The Quest of the Sacred Slipper

S >> Sax Rohmer >> The Quest of the Sacred Slipper

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

I stood up rather wearily. Although poor Deeping had appointed me
legal guardian of the relic, and although I could render but a poor
account of my stewardship, let me confess that I was anxious to
take that comforting theory to my bosom. I would have given much
to have known beyond any possibility of doubt that the accursed
slipper and its blood-lustful guardian were far away from England.
Had I known so much, life would again have had something to offer
me besides ceaseless fear, endless watchings. I could have slept
again, perhaps; without awaking, clammy, peering into every shadow,
listening, nerves atwitch to each slightest sound disturbing the
night; without groping beneath the pillow for my revolver.

"Then you think," I said, "that the English phase of the slipper's
history is closed? You think that Dexter, minus his right hand,
has eluded British law--that Hassan and Company have evaded
retribution?"

"I do!" said Bristol grimly, "and although that means the biggest
failure in my professional career, I am glad--damned glad!"

Shortly afterward he took his departure; and I leaned from the
window, watching him pass along the court below and out under the
arch into Fleet Street. He was a man whose opinions I valued, and
in all sincerity I prayed now that he might be right; that the
surcease of horror which we had recently experienced after the
ghastly tragedies which had clustered thick about the haunted
slipper, might mean what he surmised it to mean.

The heat to-night was very oppressive. A sort of steaming mist
seemed to rise from the court, and no cooling breeze entered my
opened windows. The clamour of the traffic in Fleet Street came
to me but remotely. Big Ben began to strike midnight. So far
as I could see, residents on the other stairs were all abed and
a velvet shadow carpet lay unbroken across three parts of the
court. The sky was tropically perfect, cloudless, and jewelled
lavishly. Indeed, we were in the midst of an Indian summer; it
seemed that the uncanny visitants had brought, together with an
atmosphere of black Eastern deviltry, something, too, of the
Eastern climate.

The last stroke of the Cathedral bell died away. Other more
distant bells still were sounding dimly, but save for the
ceaseless hum of the traffic, no unusual sound now disturbed the
archaic peace of the court.

I returned to my table, for during the time that had passed I had
badly neglected my work and now must often labour far into the
night. I was just reseated when there came a very soft rapping
at the outer door!

No doubt my mood was in part responsible, but I found myself
thinking of Poe's weird poem, "The Raven"; and like the character
therein I found myself hesitating.

I stole quietly into the passage. It was in darkness. How odd it
is that in moments of doubt instinctively one shuns the dark and
seeks the light. I pressed the switch lighting the hall lamp, and
stood looking at the closed door.

Why should this late visitor have rapped in so uncanny a fashion
in preference to ringing the bell?

I stepped back to my table and slipped a revolver into my pocket.

The muffled rapping was repeated. As I stood in the study doorway
I saw the flap of the letter-box slowly raised!

Instantly I extinguished both lights. You may brand me as
childishly timid, but incidents were fresh in my memory which
justified all my fears.

A faintly luminous slit in the door showed me that the flap was now
fully raised. It was the dim light on the stairway shining through.
Then quite silently the flap was lowered. Came the soft rapping
again.

"Who's there?" I cried.

No one answered.

Wondering if I were unduly alarming myself, yet, I confess, strung
up tensely in anticipation that this was some device of the phantom
enemy, I stood in doubt.

The silence remained unbroken for thirty seconds or more. Then yet
again it was disturbed by that ghostly, muffled rapping.

I advanced a step nearer to the door.

"Who's there?" I cried loudly. "What do you want?"

The flap of the letter box began to move, and I formed a sudden
determination. Making no sound in my heelless Turkish slippers
I crept close up to the door and dropped upon my knees.

Thereupon the flap became fully lifted, but from where I crouched
beneath it I was unable to see who or what was looking in; yet I
hesitated no longer. I suddenly raised myself and thrust the
revolver barrel through the opening!

"Who are you?" I cried. "Answer or I fire!"--and along the barrel
I peered out on to the landing.

Still no one answered. But something impalpable--a powder--a
vapour--to this hour I do not know what--enveloped me with its
nauseating fumes; was puffed fully into my face! My eyes, my
mouth, my nostrils became choked up, it seemed, with a deadly
stifling perfume.

Wildly, feeling that everything about me was slipping away, that I
was sinking into a void, for ought I knew that of dissolution, I
pulled the trigger once, twice, thrice ...

