He sent the fragile goblet crashing to the floor as the pledge was finished, and turned again to the reunited couple. “Your troubles are like the shadows of him who walks westward in the evening, my friends,” he assured them. “For ever and for always they lie behind you. As for the foul Rakshasas—pouf! as young Starkweather and I shattered their evil skulls, their power over you is shattered for all time, even as this—” Snatching the glowing indong mutina from the girl’s diadem he struck it sharply against the table edge. The iridescent shell cracked, almost as though it had been an egg, and from it dropped the most magnificent pearl I had ever seen. Large as a small marble it was, with a pigeon’s-neck luster and deep, opal-like fire-gleams in its depths which held the eyes in fascination as a magic crystal might hold a devotee enthralled. Ignorant as I was of such matters, I knew the thing must be worth at least thirty thousand dollars, perhaps twice that sum.
“To a pearl among women, a pearl among pearls,” de Grandin announced, taking Mutina’s little hand in his and kissing her painted finger tips, one after the other, then closing them about the lustrous gem. “Take you each other to yourselves, my friends,” he bade, “and may the good God bless you and yours for ever and always.”
Simply as a child, wholly unmindful of the rest of us, Mutina turned her lips for her husband’s caress, and as she did so, I heard her murmur softly: “Laki kakasih amba kau puji sampei kakol—best beloved, husband and lover, forever and forever I adore thee!”
The Devil’s Rosary
1
MY FRIEND JULES DE Grandin was in a seasonably sentimental mood. “It is the springtime, Friend Trowbridge,” he reminded as we walked down Tonawanda Avenue. “The horse-chestnuts are in bloom and the blackbirds whistle among the branches at St. Cloud; the tables are once more set before the cafés, and—grand Dieu, la belle creature!” He cut short his remarks to stare in undisguised admiration at a girl about to enter an old-fashioned horse-drawn victoria at the curb.
Embarrassed, I plucked him by the elbow, intent on drawing him onward, but he snatched his arm away and bounded forward with a cry, even as my fingers touched his sleeve. “Attend her, my friend,” he called; “she faints!”
As she seated herself on the taupe cushions of her carriage, the girl reached inside her silver mesh bag, evidently in search of a handkerchief, fumbled a moment among the miscellany of feminine fripperies inside the reticule, then wilted forward as though bludgeoned.
“Mademoiselle, you are ill, you are in trouble, you must let us help you!” de Grandin exclaimed as he mounted the vehicle’s step. “We are physicians,” he added in belated explanation as the elderly coachman turned and favored us with a hostile stare.
The girl was plainly fighting hard for consciousness. Her face had gone death-gray beneath its film of delicate make-up, and her lips trembled and quavered like those of a child about to weep, but she made a brave effort at composure. “I—I’m—all—right—thank—you,” she murmured disjointedly. “It’s—just—the—heat—” Her protest died half uttered and her eyelids fluttered down as her head fell forward on de Grandin’s ready shoulder.
“Morbleu, she has swooned!” the little Frenchman whispered. “To Dr. Trowbridge’s house—993 Susquehanna Avenue!” he called authoritatively to the coachman. “Mademoiselle is indisposed.” Turning to the girl he busied himself making her as comfortable as possible as the rubber-tired vehicle rolled smoothly over the asphalt roadway.
She was, as de Grandin had said, a “belle créature.” From the top of her velour hat to the pointed tips of her suede pumps she was all in gray, a platinum fox scarf complementing the soft, clinging stuff of her costume, a tiny bouquet of early-spring violets lending the sole touch of color to her ensemble. A single tendril of daffodil-yellow hair escaped from beneath the margin of her close-fitting hat lay across a cheek as creamy-smooth and delicate as a babe’s.
“Gently, my friend,” de Grandin bade as the carriage stopped before my door. “Take her arm—so. Now, we shall soon have her recovered.”
In the surgery he assisted the girl to a chair and mixed a strong dose of aromatic ammonia, then held it to the patient’s blanched lips.
