouted, disengaging himself from his rescuer’s arms and rushing futilely after his fleeing opponent. Sure-footed as a lynx, the fellow ran over the slippery pavement, crossed the roadway and bolted down the connecting street, disappearing from sight as though swallowed up by the enveloping storm.
“Merci beaucoup, Monsieur,” de Grandin acknowledged as he turned to his deliverer, “I have not the honor of knowing your name, but my obligation is as great as your help was timely. If you will be so good as to—Trowbridge, my friend, catch him, he swoons!”
“Quick, Friend Trowbridge,” the Frenchman ordered, “do you improvise some sort of bandage while I seek conveyance; we must bear him to the house and staunch his wound, else he will bleed to death.”
WHILE DE GRANDIN SOUGHT frantically for a taxicab I opened the stranger’s clothes and wadded my handkerchief against the ugly knife-wound in his upper arm. Crude and makeshift as the device was, it stopped the flow of blood to some extent, and, while still unconscious, the man did not appear measurably worse off when we arrived at my office some twenty minutes later. While I cut away his shirt sleeve and adjusted a proper pad and bandage, de Grandin was busily telephoning our gruesome discoveries to police headquarters.
A stiff drink of brandy and water forced between his lips brought a semblance of color back to the fainting man’s cheeks. He turned his head slowly on the pillow of the examination table and muttered something unintelligible; then, with a start, he rose to a sitting posture and cried: “Mutina, dear love: It is I—Richard! Wait, Mutina, wait a mo—”
As if a curtain had been lifted from before his eyes he saw us and turned from one to the other with an expression of blank bewilderment. “Where—how—” he began dazedly; then: “Oh, I remember, that devil was assaulting you and I rushed in to—”
“To save a total stranger from a most unpleasant predicament, Monsieur, for which the stranger greatly thanks you,” de Grandin supplied. “And now, if you are feeling somewhat better, will you not be good enough to take another drink—somewhat larger this time, if you please—of this so excellent brandy, then tell us why you call on Mademoiselle Mutina? It so happens that we, too, have much interest in that young lady.”
“Who are you?” the youth demanded with sharp suspicion.
“I am Jules de Grandin, doctor of medicine and of the faculty of the Sorbonne, and sometime special agent of the Sûreté Géneral, and this is Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, my very good friend and host,” the Frenchman returned with a formal bow. “While saving my life from the miserable, execrable rogue who would have assassinated me, you received an ugly wound, and we brought you here to dress it. And now that social amenities are completed, perhaps you will have the goodness to answer my question concerning Mademoiselle Mutina. Who, may I ask, is she, and what is it you know of her? Believe me, young sir, it is not from idle curiosity, but in the interest of justice, that we ask.”
“She is my wife,” the young man answered after a moment’s thoughtful silence in which he seemed to weigh the advisability of speaking. “I am Richard Starkweather—perhaps you know my father, Dr. Trowbridge”—he turned to me—“he was president of the old Harri
sonville Street Railway before the Public Service took it over.”
I nodded. “Yes, I remember him,” I replied, “He was two classes ahead of me at Amherst, but we met at alumni gatherings; and—”
“Never mind the reminiscences, Friend Trowbridge,” de Grandin interrupted, his logical French mind refusing to be swerved from the matter in hand. “You were about to tell us, Monsieur—” He paused significantly, glancing at our patient with raised, quizzical eyebrows.
“I married Mutina in Sabuah Sulu, then again in Manila, but—”
“Parbleu—you did marry her twice?” de Grandin demanded incredulously. “How comes it?”
Starkweather took a deep breath, like a man about to dive into a cold stream, then:
“I met Mutina in Sabuah Sulu,” he began. “Possibly you gentlemen have read my book, Malay Pirates as I Knew Them, and wondered how I became so intimately acquainted with the engaging scoundrels. The fact is, it was all a matter of luck. The Dutch tramp steamer, Wilhelmina, on which I was going from Batavia to Manila, put in at Lubuah, and that’s how it began. We all went ashore to see the place, which was only a cluster of Chinese godowns, a dozen or so European business places and a couple of hotels of sorts. We saw all we wanted of the dried-mud-and-sand town in a couple of hours, but as the ship wasn’t pushing out until sometime in the early morning, several of us looked in on a honky-tonk which was in full blast at one of the saloons. I don’t know what it was they gave me to drink, but it was surely powerful medicine—probably a mixture of crude white rum and n’gapi—whatever it was, it affected me as no Western liquor ever did, and I was dead to the world in three drinks. The next thing I remember was waking up the following morning, well after sun-up, to find myself with empty pockets and a dreadful headache, floating out of sight of land in a Chinese sampan. I haven’t the faintest idea how I got there, though I suspect the other members of the party were too drunk to miss me when they put back for the ship, and the proprietor of the dive, seeing me sprawled out there, improved his opportunity to go through my pockets, then lugged me to the waterfront, dumped me into the first empty boat he found and let me shift for myself. Maybe he cut me adrift; maybe the boat’s painter came untied by accident. At any rate, there I was, washed out to sea by the ebbing tide, with no water, no food, and not the slightest idea where I was or how far away the nearest land lay.
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