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MRS. SIN

CHAPTER XII

THE MAID OF THE MASQUE

The past life of Mrs. Monte Irvin, in which at this time three
distinct groups of investigators became interested--namely, those of
Whitehall, Scotland Yard, and Fleet Street--was of a character to have
horrified the prudish, but to have excited the compassion of the wise.

Daughter of a struggling suburban solicitor, Rita Esden, at the age of
seventeen, from a delicate and rather commonplace child began to
develop into a singularly pretty girl of an elusive and fascinating
type of beauty, almost ethereal in her dainty coloring, and possessed
of large and remarkably fine eyes, together with a wealth of copper-
red hair, a crown which seemed too heavy for her slender neck to
support. Her father viewed her increasing charms and ever-growing list
of admirers with the gloomy apprehension of a disappointed man who had
come to look upon each gift of the gods as a new sorrow cunningly
disguised. Her mother, on the contrary, fanned the girl's natural
vanity and ambition with a success which rarely attended the
enterprises of this foolish old woman, and Rita proving to be endowed
with a moderately good voice, a stage career was determined upon
without reference to the contrary wishes of Mr. Esden.

Following the usual brief "training" which is counted sufficient for
an aspirant to musical comedy honors, Rita, by the prefixing of two
letters to her name, set out to conquer the play-going world as Rita
Dresden.

Two years of hard work and disappointment served to dispel the girl's
illusions. She learned to appreciate at its true value that masculine
admiration which, in an unusual degree, she had the power to excite.
Those of her admirers who were in a position to assist her
professionally were only prepared to use their influence upon terms
which she was unprepared to accept. Those whose intentions were
strictly creditable, by some malignancy of fate, possessed no
influence whatever. She came to regard herself as a peculiarly unlucky
girl, being ignorant of the fact that Fortune, an impish hierophant,
imposes identical tests upon every candidate who aspires to the throne
of a limelight princess.

Matters stood thus when a new suitor appeared in the person of Sir
Lucien Pyne. When his card was brought up to Rita, her heart leaped
because of a mingled emotion of triumph and fear which the sight of
the baronet's name had occasioned. He was a director of the syndicate
in whose production she was playing--a man referred to with awe by
every girl in the company as having it in his power to make or mar a
professional reputation. Not that he took any active part in the
affairs of the concern; on the contrary, he was an aristocrat who held
himself aloof from all matters smacking of commerce, but at the same
time one who invested his money shrewdly. Sir Lucien's protegee of
today was London's idol of tomorrow, and even before Rita had spoken
to him she had fought and won a spiritual battle between her true self
and that vain, admiration-loving Rita Dresden who favored
capitulation.

She knew that Sir Lucien's card represented a signpost at the
cross-roads where many a girl, pretty but not exceptionally talented,
had hesitated with beating heart. It was no longer a question of
remaining a member of the chorus (and understudy for a small part) or
of accepting promotion to "lead" in a new production; it was that of
accepting whatever Sir Lucien chose to offer--or of retiring from the
profession so far as this powerful syndicate was concerned.

Such was the reputation enjoyed at this time by Sir Lucien Pyne among
those who had every opportunity of forming an accurate opinion.

Nevertheless, Rita was determined not to succumb without a struggle.
She did not count herself untalented nor a girl to be lightly valued,
and Sir Lucien might prove to be less black than rumor had painted
him. As presently appeared, both in her judgment of herself and in
that of Sir Lucien, she was at least partially correct. He was very
courteous, very respectful, and highly attentive.

Her less favored companions smiled significantly when the familiar
Rolls-Royce appeared at the stage door night after night, never
doubting that Rita Dresden was chosen to "star" in the forthcoming
production, but, with rare exceptions, frankly envying her this good
fortune.

Rita made no attempt to disillusion them, recognizing that it must
fail. She was resigned to being misjudged. If she could achieve
success at that price, success would have been purchased cheaply.

That Sir Lucien was deeply infatuated she was not slow to discover,
and with an address perfected by experience and a determination to
avoid the easy path inherited from a father whose scrupulous honesty
had ruined his professional prospects, she set to work to win esteem
as well as admiration.

Sir Lucien was first surprised, then piqued, and finally interested by
such unusual tactics. The second phase was the dangerous one for Rita,
and during a certain luncheon at Romanos her fate hung in the balance.
Sir Lucien realized that he was in peril of losing his head over this
tantalizingly pretty girl who gracefully kept him at a distance,
fencing with an adroitness which was baffling, and Sir Lucien Pyne had
set out with no intention of doing anything so preposterous as falling
in love. Keenly intuitive, Rita scented danger and made a bold move.
Carelessly rolling a bread-crumb along the cloth:

"I am giving up the stage when the run finishes," she said.