“Ah—so, she revives,” he commented in a satisfied voice as the delicate, violet-veined lids fluttered uncertainly a moment, then rose slowly, unveiling a pair of wide, frightened purple eyes.
“Oh—” the girl began in a sort of choked whisper, half rising from her seat, but de Grandin put a hand gently on her shoulder and forced her back.
“Make haste slowly, ma belle petite,” he counseled. “You are still weak from shock and it is not well to tax your strength. If you will be so good as to drink this—” He extended the glass of ammonia toward her with a bow, but she seemed not to see it. Instead, she stared about the room with a dazed, panic-stricken look, her lips trembling, her whole body quaking in a perfect ague of unreasoning terror. Somehow, as I watched, I was reminded of a spectacle I had once witnessed at the zoo when Rajah, a thirty-foot Indian python, had refused food, and the curators, rather than lose a valuable reptile by starvation, overrode their compunctions, and thrust a poor, helpless white rabbit into the monster’s glass-walled den.
“I’ve seen it; I’ve seen it; I’ve seen it!” She chanted the litany of terror, each repetition higher, more intense, nearer the boundary of hysteria than the one before.
“Mademoiselle!” de Grandin’s peremptory tone cut her terrified iteration short. “You will please not repeat meaningless nothings to yourself while we stand here like a pair of stone monkeys. What is it you have seen, if you please?”
The unemotional, icy monotone in which he spoke brought the girl from her near-hysteria as a sudden dash of cold water in the face might have done. “This!” she cried in a sort of frenzied desperation as she thrust her hand into the mesh bag pendent from her wrist. For a moment she ransacked its interior with groping fingers; then, gingerly, as though she held something live and venomous, brought forth a tiny object and extended it to him.
“U’m?” he murmured non-committally, taking the thing from her and holding it up to the light as though it were an oddity of nature.
It was somewhat smaller than a hazel-nut, smooth as ivory, and stained a brilliant red. Through its axis was bored a hole, evidently for the purpose of accommodating a cord. Obviously, it was one of a strand of inexpensive beads, though I was at a loss to say of what material it was made. In any event, I could see nothing about the commonplace little trinket to warrant such evident terror as our patient displayed.
Jules de Grandin was apparently struck by the incongruity of cause and effect, too, for he glanced from the little red globule to the girl, then back again, and his narrow, dark eyebrows raised interrogatively. At length: “I do not think I apprehend the connection,” he confessed. “This”—he tapped the tiny ball with a well manicured forefinger—“may have deep significance to you, Mademoiselle, but to me it appears—”
“Significance?” the girl echoed. “It has! When my mother was drowned in Paris, a ball like this was found clutched in her hand. When my brother died in London, we found one on the counterpane of his bed. Last summer my sister was drowned while swimming at Atlantic Highlands. When they recovered her body, they found one of these terrible beads hidden in her bathing-cap!” She broke off with a retching sob and rested her arm on the surgery table, pillowing her face on it and surrendering herself to a paroxysm of weeping.
“Oh, I’m doomed,” she wailed between blanching lips. “There’s no help for me, and—I’m too young; I don’t want to die!”
“Few people do, Mademoiselle,” de Grandin remarked dryly. “However, I see no cause of immediate despair. Over an hour has passed since you discovered this evil talisman, and you still live. So much for the past. For the future you may trust in the mercy of heaven and the cleverness of Jules de Grandin. Meantime, if you are sufficiently recovered, we shall do ourselves the honor of escorting you home.”
UNDER DE GRANDIN’S AD
ROIT questioning we learned much of the girl’s story during our homeward drive. She was Haroldine Arkright, daughter of James Arkright, a wealthy widower who had lately moved to Harrisonville and leased the Broussard mansion in the fashionable west end. Though only nineteen years old, she had spent so much time abroad that America was more foreign to her than France, Spain or England.
Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, she had lived there during her first twelve years, and her family had been somewhat less than moderately well-to-do. Her father was an engineer, and spent much time abroad. Occasionally, when his remittances were delayed, the family felt the pinch of undisguised poverty. One day her father returned home unexpectedly, apparently in a state of great agitation. There had been mysterious whisperings, much furtive going and coming; then the family entrained for Boston, going immediately to the Hoosac Tunnel Docks and taking ship for Europe.
