The Quest of the Sacred Slipper
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Sax Rohmer >> The Quest of the Sacred Slipper
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God knows he deserved his end; but that mutilated face is often
grinning, bloodily, in my dreams.
And then as I stood, between that horrid exultation which is born
of killing and the panic which threatened me out of the darkness,
I saw something advancing . . . slowly . . . slowly . . . from the
elmen shades toward the loggia.
It was a shape--it was a shadow. Silent it came--on--and on.
Where the dusk lay deepest it paused, undefined; for I could give
it no name of man or spirit. But a horror seemed to proceed from
it as light from a lamp.
I groped about the table near to me, never taking my eyes from
that sinister form outside. As my fingers closed upon the
telephone, distant voices and the sound of running footsteps
(of those who had heard the shots) came welcome to my ears.
The form stirred, seeming to raise phantom arms in execration, and
a stray moonbeam pierced the darkness shrouding it. For a fleeting
instant something flashed venomously.
The sounds grew nearer. I could tell that the newcomers had found
Morris lying at the gate. Yet still I stood, frozen with uncanny
fear, and watching--watching the spot to which that stray beam had
pierced; the spot where I had seen the moon gleam upon the ring of
the Prophet!
CHAPTER X
AT THE BRITISH ANTIQUARIAN MUSEUM
A little group of interested spectators stood at the head of the
square glass case in the centre of the lofty apartment in the
British Antiquarian Museum known as the Burton Room (by reason of
the fact that a fine painting of Sir Richard Burton faces you as
you enter). A few other people looked on curiously from the lower
end of the case. It contained but one exhibit--a dirty and
dilapidated markoob--or slipper of morocco leather that had once
been red.
"Our latest acquisition, gentlemen," said Mr. Mostyn, the curator,
speaking in a low tone to the distinguished Oriental scholars
around him. "It has been left to the Institution by the late
Professor Deeping. He describes it in a document furnished by his
solicitor as one of the slippers worn by the Prophet Mohammed, but
gives us no further particulars. I myself cannot quite place the
relic."
"Nor I," interrupted one of the group. "It is not mentioned by
any of the Arabian historians to my knowledge--that is, if it
comes from Mecca, as I understand it does."
"I cannot possibly assert that it comes from Mecca, Dr. Nicholson,"
Mostyn replied. "The Professor may have taken it from Al-Madinah
--perhaps from the mysterious inner passage of the baldaquin where
the treasures of the place lie. But I can assure you that what
little we do know of its history is sufficiently unsavoury."
I fancied that the curator's tired cultured voice faltered as he
spoke; and now, without apparent reason, he moved a step to the
right and glanced oddly along the room. I followed the direction
of his glance, and saw a tall man in conventional morning dress,
irreproachable in every detail, whose head was instantly bent upon
his catalogue. But before his eyes fell I knew that their long
almond shape, as well as the peculiar burnt pallor of his
countenance, were undoubtedly those of an Oriental.
"There have been mysterious outrages committed, I believe, upon
many of those who have come in contact with the slipper?" asked one
of the savants.
"Exactly. Professor Deeping was undoubtedly among the victims.
His instructions were explicit that the relic should be brought here
by a Moslem, but for a long time we failed to discover any Moslem
who would undertake the task; and, as you are aware, while the
slipper remained at the Professor's house attempts were made to
steal it."
He ceased uneasily, and glanced at the tall Eastern figure. It had
edged a little nearer; the head was still bowed and the fine yellow
waxen fingers of the hand from which he had removed his glove
fumbled with the catalogue's leaves. It may well have been that
in those days I read menace in every eye, yet I felt assured that
the yellow visitor was eavesdropping--was malignantly attentive to
the conversation.
The curator spoke lower than ever now; no one beyond the circle
could possibly hear him as he proceeded--
"We discovered an Alexandrian Greek who, for personal reasons, not
unconnected with matrimony, had turned Moslem! He carried the
slipper here, strongly escorted, and placed it where you now see it.
No other hand has touched it." (The speaker's voice was raised ever
so slightly.) "You will note that there is a rail around the case,
to prevent visitors from touching even the glass."
"Ah," said Dr. Nicholson quizzically, "And has anything untoward
happened to our Graeco-Moslem friend?"
"Perhaps Inspector Bristol can tell," replied the curator.
The straight, military figure of the well-known Scotland Yard man
was conspicuous among the group of distinguished--and mostly
round-shouldered--scholars.
