“you are about to enter upon new duties. I will make your position clear
to you. Whilst you do your work, and keep yourself to yourself, you are
in no danger; but one indiscretion--just one--apart from what it may
mean for others, will mean, for YOU, immediate arrest as accessory to a
murder!”
Soames shuddered, coldly.
“You can rely upon me, Mr. Gianapolis,” he protested, “to do absolutely
what you wish--absolutely. I am a ruined man, and I know it--I know it.
My only hope is that you will give me a chance.”...
“You shall have every chance, Soames,” replied Gianapolis--“every
chance.”
XV
CAVE OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON
When the car stopped at the end of a short drive, Soames had not the
slightest idea of his whereabouts. The blinds at the window of the
limousine had been lowered during the whole journey, and now he
descended from the step of the car on to the step of a doorway. He was
in some kind of roofed-in courtyard, only illuminated by the headlamps
of the car. Mr. Gianapolis pushed him forward, and, as the door was
closed, he heard the gear of the car reversed; then--silence fell.
“My grip!” he began, nervously.
“It will be placed in your room, Soames.”
The voice of the Greek answered him from the darkness.
Guided by the hand of Gianapolis, he passed on and descended a flight of
stone steps. Ahead of him a light shone out beneath a door, and, as he
stumbled on the steps, the door was thrown suddenly open.
He found himself looking into a long, narrow apartment.... He pulled up
short with a smothered, gasping cry.
It was a cavern!--but a cavern the like of which he had never seen,
never imagined. The walls had the appearance of being rough-hewn
from virgin rock--from black rock--from rock black as the rocks of
Shellal--black as the gates of Erebus.
Placed at regular intervals along the frowning walls, to right and left,
were spiral, slender pillars, gilded and gleaming. They supported an
archwork of fancifully carven wood, which curved gently outward to the
center of the ceiling, forming, by conjunction with a similar, opposite
curve, a pointed arch.
In niches of the wall were a number of grotesque Chinese idols. The
floor was jet black and polished like ebony. Several tiger-skin rugs
were strewn about it. But, dominating the strange place, in the center
of the floor stood an ivory pedestal, supporting a golden dragon of
exquisite workmanship; and before it, as before a shrine, an enormous
Chinese vase was placed, of the hue, at its base, of deepest violet,
fading, upward, through all the shades of rose pink seen in an Egyptian
sunset, to a tint more elusive than a maiden's blush. It contained a
mass of exotic poppies of every shade conceivable, from purple so dark
as to seem black, to poppies of the whiteness of snow.
Just within the door, and immediately in front of Soames, stood a slim
man of about his own height, dressed with great nicety in a perfectly
fitting morning-coat, his well-cut cashmere trousers falling accurately
over glossy boots having gray suede uppers. His linen was immaculate,
and he wore a fine pearl in his black poplin cravat. Between two yellow
fingers smoldered a cigarette.
Soames, unconsciously, clenched his fists: this slim man embodied the
very spirit of the outre. The fantastic surroundings melted from the
ken of Soames, and he seemed to stand in a shadow-world, alone with an
incarnate shadow.
For this was a Chinaman! His jet black lusterless hair was not shaven in
the national manner, but worn long, and brushed back from his slanting
brow with no parting, so that it fell about his white collar behind,
lankly. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, which magnified his oblique eyes
and lent him a terrifying beetle-like appearance. His mephistophelean
eyebrows were raised interrogatively, and he was smiling so as to
exhibit a row of uneven yellow teeth.
Soames, his amazement giving place to reasonless terror, fell back a
step--into the arms of Gianapolis.
“This is our friend from Palace Mansions,” said the Greek. He squeezed
Soames' arm, reassuringly. “Your new principal, Soames, Mr. Ho-Pin, from
whom you will take your instructions.”
“I have these instructions for Mr. Soames,” said Ho-Pin, in a metallic,
monotonous voice. (He gave to r half the value of w, with a hint of the
presence of l.) “He will wremain here as valet until the search fowr him
becomes less wrigowrous.”
Soames, scarce believing that he was awake, made no reply. He found
himself unable to meet the glittering eyes of the Chinaman; he glanced
furtively about the room, prepared at any moment to wake up from what
seemed to him an absurd, a ghostly dream.
“Said will change his appeawrance,” continued Ho-Pin, smoothly, “so that
he will not wreadily be wrecognized. Said will come now.”
Ho-Pin clapped his hands three times.
The door at the end of the room immediately opened, and a thick-set man
of a pronounced Arabian type, entered. He wore a chauffeur's livery of
dark blue; and Soames recognized him for the man who had driven the car.
“Said,” said Ho-Pin very deliberately, turning to face the new arrival,
“ahu hina--Lucas Effendi--Mr. Lucas. Waddi el--shenta ila beta oda.
Fehimt?”
Said bowed his head.
“Fahim, effendi,” he muttered rapidly.
“Ma fihsh.”...