She and her sister were put to school in a convent at Rheims, and though they had frequent and affectionate letters from their parents, the communications came from different places each time; so she had the impression her elders led a Bedouin existence.
At the outbreak of the war the girls were taken to a Spanish seminary, where they remained until two years before, when they joined their parents in Paris.
“We’d lived there only a little while,” she continued, “when two gendarmes came to our apartment one afternoon and asked for Daddy. One of them whispered something to him and he turned white as a sheet; then, when the other took something from his pocket and showed it, Daddy fell over in a dead faint. It wasn’t till several hours later that we children were told. Mother’s body had been found floating in the Seine, and one of those horrible little red balls was in her hand. That was the first we ever heard of them.
“Though Daddy was terribly affected by the tragedy, there was something we couldn’t understand about his actions. As soon as the Pompes Funèbres (the municipal undertakers) had conducted the services, he made arrangements with a solicitor to sell all our furniture, and we moved to London without stopping to pack anything but a few clothes and toilet articles.
“In London we took a little cottage out by Garden City, and we lived—it seemed to me—almost in hiding; but before we’d lived there a year my brother Philip died, and—they found the second of these red beads lying on the cover of his bed.
“Father seemed almost beside himself when Phil died. We left—fled would be a better word—just as we had gone from Paris, without stopping to pack a thing but our clothes. When we arrived in America we lived in a little hotel in downtown New York for a while, then moved to Harrisonville and rented this house furnished.
“Last summer Charlotte went down to the Highlands with a party of friends, and—” she paused again, and de Grandin nodded understandingly.
“Has Monsieur your father ever taken you into his confidence?” he asked at length. “Has he, by any chance, told you the origin of these so mysterious little red pellets and—”
“Not till Charlotte drowned,” she cut in. “After that he told me that if I ever saw such a ball anywhere—whether worn as an ornament by some person, or among my things, or even lying in the street—I was to come to him at once.”
“U’m?” he nodded gravely. “And have you, perhaps, some idea how this might have come into your purse?”
“No. I’m sure it wasn’t there when I left home this morning, and it wasn’t there when I opened my bag to put my change in after making my purchases at Braunstein’s, either. The first I saw of it was when I felt for a handkerchief after getting into the carriage, and—oh, I’m terribly afraid, Dr. de Grandin. I’m too young to die! It’s not fair; I’m only nineteen, and I was to have been married this June and—”
“Softly, ma chère,” he soothed. “Do not distress yourself unnecessarily. Remember, I am with you.”
“But what can you do?” she demanded. “I tell you, when one of these beads appears anywhere about a member of our family, it’s too late for—”
“Mademoiselle,” he interrupted, “it is never too late for Jules de Grandin—if he be called in time. In your case we have—” His words were drowned by a sudden angry roar as a sheet of vivid lightning tore across the sky, followed by the bellow of a deafening crash of thunder.
“Parbleu, we shall be drenched!” de Grandin cried, eyeing the cloud-hung heavens apprehensively. “Quick, Trowbridge, mon vieux, assist Mademoiselle Haroldine to alight. I think we would better hail a taxi and permit the coachman to return alone with the carriage.
“One moment, if you please, Mademoiselle,” he ordered as the girl took my outstretched hand; “that little red ball which you did so unaccountably find in your purse, you will let me have it—a little wetting will make it none the less interesting to your father.” Without so much as a word of apology, he opened the girl’s bag, extracted the sinister red globule and deposited it between the cushions of the carriage seat, then, with the coachman’s aid, proceeded to raise the vehicle’s collache top.
As the covered carriage rolled rapidly away, he raised his hand, halting a taxicab, and calling sharply to the chauffeur: “Make haste, my friend. Should you arrive at our destination before the storm breaks, there is in my pocket an extra dollar for you.”
The driver earned his fee with compound interest, for it seemed to me we transgressed every traffic ordinance on the books in the course of our ride, cutting corners on two wheels, racing madly in the wrong direction through one-way streets, taking more than one chance of fatal collision with passing vehicles.