"Sorry, gentlemen," he said, smiling, "but Mr. Acepulos has vanished
from his tobacco shop in Soho. I am not apprehensive that he had
been kidnapped or anything of that kind. I think rather that the
date of his disappearance tallies with that on which he cashed his
cheque for service rendered! His present wife is getting most
unbeautifully fat, too."
"What precautions," someone asked, "are being taken to guard the
slipper?"
"Well," Mostyn answered, "though we have only the bare word of the
late Professor Deeping that the slipper was actually worn by
Mohammed, it has certainly an enormous value according to Moslem
ideas. There can be no doubt that a group of fanatics known as
Hashishin are in London engaged in an extraordinary endeavour to
recover it."
Mostyn's voice sank to an impressive whisper. My gaze sought again
the tall Eastern visitor and was held fascinated by the baffled
straining in those velvet eyes. But the lids fell as I looked; and
the effect was that of a fire suddenly extinguished. I determined
to draw Bristol's attention to the man.
"Accordingly," Mostyn continued, "we have placed it in this room,
from which I fancy it would puzzle the most accomplished thief to
remove it."
The party, myself included, stared about the place, as he went on
to explain--
"We have four large windows here; as you see. The Burton Room
occupies the end of a wing; there is only one door; it communicates
with the next room, which in turn opens into the main building by
another door on the landing. We are on the first floor; these two
east windows afford a view of the lawn before the main entrance;
those two west ones face Orpington Square; all are heavily barred
as you see. During the day there is a man always on duty in these
two rooms. At night that communicating door is locked. Short of
erecting a ladder in full view either of the Square or of Great
Orchard Street, filing through four iron bars and breaking the
window and the case, I fail to see how anybody can get at the
slipper here."
"If a duplicate key to the safe--" another voice struck in; I knew
it afterward for that of Professor Rhys-Jenkyns.
"Impossible to procure one, Professor," cried Mostyn, his eyes
sparkling with an almost boyish interest. "Mr. Cavanagh here holds
the keys of the case, under the will of the late Professor Deeping.
They are of foreign workmanship and more than a little complicated."
The eyes of the savants were turned now in my direction.
"I suppose you have them in a place of safety?" said Dr. Nicholson.
"They are at my bankers," I replied.
"Then I venture to predict," said the celebrated Orientalist, "that
the slipper of the Prophet will rest here undisturbed."
He linked his arm into that of a brother scholar and the little
group straggled away, Mostyn accompanying them to the main entrance.
But I saw Inspector Bristol scratching his chin; he looked very much
as if he doubted the accuracy of the doctor's prediction. He had
already had some experience of the implacable devotion of the Moslem
group to this treasure of the Faithful.
"The real danger begins," I suggested to him, "when the general public
is admitted--after to-day, is it not?"
"Yes. All to-day's people are specially invited, or are using
special invitation cards," he replied. "The people who received
them often give their tickets away to those who will be likely
really to appreciate the opportunity."
I looked around for the tall Oriental. He seemed to have vanished,
and for some reason I hesitated to speak of him to Bristol; for my
gaze fell upon an excessively thin, keen-faced man whose curiously
wide-open eyes met mine smilingly, whose gray suit spoke Stein-Bloch,
whose felt was a Boss raw-edge unmistakably of a kind that only
Philadelphia can produce. At the height of the season such visitors
are not rare, but this one had an odd personality, and moreover his
keen gaze was raking the place from ceiling to floor.
Where had I met him before? To the best of my recollection I had
never set eyes upon the man prior to that moment; and since he was
so palpably an American I had no reason for assuming him to be
associated with the Hashishin. But I remembered--indeed, I could
never forget--how, in the recent past, I had met with an apparent
associate of the Moslems as evidently European as this curiously
alert visitor was American. Moreover . . . there was something
tauntingly familiar, yet elusive, about that gaunt face.
Was it not upon the eve of the death of Professor Deeping that the
girl with the violet eyes had first intruded her fascinating
personality into my tangled affairs? Patently, she had then been
seeking the holy slipper, and by craft had endeavoured to bend me
to her will. Then had I not encountered her again, meeting the
glance of her unforgettable violet eyes outside a Strand hotel?
The encounter had presaged a further attempt upon the slipper!