"Indeed," replied Sir Lucien imperturbably. "Why?"

"I am tired of stage life. I have been invited to go and live with my
uncle in New York and have decided to accept. You see"--she bestowed
upon him a swift glance of her brilliant eyes--"men in the theatrical
world are not all like you. Real friends, I mean. It isn't very nice,
sometimes."

Sir Lucien deliberately lighted a cigarette. If Rita was bluffing, he
mused, she had the pluck to make good her bluff. And if she did so? He
dropped the extinguished match upon a plate. Did he care? He glanced
at the girl, who was smiling at an acquaintance on the other side of
the room. Fortune's wheel spins upon a needle point. By an artistic
performance occupying less than two minutes, but suggesting that Rita
possessed qualities which one day might spell success, she had decided
her fate. Her heart was beating like a hammer in her breast, but she
preserved an attitude of easy indifference. Without for a moment
believing in the American uncle, Sir Lucien did believe, correctly,
that Rita Dresden was about to elude him. He realized, too, that he
was infinitely more interested than he had ever been hitherto, and
more interested than he had intended to become.

This seemingly trivial conversation was a turning point, and twelve
months later Rita Dresden was playing the title role in The Maid of
the Masque. Sir Lucien had discovered himself to be really in love
with her, and he might quite possibly have offered her marriage even
if a dangerous rival had not appeared to goad him to that desperate
leap--for so he regarded it. Monte Irvin, although considerably Rita's
senior, had much to commend him in the eyes of the girl--and in the
eyes of her mother, who still retained a curious influence over her
daughter. He was much more wealthy than Pyne, and although the latter
was a baronet, Irvin was certain to be knighted ere long, so that Rita
would secure the appendage of "Lady" in either case. Also, his
reputation promised a more reliable husband than Sir Lucien could be
expected to make. Moreover, Rita liked him, whereas she had never
sincerely liked and trusted Sir Lucien. And there was a final reason--
of which Mrs. Esden knew nothing.

On the first night that Rita had been entrusted with a part of any
consequence--and this was shortly after the conversation at Romanos--
she had discovered herself to be in a state of hopeless panic. All her
scheming and fencing would have availed her nothing if she were to
break down at the critical moment. It was an eventuality which Sir
Lucien had foreseen, and he seized the opportunity at once of securing
a new hold upon the girl and of rendering her more pliable than he had
hitherto found her to be. At this time the idea of marriage had not
presented itself to Sir Lucien.

Some hours before the performance he detected her condition of abject
fright . . . and from his waistcoat pocket he took a little gold
snuff-box.

At first the girl declined to follow advice which instinctively she
distrusted, and Sir Lucien was too clever to urge it upon her. But he
glanced casually at his wrist-watch--and poor Rita shuddered. The gold
box was hidden again in the baronet's pocket.

To analyze the process which thereupon took place in Rita's mind would
be a barren task, since its result was a foregone conclusion. Daring
ambition rather than any merely abstract virtue was the keynote of her
character. She had rebuffed the advances of Sir Lucien as she had
rebuffed others, primarily because her aim in life was set higher than
mere success in light comedy. This she counted but a means to a more
desirable end--a wealthy marriage. To the achievement of such an
alliance the presence of an accepted lover would be an obstacle; and
true love Rita Dresden had never known. Yet, short of this final
sacrifice which some women so lightly made, there were few scruples
which she was not prepared to discard in furtherance of her designs.
Her morality, then, was diplomatic, for the vice of ambition may
sometimes make for virtue.

Rita's vivacious beauty and perfect self-possession on the fateful
night earned her a permanent place in stageland: Rita Dresden became a
"star." She had won a long and hard-fought battle; but in avoiding one
master she had abandoned herself to another.

The triumph of her debut left her strangely exhausted. She dreaded the
coming of the second night almost as keenly as she had dreaded the
ordeal of the first. She struggled, poor victim, and only increased
her terrors. Not until the clock showed her that in twenty minutes she
must make her first entrance did she succumb. But Sir Lucien's gold
snuff-box lay upon her dressing-table--and she was trembling. When at
last she heard the sustained note of the oboe in the orchestra giving
the pitch to the answering violins, she raised the jewelled lid of the
box.