"My God!"--the words choked in my throat and I reeled back into
the passage--"it's not loaded!"

I threw up my arms to save myself, lurched, and fell forward into
what seemed a bottomless pit.

CHAPTER XX

THE GOLDEN PAVILION

When I opened my eyes it was to a conviction that I dreamed. I
lay upon a cushioned divan in a small apartment which I find myself
at a loss adequately to describe.

It was a yellow room, then, its four walls being hung with yellow
silk, its floor being entirely covered by a yellow Persian carpet.
One lamp, burning in a frame of some lemon coloured wood and having
its openings filled with green glass, flooded the place with a
ghastly illumination. The lamp hung by gold chains from the ceiling,
which was yellow. Several low tables of the same lemon-hued wood
as the lamp-frame stood around; they were inlaid in fanciful designs
with gleaming green stones. Turn my eyes where I would, clutch my
aching head as I might, this dream chamber would not disperse, but
remained palpable before me--yellow and green and gold.

There was a niche behind the divan upon which I lay framed about
with yellow wood. In it stood a golden bowl and a tall pot of
yellow porcelain; I lay amid yellow cushions having golden tassels.
Some of them were figured with vivid green devices.

To contemplate my surroundings assuredly must be to court madness.
No door was visible, no window; nothing but silk and luxury, yellow
and green and gold.

To crown all, the air was heavy with a perfume wholly unmistakable
by one acquainted with Egypt's ruling vice. It was the reek of
smouldering hashish--a stench that seemed to take me by the throat,
a vapour damnable and unclean. I saw that a little censer, golden
in colour and inset with emeralds, stood upon the furthermost corner
of the yellow carpet. From it rose a faint streak of vapour; and I
followed the course of the sickly scented smoke upward through the
still air until in oily spirals it lost itself near to the yellow
ceiling. As a sick man will study the veriest trifle I studied
that wisp of smoke, pencilled grayly against the silken draperies,
the carven tables, against the almost terrifying persistency of the
yellow and green and gold.

I strove to rise, but was overcome by vertigo and sank back again
upon the yellow cushions. I closed my eyes, which throbbed and
burned, and rested my head upon my hands. I ceased to conjecture
if I dreamed or was awake. I knew that I felt weak and ill, that
my head throbbed agonizingly, that my eyes smarted so as to render
it almost impossible to keep them open, that a ceaseless humming
was in my ears.

For some time I lay endeavouring to regain command of myself, to
prepare to face again that scene which had something horrifying
in its yellowness, touched with the green and gold.

And when finally I reopened my eyes, I sat up with a suppressed cry.
For a tall figure in a yellow robe from beneath which peeped yellow
slippers, a figure crowned with a green turban, stood in the centre
of the apartment!

It was that of a majestic old man, white bearded, with aquiline
nose, and the fierce eagle eyes of a fanatic set upon me sternly,
reprovingly.

With folded arms he stood watching me, and I drew a sharp breath and
rose slowly to my feet.

There amid the yellow and green and gold, amid the abominable reek
of burning hashish I stood and faced Hassan of Aleppo!

No words came to me; I was confounded.

Hassan spoke in that gentle voice which I had heard only once before.

"Mr. Cavanagh," he said, "I have brought you here that I might warn
you. Your police are seeking me night and day, and I am fully alive
to my danger whilst I stay in your midst. But for close upon a
thousand years the Sheikh-al-jebal, Lord of the Hashishin, has
guarded the traditions and the relics of the Prophet, Salla-'llahu
'ale yhi wasellem! I, Hassan of Aleppo, am Sheikh of the Order
to-day, and my sacred duty has brought me here."

The piercing gaze never left my face. I was not yet by any means
my own man and still I made no reply.

"You have been wise," continued Hassan, "in that you have never
touched the sacred slipper. Had you lain hands upon it, no secrecy
could have availed you. The eye of the Hashishin sees all. There
is a shaft of light which the true Believer perceives at night as
he travels toward El-Medineh. It is the light which uprises, a
spiritual fire, from the tomb of the Prophet (Salla-'llahu 'aleyhi
wasellem!). The relics also are radiant, though in a lesser degree."

He took a step toward me, spreading out his lean brown hands, palms
downward.