Certainly she acted on behalf of someone interested in it; and since
neither Bristol nor I could conceive of any one seeking to possess
the bloodstained thing except the mysterious leader of the
Hashishin--Hassan of Aleppo--as a creature of that awful fanatic
being I had written her down.
Why, then, if the mysterious Eastern employed a European girl,
should he not also employ an American man? It might well be that
the relic, in entering the doors of the impregnable Antiquarian
Museum, had passed where the diabolical arts of the Hashishin had
no power to reach it--where the beauty of Western women and the
craft of Eastern man were equally useless weapons. Perhaps Hassan's
campaign was entering upon a new phase.
Was it a shirking of plain duty on my part that wish--that
ever-present hope--that the murderous company of fanatics who had
pursued the stolen slipper from its ancient resting-place to London,
should succeed in recovering it? I leave you to judge.
The crescent of Islam fades to-day and grows pale, but there are yet
fierce Believers, alust for the blood of the infidel. In such as
these a faith dies the death of an adder, and is more venomous in
its death-throes than in the full pulse of life. The ghastly
indiscretion of Professor Deeping, in rifling a Moslem Sacristy, had
led to the mutilation of many who, unwittingly, had touched the
looted relic, had brought about his own end, had established a league
of fantastic assassins in the heart of the metropolis.
Only once had I seen the venerable Hassan of Aleppo--a stately,
gentle old man; but I knew that the velvet eyes could blaze into a
passionate fury that seemed to scorch whom it fell upon. I knew
that the saintly Hassan was Sheikh of the Hashishin. And
familiarity with that dreadful organization had by no means bred
contempt. I was the holder of the key, and my fear of the fanatics
grew like a magic mango, darkened the sunlight of each day, and
filled the night with indefinable dread.
You, who have not read poor Deeping's "Assyrian Mythology", cannot
picture a creature with a huge, distorted head, and a tiny, dwarfed
body--a thing inhuman, yet human--a man stunted and malformed by
the cruel arts of brother men--a thing obnoxious to life, with but
one passion, the passion to kill. You cannot conceive of the years
of agony spent by that creature strapped to a wooden frame--in
order to prevent his growth! You cannot conceive of his fierce
hatred of all humanity, inflamed to madness by the Eastern drug,
hashish, and directed against the enemies of Islam--the holders of
the slipper--by the wonderful power of Hassan of Aleppo.
But I had not only read of such beings, I had encountered one!
And he was but one of the many instruments of the Hashishin. Perhaps
the girl with the violet eyes was another. What else to be dreaded
Hassan might hold in store for us I could not conjecture.
Do you wonder that I feared? Do you wonder that I hoped (I confess
it), hoped that the slipper might be recovered without further
bloodshed?
CHAPTER XI
THE HOLE IN THE BLIND
I stepped over to the door, where a constable stood on duty.
"You observed a tall Eastern gentleman in the room a while ago,
officer?"
"I did, sir."
"How long is he gone?"
The man started and began to peer about anxiously.
"That's a funny thing, sir," he said. "I was keeping my eyes
specially upon him. I noticed him hovering around while Mr.
Mostyn was speaking; but although I could have sworn he hadn't
passed out, he's gone!"
"You didn't notice his departure, then?"
"I'm sorry to say I didn't, sir."
The man clearly was perplexed, but I found small matter for wonder
in the episode. I had more than suspected the stranger to be a spy
of Hassan's, and members of that strange company were elusive as
will-o'-the-wisps.
Bristol, at the far end of the room, was signalling to me. I
walked back and joined him.
"Come over here," he said, in a low voice, "and pretend to examine
these things."
He glanced significantly to his left. Following the glance, my
eyes fell upon the lean American; he was peering into the receptacle
which held the holy slipper.
Bristol led me across the room, and we both faced the wall and bent
over a glass case. Some yellow newspaper cuttings describing its
contents hung above it, and these we pretended to read.
"Did you notice that man I glanced at?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's Earl Dexter, the first crook in America! Ssh! Only
goes in on very big things. We had word at the Yard he was in town;
but we can't touch him--we can only keep our eyes on him. He
usually travels openly and in his own name, but this time he seems
to have slipped over quietly. He always dresses the same and has
just given me 'good day!' They call him The Stetson Man. We heard
this morning that he had booked two first-class sailings in the
Oceanic, leaving for New York three weeks hence. Now, Mr. Cavanagh,
what is his game?"