So she entered upon the path which leads down to destruction, and
since to conjure with the drug which pharmacists know as methylbenzoyl
ecgonine is to raise the demon Insomnia, ere long she found herself
exploring strange by-paths in quest of sleep.

By the time that she was entrusted with the leading part in The Maid
of the Masque, she herself did not recognize how tenacious was the
hold which this fatal habit had secured upon her. In the company of
Sir Lucien Pyne she met other devotees, and for a time came to regard
her unnatural mode of existence as something inseparable from the
Bohemian life. To the horrible side of it she was blind.

It was her meeting with Monte Irvin during the run of this successful
play which first awakened a dawning comprehension; not because she
ascribed his admiration to her artificial vivacity, but because she
realized the strength of the link subsisting between herself and Sir
Lucien. She liked and respected Irvin, and as a result began to view
her conduct from a new standpoint. His life was so entirely open and
free from reproach while part of her own was dark and secret. She
conceived a desire to be done with that dark and secret life.

This was a shadow-land over which Sir Lucien Pyne presided, and which
must be kept hidden from Monte Irvin; and it was not until she thus
contemplated cutting herself adrift from it all that she perceived the
Gordian knot which bound her to the drug coterie. How far, yet how
smoothly, by all but imperceptible stages she had glided down the
stream since that night when the gold box had lain upon her dressing-
table! Kazmah's drug store in Bond Street had few secrets for her; or
so she believed. She knew that the establishment of the strange,
immobile Egyptian was a source from which drugs could always be
obtained; she knew that the dream-reading business served some double
purpose; but she did not know the identity of Kazmah.

Two of the most insidious drugs familiar to modern pharmacy were
wooing her to slavery, and there was no strong hand to hold her back.
Even the presence of her mother might have offered some slight
deterrent at this stage of Rita's descent, but the girl had quitted
her suburban home as soon as her salary had rendered her sufficiently
independent to do so, and had established herself in a small but
elegant flat situated in the heart of theatreland.

But if she had walked blindly into the clutches of cocaine and
veronal, her subsequent experiments with chandu were prompted by
indefensible curiosity, and a false vanity which urged her to do
everything that was "done" by the ultra-smart and vicious set of which
she had become a member.

Her first introduction to opium-smoking was made under the auspices of
an American comedian then appearing in London, an old devotee of the
poppy, and it took place shortly after Sir Lucien Pyne had proposed
marriage to Rita. This proposal she had not rejected outright; she had
pleaded time for consideration. Monte Irvin was away, and Rita
secretly hoped that on his return he would declare himself. Meanwhile
she indulged in every new craze which became fashionable among her
associates. A chandu party took place at the American's flat in Duke
Street, and Rita, who had been invited, and who had consented to go
with Sir Lucien Pyne, met there for the first time the woman variously
known as "Lola" and "Mrs. Sin."

CHAPTER XIII

A CHANDU PARTY

From the restaurant at which she had had supper with Sir Lucien, Rita
proceeded to Duke Street. Alighting from Pyne's car at the door, they
went up to the flat of the organizer of the opium party--Mr. Cyrus
Kilfane. One other guest was already present--a slender, fair woman,
who was introduced by the American as Mollie Gretna, but whose weakly
pretty face Rita recognized as that of a notorious society divorcee,
foremost in the van of every new craze, a past-mistress of the
smartest vices.

Kilfane had sallow, expressionless features and drooping, light-
colored eyes. His straw-hued hair, brushed back from a sloping brow,
hung lankly down upon his coat-collar. Long familiarity with China's
ruling vice and contact with those who practiced it had brought about
that mysterious physical alteration--apparently reflecting a mental
change--so often to be seen in one who has consorted with Chinamen.
Even the light eyes seemed to have grown slightly oblique; the voice,
the unimpassioned greeting, were those of a son of Cathay. He carried
himself with a stoop and had a queer, shuffling gait.

"Ah, my dear daughter," he murmured in a solemnly facetious manner,
"how glad I am to welcome you to our poppy circle."

He slowly turned his half-closed eyes in Pyne's direction, and slowly
turned them back again.

"Do you seek forgetfulness of old joys?" he asked. "This is my own
case and Pyne's. Or do you, as Mollie does, seek new joys--youth's
eternal quest?"

Rita laughed with a careless abandon which belonged to that part of
her character veiled from the outer world.

"I think I agree with Miss Gretna," she said lightly. "There is not so
much happiness in life that I want to forget the little I have had."

"Happiness," murmured Kilfane. "There is no real happiness. Happiness
is smoke. Let us smoke."