"A shaft of light," he said impressively, "shines upward now from
London. It is the light of the holy slipper." He gazed intently
at the yellow drapery at the left of the divan, but as though he
were looking not at the wall but through it. His features worked
convulsively; he was a man inspired. "I see it now!" he almost
whispered--"that white light by which the guardians of the relic
may always know its resting place!"

I managed to force words to my lips.

"If you know where the slipper is," I said, more for the sake of
talking than for anything else, "why do you not recover it?"

Hassan turned his eyes upon me again.

"Because the infidel dog," he cried loudly, "who has soiled it with
his unclean touch, defies us--mocks us! He has suffered the loss
of the offending hand, but the evil ginn protect him; he is inspired
by efreets! But God is great and Mohammed is His only Prophet! We
shall triumph; but it is written, oh, daring infidel, that you again
shall become the guardian of the slipper!"

He spoke like some prophet of old and I stared at him fascinated.
I was loth to believe his words.

"When again," he continued, "the slipper shall be in the receptacle
of which you hold the key, that key must be given to me!"

I thought I saw the drift of his words now; I thought I perceived
with what object I had been trapped and borne to this mysterious
abode for whose whereabouts the police vainly were seeking. By the
exercise of the gift of divination it would seem that Hassan of
Aleppo had forecast the future history of the accursed slipper or
believed that he had done so. According to his own words I was
doomed once more to become trustee of the relic. The key of the
case at the Antiquarian Museum, to which he had prophesied the
slipper's return, would be the price of my life! But--

"In order that these things may be fulfilled," he continued, "I must
permit you to return to your house. So it is written, so it shall
be. Your life is in my hands; beware when it is demanded of you
that you hesitate not in yielding up the key!"

He raised his hands before him, making a sort of obeisance, I doubt
not in the direction of Mecca, drew aside one of the yellow hangings
behind him and disappeared, leaving me alone again in that nightmare
apartment of yellow and green and gold. A moment I stood watching
the swaying curtain. Utter silence reigned, and a sort of panic
seized me infinitely greater than that occasioned by the presence
of the weird Sheikh. I felt that I must escape from the place or
that I should become raving mad.

I leapt forward to the curtain which Hassan had raised and jerked
it aside; it had concealed a door. In this door and about level
with my eyes was a kind of little barred window through which shone
a dim green light. I bent forward, peering into the place beyond,
but was unable to perceive anything save a vague greenness.

And as I peered, half believing that the whole episode was a
dreadful, fevered dream, the abominable fumes of hashish grew, or
seemed to grow, quite suddenly insupportable. Through the square
opening, from the green void beyond, a cloud of oily vapour, pungent,
stifling, resembling that of burning Indian hemp, poured out and
enveloped me!

With a gasping cry I fell back, fighting for breath, for a breath
of clean air unpolluted with hashish. But every inhalation drew
down into my lungs the fumes that I sought to escape from. I
experienced a deathly sickness; I seemed to be sinking into a sea
of hashish, amid bubbles of yellow and green and gold, and I knew
no more until, struggling again to my feet, surrounded by utter
darkness--I struck my head on the corner of my writing-table . . .
for I lay in my own study!

My revolver, unloaded, was upon the table beside me. The night was
very still. I think it must have been near to dawn.

"My God!" I whispered, "did I dream it all? Did I dream it all?"

CHAPTER XXI

THE BLACK TUBE

"There's no doubt in my mind," said Inspector Bristol, "that your
experience was real enough."

The sun was shining into my room now, but could not wholly disperse
the cloud of horror which lay upon it. That I had been drugged was
sufficiently evident from my present condition, and that I had been
taken away from my chambers Inspector Bristol had satisfactorily
proved by an examination of the soles of my slippers.

"It was a clever trick," he said. "God knows what it was they
puffed into your face through the letter box, but the devilish arts
of ten centuries, we must remember, are at the command of Hassan of
Aleppo! The repetition of the trick at the mysterious place you
were taken to is particularly interesting. I should say you won't
be in a hurry to peer through letter boxes and so forth in the
future?"

I shook my aching head.

"That accursed yellow room," I replied, "stank with the fumes of
hashish. It may have been some preparation of hashish that was
used to drug me."

Bristol stood looking thoughtfully from the window.

"It was a nightmare business, Mr. Cavanagh," he said; "but it
doesn't advance our inquiry a little bit. The prophecy of the old
man with the white beard--whom you assure me to be none other than
Hassan of Aleppo--is something we cannot very well act upon. He
clearly believes it himself; for he has released you after having
captured you, evidently in order that you may be at liberty to take
up your duty as trustee of the slipper again. If the slipper really
comes back to the Museum the fact will show Hassan to be something
little short of a magician. I shan't envy you then, Mr. Cavanagh,
considering that you hold the keys of the case!"