"It has occurred to me before, Bristol," I replied, "and you may
remember that I mentioned the idea to you, that there might be a
third party interested in the slipper. Why shouldn't Earl Dexter
be that third party?"
"Because he isn't a fool," rapped Bristol shortly. "Earl Dexter
isn't a man to gather up trouble for himself. More likely if his
visit has anything really to do with the slipper he's retained by
Hassan and Company. Museum-breaking may be a bit out of the line
of Hashishin!"
This latter suggestion dovetailed with my own ideas, and oddly
enough there was something positively wholesome in the notion of
the straightforward crookedness of a mere swell cracksman.
Then happened a singular thing, and one that effectually concluded
our whispered colloquy. From the top end of the room, beyond the
case containing the slipper, one of the yellow blinds came down
with a run.
Bristol turned in a flash. It was not a remarkable accident, and
might portend no more than a loose cord; but when, having walked
rapidly up the room, we stood before the lowered blind, it
appeared that this was no accident at all.
Some four feet from the bottom of the blind (or five feet from the
floor) a piece of linen a foot square had been neatly slashed out!
I glanced around the room. Several fashionably dressed visitors
were looking idly in our direction, but I could fasten upon no one
of them as a likely perpetrator.
Bristol stared at me in perplexity.
"Who on earth did it," he muttered, "and what the blazes for?"
CHAPTER XII
THE HASHISHIN WATCH
"The American gentleman has just gone out, sir," said the sergeant
at the door.
I nodded grimly and raced down the steps. Despite my half-formed
desire that the slipper should be recovered by those to whom
properly it belonged, I experienced at times a curious interest in
its welfare. I cannot explain this. Across the hall in front of
me I saw Earl Dexter passing out of the Museum. I followed him
through into Kingsway and thence to Fleet Street. He sauntered
easily along, a nonchalant gray figure. I had begun to think that
he was bound for his hotel and that I was wasting my time when he
turned sharply into quiet Salisbury Square; it was almost deserted.
My heart leapt into my mouth with a presentiment of what was coming
as I saw an elegant and beautifully dressed woman sauntering along
in front of us on the far side.
Was it that I detected something familiar in her carriage, in the
poise of her head--something that reminded me of former
unforgettable encounters; encounters which without exception had
presaged attempts upon the slipper of the Prophet? Or was it that
I recollected how Dexter had booked two passages to America? I
cannot say, but I felt my heart leap; I knew beyond any possibility
of doubt that this meeting in Salisbury Square marked the opening
of a new chapter in the history of the slipper.
Dexter slipped his arm within that of the girl in front of him and
they paced slowly forward in earnest conversation. I suppose my
action was very amateurish and very poor detective work; but
regardless of discovery I crossed the road and passed close by
the pair.
I am certain that Dexter was speaking as I came up, but, well out
of earshot, his voice was suddenly arrested. His companion turned
and looked at me.
I was prepared for it, yet was thrilled electrically by the
flashing glance of the violet eyes--for it was she--the beautiful
harbinger of calamities!
My brain was in a whirl; complication piled itself upon complication;
yet in the heart of all this bewilderment I thought I could detect
the key of the labyrinth, but at the time my ideas were in disorder,
for the violet eyes were not lowered but fixed upon me in cold scorn.
I knew myself helpless, and bending my head with conscious
embarrassment I passed on hurriedly.
I had work to do in plenty, but I could not apply my mind to it;
and now, although the obvious and sensible thing was to go about
my business, I wandered on aimlessly, my brain employed with a
hundred idle conjectures and the query, "Where have I seen The
Stetson Man?" seeming to beat, like a tattoo, in my brain. There
was something magnetic about the accursed slipper, for without
knowing by what route I had arrived there, I found myself in Great
Orchard Street and close under the walls of the British Antiquarian
Museum. Then I was effectually aroused from my reverie.
Two men, both tall, stood in the shadow of a doorway on the Opposite
side of the street, staring intently up at the Museum windows. It
was a tropically hot afternoon and they stood in deepest shadow. No
one else was in Orchard Street--that odd little backwater--at the
time, and they stood gazing upward intently and gave me not even a
passing glance.
But I knew one for the Oriental visitor of the morning, and despite
broad noonday and the hum of busy London about me, my blood seemed
to turn to water. I stood rooted to the spot, held there by a most
surprising horror.