"I am curious, but half afraid," declared Rita. "I have heard that
opium sometimes has no other effect than to make one frightfully ill."

"Oh, my dear!" cried Miss Gretna, with a foolish giggling laugh, "you
will love it! Such fascinating dreams! Such delightful adventures!"

"Other drugs," drawled Sir Lucien, "merely stimulate one's normal
mental activities. Chandu is a key to another life. Cocaine, for
instance enhances our capacity for work. It is only a heretic like De
Quincey who prostitutes the magic gum to such base purposes. Chandu is
misunderstood in Europe; in Asia it is the companion of the aesthete's
leisure."

"But surely," said Rita, "one pipe of opium will not produce all these
wonders."

"Some people never experience them at all," interrupted Miss Gretna.
"The great idea is to get into a comfortable position, and just resign
yourself--let yourself go. Oh, it's heavenly!"

Cyrus Kilfane turned his dull eyes in Rita's direction.

"A question of temperament and adaptability," he murmured. "De
Quincey, Pyne"--slowly turning towards the baronet--"is didactic, of
course; but his Confessions may be true, nevertheless. He forgets, you
see, that he possessed an unusual constitution, and the temperament of
a Norwegian herring. He forgets, too, that he was a laudanum drinker,
not an opium smoker. Now you, my daughter"--the lustreless eyes again
sought Rita's flushed face--"are vivid--intensely vital. If you can
succeed in resigning yourself to the hypnosis induced your experiences
will be delightful. Trust your Uncle Cy."

Leaving Rita chatting with Miss Gretna, Kilfane took Pyne aside,
offering him a cigarette from an ornate, jewelled case.

"Hello," said the baronet, "can you still get these?"

"With the utmost difficulty," murmured Kilfane, returning the case to
his pocket. "Lola charges me five guineas a hundred for them, and only
supplies them as a favor. I shall be glad to get back home, Pyne. The
right stuff is the wrong price in London."

Sir Lucien laughed sardonically, lighting Kilfane's cigarette and then
his own.

"I find it so myself," he said. "Everything except opium is to be had
at Kazmah's, and nothing except opium interests me."

"He supplies me with cocaine," murmured the comedian. "His figure
works out, as nearly as I can estimate it, at 10s 7 1/2d. a grain. I
saw him about it yesterday afternoon, pointing out to the brown guy
that as the wholesale price is roughly 2 1/4d., I regarded his margin
of profit as somewhat broad."

"Indeed!"

"The first time I had ever seen him, Pyne. I brought an introduction
from Dr. Silver, of New York, and Kazmah supplied me without question
--at a price."

"You always saw Rashid?"

"Yes. If there were other visitors I waited. But yesterday I made a
personal appointment with Kazmah. He pretended to think I had come to
have a dream interpreted. He is clever, Pyne. He never moved a muscle
throughout the interview. But finally he assured me that all the
receivers in England had amalgamated, and that the price he charged
represented a very narrow margin of profit. Of course he is a liar. He
is making a fortune. Do you know him personally?"

"No," replied Sir Lucien, "outside his Bond Street home of mystery he
is unknown. A clever man, as you say. You obtain your opium from
Lola?"

"Yes. Kazmah sent her to me. She keeps me on ridiculously low rations,
and if I had not brought my own outfit I don't think she would have
sold me one. Of course, her game is beating up clients for the
Limehouse dive."

"You have visited 'The House of a Hundred Raptures'?"

"Many times, at week-ends. Opium, like wine, is better enjoyed in
company."

"Does she post you the opium?"

"Oh, no; my man goes to Limehouse for it. Ah! here she is."

A woman came in, carrying a brown leather attache case. She had left
her hat and coat in the hall, and wore a smart blue serge skirt and a
white blouse. She was not tall, but she possessed a remarkably
beautiful figure which the cut of her garments was not intended to
disguise, and her height was appreciably increased by a pair of suede
shoes having the most wonderful heels which Rita ever remembered to
have seen worn on or off the stage. They seemed to make her small feet
appear smaller, and lent to her slender ankles an exaggerated frontal
curve.

Her hair was of that true, glossy black which suggests the blue sheen
of raven's plumage, and her thickly fringed eyes were dark and
southern as her hair. She had full, voluptuous lips, and a bold self-
assurance. In the swift, calculating glance which she cast about the
room there was something greedy and evil; and when it rested upon Rita
Dresden's dainty beauty to the evil greed was added cruelty.