The floodgates of the clouds were just opening, and great torrents of water were cataracting down when we drew up beneath the Arkright porte-cochère, and de Grandin handed Haroldine from the cab with a ceremonious bow, then turned to pay the taxi-man his well-earned bonus.
“Mordieu, our luck holds excellently well—” he began as we turned toward the door, but a blaze of lightning more savage than any we had seen thus far and the roaring detonation of a thunderclap which seemed fairly to split the heavens blotted out the remainder of his sentence.
The girl shrank against me with a frightened little cry as the lightning seared our eyes, and I sympathized with her terror, for it seemed to me the flash must have struck almost at our feet, so nearly simultaneous were fire and thunder, but a wild, half-hysterical laugh from de Grandin brought me round with an astonished exclamation.
The little Frenchman had rushed from the shelter of the mansion’s porch and pointed dramatically toward the big stone pillars flanking the entrance to the grounds. There, toppled on its side as though struck fairly by a high-explosive shell, lay the victoria we had ordered to follow us, the horses kicking wildly at their shattered harness, the coachman thrown a clear dozen feet from his vehicle, and the carriage itself reduced to splinters scarcely larger than match-staves.
Heedless of the drenching rain, we raced across the lawn and halted by the prostrate postilion. Miraculously, the man was not only living, but regaining consciousness as we reached him. “Glory be to God!” he exclaimed piously as we helped him to his feet. “’Tis only by th’ mercy o’ heaven I’m still a livin’ man!”
“Eh bien, my friend”—de Grandin gave his little blond mustache a sharp twist as he surveyed the ruined carriage—“perhaps the stupidity of hell may have something to do with it. Look to your horses; they seem scarcely worse off than yourself, but they may be up to mischief if they remain unchaperoned.”
Once more beneath the shelter of the porte-cochère, as calmly as though discussing the probability of the storm’s abatement, he proposed: “Let us go in, my friends. The horses and coachman will soon be all right. As for the carriage”—he raised his narrow shoulders in a fatalistic shrug—“Mademoiselle, I hope Monsieur your father carried adequate insurance on it.”
2
THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN LAID his hand on the polished brass handle of the big oak door, but the portal held its place unyieldingly, and it was not till the girl had pressed the bell button sev
eral times that a butler who looked as if his early training had been acquired while serving as guard in a penitentiary appeared and paid us the compliment of a searching inspection before standing aside to admit us.
“Your father’s in the living-room, Miss Haroldine,” he answered the girl’s quick question, then followed us half-way down the hall, as though reluctant to let us out of sight.
Heavy draperies of mulberry and gold brocade were drawn across the living-room windows, shutting out the lightning flashes and muffling the rumble of the thunder. A fire of resined logs burned cheerfully in the marble-arched fireplace, taking the edge from the early-spring chill; electric lamps under painted shades spilled pools of light on Turkey carpets, mahogany shelves loaded with ranks of morocco-bound volumes and the blurred blues, reds and purples of Oriental porcelains. On the walls the dwarfed perfection of several beautifully executed miniatures showed, and in the far corner of the apartment loomed the magnificence of a massive grand piano.
James Arkright leaped from the overstuffed armchair in which he had been lounging before the fire and whirled to face us as we entered the room, almost, it seemed to me, as though he were expecting an attack. He was a middle-aged man, slender almost to the point of emaciation, with an oddly parchmentlike skin and a long, gaunt face rendered longer by the iron-gray imperial pendant from his chin. His nose was thin and high-bridged, like the beak of a predatory bird, and his ears queer, Panesque appendages, giving his face an odd, impish look. But it was his eyes which riveted our attention most of all. They were of an indeterminate color, neither gray nor hazel, but somewhere between, and darted continually here and there, keeping us constantly in view, yet seeming to watch every corner of the room at the same time. For a moment, as we trooped into the room, he surveyed us in turn with that strange, roving glance, a light of inquiring uncertainty in his eyes fading to a temporary relief as his daughter presented us.
The Devil's Rosary Page 11