For the gray-bearded figure of the other watcher was one I could
never forget; its benignity was associated with the most horrible
hours of my life, with deeds so dreadful that recollection to this
day sometimes breaks my sleep, arousing me in the still watches,
bathed in a cold sweat of fear.
It was Hassan of Aleppo!
If he saw me, if either of them saw me, I cannot say. What I should
have done, what I might have done it is useless to speak of here
--for I did nothing. Inert, thralled by the presence of that eerie,
dreadful being, I watched them leave the shadow of the doorway and
pace slowly on with their dignified Eastern gait.
Then, knowing how I had failed in my plain duty to my fellow-men
--how, finding a serpent in my path, I had hesitated to crush it,
had weakly succumbed to its uncanny fascination--I made my way
round to the door of the Museum.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WHITE BEAM
That night the deviltry began. Mr. Mostyn found himself wholly
unable to sleep. Many relics have curious histories, and the
experienced archaeologist becomes callous to that uncanniness which
seems to attach to some gruesome curios. But the slipper of the
Prophet was different. No mere ghostly menace threatened its
holders; an avenging scimitar followed those who came in contact
with it; gruesome tragedies, mutilations, murders, had marked its
progress throughout.
The night was still--as still as a London night can be; for there
is always a vague murmuring in the metropolis as though the
sleeping city breathed gently and sometimes stirred in its sleep.
Then, distinct amid these usual nocturnal noises, rose another,
unaccountable sound, a muffled crash followed by a musical tinkling.
Mostyn sprang up in bed, drew on a dressing-gown, and took from the
small safe at his bed-head the Museum keys and a loaded revolver.
A somewhat dishevelled figure, pale and wild-eyed, he made his way
through the private door and into the ghostly precincts of the
Museum. He did not hesitate, but ascended the stairs and unlocked
the door of the Assyrian gallery.
Along its ghostly aisles he passed, and before the door which gave
admittance to the Burton Room paused, fumbling a moment for the
key.
Inside the room something was moving!
Mostyn was keenly alarmed; he knew that he must enter at once or
never. He inserted the key in the lock, swung open the heavy door,
stepped through and closed it behind him. He was a man of
tremendous moral courage, for now,--alone in the apartment which
harboured the uncanny relic, alone in the discharge of his duty,
he stood with his back to the door trembling slightly, but with
the idea of retreat finding no place in his mind.
One side of the room lay in blackest darkness; through the
furthermost window of the other a faint yellowed luminance (the
moonlight through the blind) spread upon the polished parquet
flooring. But that which held the curator spell-bound--that which
momentarily quickened into life the latent superstition, common to
all mankind, was a beam of cold light which poured its effulgence
fully upon the case containing the Prophet's slipper! Where the
other exhibits lay either in utter darkness or semi-darkness this
one it seemed was supernaturally picked out by this lunar
searchlight!
It was ghostly-unnerving; but, the first dread of it passed, Mostyn
recalled how during the day a hole inexplicably had been cut in
that blind; he recalled that it had not been mended, but that the
damaged blind had merely been rolled up again.
And as a dawning perception of the truth came to him, as falteringly
he advanced a step toward the mystic beam, he saw that one side of
the case had been shattered--he saw the broken glass upon the floor;
and in the dense shadow behind and under the beam of light, vaguely
he saw a dull red object.
It moved--it seemed to live! It moved away from the case and in
the direction of the eastern windows.
"My God!" whispered Mostyn; "it's the Prophet's slipper!"
And wildly, blindly, he fired down the room. Later he knew that he
had fired in panic, for nothing human was or could be in the place;
yet his shot was not without effect. In the instant of its flash,
something struck sharply against the dimly seen blind of one of the
east windows; he heard the crash of broken glass.
He leapt to the switch and flooded the room with light. A fear of
what it might hold possessed him, and he turned instantly.
Hard by the fragments of broken glass upon the floor and midway
between the case and the first easterly window lay the slipper. A
bell was ringing somewhere. His shot probably had aroused the
attention of the policeman. Someone was clamouring upon the door
of the Museum, too. Mostyn raced forward and raised the blind
--that toward which the slipper had seemed to move.
The lower pane of the window was smashed. Blood was trickling down
upon the floor from the jagged edges of the glass.
"Hullo there! Open the door! Open the door!"
Bells were going all over the place now; sounds of running footsteps
came from below; but Mostyn stood staring at the broken window and
at the solid iron bars which protected it without, which were intact,
substantial--which showed him that nothing human could possibly
have entered.
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