"No," I replied wearily. "Poor Professor Deeping thought that he
acted in my interests and that my possession of the keys would
constitute a safeguard. He was wrong. It has plunged me into the
very vortex of this ghastly affair."

"It is maddening," said Bristol, "to know that Hassan and Company
are snugly located somewhere under our very noses, and that all
Scotland Yard can find no trace of them. Then to think that Hassan
of Aleppo, apparently by means of some mystical light, has knowledge
of the whereabouts of the slipper and consequently of the
whereabouts of Earl Dexter (another badly wanted man) is extremely
discouraging! I feel like an amateur; I'm ashamed of myself!"

Bristol departed in a condition of irritable uncertainty.

My head in my hands, I sat for long after his departure, with the
phantom characters of the ghoulish drama dancing through my
brain. The distorted yellow dwarfs seemed to gibe apish before me.
Severed hands clenched and unclenched themselves in my face, and
gleaming knives flashed across the mental picture. Predominant over
all was the stately figure of Hassan of Aleppo, that benignant,
remorseless being, that terrible guardian of the holy relic who
directed the murderous operations. Earl Dexter, The Stetson Man,
with his tightly bandaged arm, his gaunt, clean-shaven face and
daredevil smile, figured, too, in my feverish daydream; nor was
that other character missing, the girl with the violet eyes whose
beautiful presence I had come to dread; for like a sybil announcing
destruction her appearances in the drama had almost invariably
presaged fresh tragedies. I recalled my previous meetings with
this woman of mystery. I recalled my many surmises regarding her
real identity and association with the case. I wondered why in the
not very distant past I had promised to keep silent respecting her;
I wondered why up to that present moment, knowing beyond doubt that
her activities were inimical to my interests, were criminal, I had
observed that foolish pledge.

And now my door-bell was ringing--as intuitively I had anticipated.
So certain was I of the identity of my visitor that as I walked
along the passage I was endeavouring to make up my mind how I should
act, how I should receive her.

I opened the door; and there, wearing European garments but a green
turban . . . stood Hassan of Aleppo!

When I say that amazement robbed me of the power to speak, to move,
almost to think, I doubt not you will credit me. Indeed, I felt
that modern London was crumbling about me and that I was become
involved in the fantastic mazes of one of those Oriental intrigues
such as figure in the Romance of Abu Zeyd, or with which most
European readers have been rendered familiar by the glowing pages
of "The Thousand and One Nights."

"Effendim," said my visitor, "do not hesitate to act as I direct!"

In his gloved hand he carried what appeared to be an ebony cane.
He raised and pointed it directly at me. I perceived that it was,
in fact, a hollow tube.

"Death is in my hand," he continued; "enter slowly and I will
follow you."

Still the sense of unreality held me thralled and my brain refused
me service. Like an hypnotic subject I walked back to my study,
followed by my terrible visitor, who reclosed the door behind him.

He sat facing me across my littered table with the mysterious tube
held loosely in his grasp.

How infinitely more terrifying are perils unknown than those known
and appreciated! Had a European armed with a pistol attempted a
similar act of coercion, I cannot doubt that I should have put up
some sort of fight; had he sat before me now as Hassan of Aleppo
sat, with a comprehensible weapon thus laid upon his knees, I
should have taken my chance, should have attacked him with the lamp,
with a chair, with anything that came to my hand.

But before this awful, mysterious being who was turning my life
into channels unsuspected, before that black tube with its unknown
potentialities, I sat in a kind of passive panic which I cannot
attempt to describe, which I had never experienced before and have
never known since.

"There is one about to visit you," he said, "whom you know, whom I
think you expect. For it is written that she shall come and such
events cast a shadow before them. I, too, shall be present at your
meeting!"

His eagle eyes opened widely; they burned with fanaticism.

"Already she is here!" he resumed suddenly, and bent as one
listening. "She comes under the archway; she crossed the courtyard
--and is upon the stair! Admit her, effendim; I shall be close
behind you!"

The door-bell rang.

With the consciousness that the black tube was directed toward the
back of my head, I went and opened the door. My mind was at work
again, and busy with plans to terminate this impossible situation.