"Another little sister, dear Lola," murmured Kilfane. "Of course, you
know who it is? This, my daughter," turning the sleepy glance towards
Rita, "is our officiating priestess, Mrs. Sin."

The woman so strangely named revealed her gleaming teeth in a swift,
unpleasant smile, then her nostrils dilated and she glanced about her
suspiciously.

"Someone smokes the chandu cigarettes," she said, speaking in a low
tone which, nevertheless, failed to disguise her harsh voice, and with
a very marked accent.

"I am the offender, dear Lola," said Kilfane, dreamily waving his
cigarette towards her. "I have managed to make the last hundred spin
out. You have brought me a new supply?"

"Oh no, indeed," replied Mrs. Sin, tossing her head in a manner oddly
reminiscent of a once famous Spanish dancer. "Next Tuesday you get
some more. Ah! it is no good! You talk and talk and it cannot alter
anything. Until they come I cannot give them to you."

"But it appears to me," murmured Kilfane, "that the supply is always
growing less."

"Of course. The best goes all to Edinburgh now. I have only three
sticks of Yezd left of all my stock."

"But the cigarettes."

"Are from Buenos Ayres? Yes. But Buenos Ayres must get the opium
before we get the cigarettes, eh? Five cases come to London on
Tuesday, Cy. Be of good courage, my dear."

She patted the sallow cheek of the American with her jewelled fingers,
and turned aside, glancing about her.

"Yes," murmured Kilfane. "We are all present, Lola. I have had the
room prepared. Come, my children, let us enter the poppy portico."

He opened a door and stood aside, waving one thin yellow hand between
the first two fingers of which smouldered the drugged cigarette. Led
by Mrs. Sin the company filed into an apartment evidently intended for
a drawing-room, but which had been hastily transformed into an opium
divan.

Tables, chairs, and other items of furniture had been stacked against
one of the walls and the floor spread with rugs, skins, and numerous
silk cushions. A gas fire was alight, but before it had been placed an
ornate Japanese screen whereon birds of dazzling plumage hovered amid
the leaves of gilded palm trees. In the centre of the room stood a
small card-table, and upon it were a large brass tray and an ivory
pedestal exquisitely carved in the form of a nude figure having one
arm upraised. The figure supported a lamp, the light of which was
subdued by a barrel-shaped shade of Chinese workmanship.

Mollie Gretna giggled hysterically.

"Make yourself comfortable, dear," she cried to Rita, dropping down
upon a heap of cushions stacked in a recess beside the fireplace. "I
am going to take off my shoes. The last time, Cyrus, when I woke up my
feet were quite numb."

"You should come down to my place," said Mrs. Sin, setting the leather
case on the little card-table beside the lamp. "You have there your
own little room and silken sheets to lie in, and it is quiet--so
quiet."

"Oh!" cried Mollie Gretna, "I must come! But I daren't go alone. Will
you come with me, dear?" turning to Rita.

"I don't know," was the reply. "I may not like opium."

"But if you do--and I know you will?"

"Why," said Rita, glancing rapidly at Pyne, "I suppose it would be a
novel experience."

"Let me arrange it for you," came the harsh voice of Mrs. Sin. "Lucy
will drive you both down--won't you, my dear?" The shadowed eyes
glanced aside at Sir Lucien Pyne.

"Certainly," he replied. "I am always at the ladies' service."

Rita Dresden settled herself luxuriously into a nest of silk and fur
in another corner of the room, regarding the baronet coquettishly
through her half-lowered lashes.

"I won't go unless it is my party, Lucy," she said. "You must let me
pay."

"A detail," murmured Pyne, crossing and standing beside her.

Interest now became centred upon the preparations being made by Mrs.
Sin. From the attache case she took out a lacquered box, silken-lined
like a jewel-casket. It contained four singular-looking pipes, the
parts of which she began to fit together. The first and largest of
these had a thick bamboo stem, an amber mouthpiece, and a tiny,
disproportionate bowl of brass. The second was much smaller and was of
some dark, highly-polished wood, mounted with silver conceived in an
ornate Chinese design representing a long-tailed lizard. The
mouthpiece was of jade. The third and fourth pipes were yet smaller, a
perfectly matched pair in figured ivory of exquisite workmanship,
delicately gold-mounted.

"These for the ladies," said Mrs. Sin, holding up the pair. "You"--
glancing at Kilfane--"have got your own pipe, I know."

She laid them upon the tray, and now took out of the case a little
copper lamp, a smaller lacquered box and a silver spatula, her
jewelled fingers handling the queer implements with a familiarity bred
of habit.

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