On the landing stood a girl wearing a simple white frock which
fitted her graceful figure perfectly. A white straw hat, of the New
York tourist type, with a long veil draped from the back suited her
delicate beauty very well. The red mouth drooped a little at the
corners, but the big violet eyes, like lamps of the soul, seemed
afire with mystic light.

"Mr. Cavanagh," she said, very calmly and deliberately, "there is
only one way now to end all this trouble. I come from the man who
can return the slipper to where it belongs; but he wants his price!"

Her quiet speech served completely to restore my mental balance, and
I noted with admiration that her words were so chosen as to commit
her in no way. She knew quite well that thus far she might appear
in the matter with impunity, and she clearly was determined to say
nothing that could imperil her.

"Will you please come in?" I said quietly--and stood aside to
admit her.

Exhibiting wonderful composure, she entered--and there, in the
badly lighted hallway came face to face with my other visitor!

It was a situation so dramatic as to seem unreal.

Away from that tall figure retreated the girl with the violet eyes
--and away--until she stood with her back to the wall. Even in
the gloom I could see that her composure was deserting her; her
beautiful face was pallid.

"Oh, God!" she whispered, all but inaudible--"You!"

Hassan, grasping the black rod in his hand, signed to her to enter
the study. She stood quite near to me, with her eyes fixed upon
him. I bent closer to her.

"My revolver--in left-hand table drawer," I breathed in her ear.
"Get it. He is watching me!"

I could not tell if my words had been understood, for, never taking
her gaze from the Sheikh of the Assassins, she sidled into the study.
I followed her; and Hassan came last of all. Just within the
doorway he stood, confronting us.

"You have come," he said, addressing the girl and speaking in
perfect English but with a marked accent, "to open your impudent
negotiations through Mr. Cavanagh for the return of the thrice holy
relic to the Museum! Your companion, the man, who is inspired by
the Evil One, has even dared to demand ransom for the slipper from
me!"

Hassan was majestic in his wrath; but his eyes were black with
venomous hatred.

"He has suffered the penalty which the Koran lays down; he has lost
his right hand. But the lord of all evil protects him, else ere
this he had lost his life! Move no closer to that table!"

I started. Either Hassan of Aleppo was omniscient or he had
overheard my whispered words!

"Easily I could slay you where you stand!" he continued. "But to
do so would profit me nothing. This meeting has been revealed to
me. Last night I witnessed it as I slept. Also it has been
revealed to me by Erroohanee, in the mirror of ink, that the slipper
of the Prophet, Salla-'llahu 'ale yhi wasellem! Shall indeed return
to that place accursed, that infidel eyes may look upon it! It is
the will of Allah, whose name be exalted, that I hold my hand, but
it is also His will that I be here, at whatever danger to my
worthless body."

He turned his blazing eyes upon me.

"To-morrow, ere noon," he said, "the slipper will again be in the
Museum from which the man of evil stole it. So it is written;
obscure are the ways. We met last night, you and I, but at that
time much was dark to me that now is light. The holy 'Alee spoke
to me in a vision, saying: 'There are two keys to the case in which
it will be locked. Secure one, leaving the other with him who
holds it! Let him swear to be secret. This shall be the price of
his life!'"

The black tube was pointed directly at my forehead.

"Effendim," concluded the speaker, "place in my hand the key of the
case in the Antiquarian Museum!"

Hands convulsively clenched, the girl was looking from me to Hassan.
My throat felt parched. but I forced speech to my lips.

"Your omniscience fails you," I said. "Both keys are at my bank!"

Blacker grew the fierce eyes--and blacker. I gave myself up for
lost; I awaited death--death by some awful, unique means--with
what courage I could muster.

From the court below came the sound of voices, the voices of
passers-by who so little suspected what was happening near to them
that had someone told them they certainly had refused to credit it.
The noise of busy Fleet Street came drumming under the archway, too.

Then, above all, another sound became audible. To this day I find
myself unable to define it; but it resembled the note of a silver
bell.

Clearly it was a signal; for, hearing it, Hassan dropped the tube
and glanced toward the open window.

In that instant I sprang upon him!

That I had to deal with a fanatic, a dangerous madman, I knew; that
it was his life or mine, I was fully convinced. I struck out then
and caught him fairly over the heart. He reeled back, and I made
a wild clutch for the damnable tube, horrid, unreasoning fear of
which thus far had held me inert.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12