Again Said bowed his head, then, glancing at Soames:--
“Ta'ala wayyaya!” he said.
Soames, looking helplessly at Gianapolis--who merely pointed to the
door--followed Said from the room.
He was conducted along a wide passage, thickly carpeted and having its
walls covered with a kind of matting kept in place by strips of bamboo.
Its roof was similarly concealed. A door near to the end, and on the
right, proved to open into a square room quite simply furnished in the
manner of a bed-sitting room. A little bathroom opened out of it in one
corner. The walls were distempered white, and there was no window.
Light was furnished by an electric lamp, hanging from the center of the
ceiling.
Soames, glancing at his bag, which Said had just placed beside the
white-enameled bedstead, turned to his impassive guide.
“This is a funny go!” he began, with forced geniality. “Am I to live
here?”
“Ma'lesh!” muttered Said--“ma'lesh!”
He indicated, by gestures, that Soames should remove his collar; he was
markedly unemotional. He crossed to the bathroom, and could be heard
filling the hand-basin with water.
“Kursi!” he called from within.
Soames, seriously doubting his own sanity, and so obsessed with a sense
of the unreal that his senses were benumbed, began to take off his
collar; he could not feel the contact of his fingers with his neck in
the act. Collarless, he entered the little bathroom....
“Kursi!” repeated Said; then: “Ah! ana nesit! ma'lesh!”
Said--whilst Soames, docile in his stupor, watched him--went back,
picked up the solitary cane chair which the apartment boasted, and
brought it into the bathroom. Soames perceived that he was to be treated
to something in the nature of a shampoo; for Said had ranged a number
of bottles, a cake of soap, and several towels, along a shelf over the
bath.
In a curious state of passivity, Soames submitted to the operation. His
hair was vigorously toweled, then fanned in the most approved fashion;
but this was no more than the beginning of the operation. As he leaned
back in the chair:
“Am I dreaming?” he said aloud. “What's all this about?”
“Uskut!” muttered Said--“Uskut!”
Soames, at no time an aggressive character, resigned himself to the
incredible.
Some lotion, which tingled slightly upon the scalp, was next applied
by Said from a long-necked bottle. Then, fresh water having been poured
into the basin, a dark purple liquid was added, and Soames' head dipped
therein by the operating Eastern. This time no rubbing followed, but
after some minutes of vigorous fanning, he was thrust back into
the chair, and a dry towel tucked firmly into his collar-band. He
anticipated that he was about to be shaved, and in this was not
disappointed.
Said, filling a shaving-mug from the hot-water tap, lathered Soames'
chin and the abbreviated whiskers upon which he had prided himself. Then
the razor was skilfully handled, and Soames' face shaved until his chin
was as smooth as satin.
Next, a dark brown solution was rubbed over the skin, and even upon
his forehead and right into the roots of the hair; upon his throat, his
ears, and the back of his neck. He was now past the putting of questions
or the raising of protest; he was as clay in the hands of the silent
Oriental. Having fanned his wet face again for some time, Said, breaking
the long silence, muttered:
“Ikfil'iyyun!”
Soames stared. Said indicated, by pantomime, that he desired him to
close his eyes, and Soames obeyed mechanically. Thereupon the Oriental
busied himself with the ex-butler's not very abundant lashes for five
minutes or more. Then the busy fingers were at work with his inadequate
eyebrows: finally:--
“Khalas!” muttered Said, tapping him on the shoulder.
Soames wearily opened his eyes, wondering if his strange martyrdom were
nearly at its end. He discovered his hair to be still rather damp, but,
since it was sparse, it was rapidly drying. His eyes smarted painfully.
Removing all trace of his operations, Said, with no word of farewell,
took up his towels, bottles and other paraphernalia and departed.
Soames watched the retreating figure crossing the outer room, but did
not rise from the chair until the door had closed behind Said. Then,
feeling strangely like a man who has drunk too heavily, he stood up
and walked into the bedroom. There was a small shaving-glass upon the
chest-of-drawers, and to this he advanced, filled with the wildest
apprehensions.
One glance he ventured, and started back with a groan.
His apprehensions had fallen short of the reality. With one hand
clutching the bedrail, he stood there swaying from side to side, and
striving to screw up his courage to the point whereat he might venture
upon a second glance in the mirror. At last he succeeded, looking long
and pitifully.
“Oh, Lord!” he groaned, “what a guy!”
Beyond doubt he was strangely changed. By nature, Luke Soames had hair
of a sandy color; now it was of so dark a brown as to seem black in the
lamplight. His thin eyebrows and scanty lashes were naturally almost
colorless; but they were become those of a pronounced brunette. He was
of pale complexion, but to-night had the face of a mulatto, or of one
long in tropical regions. In short, he was another man--a man whom he
detested at first sight!
This was the price, or perhaps only part of the price, of his
indiscretion. Mr. Soames was become Mr. Lucas. Clutching the top of
the chest-of-drawers with both hands, he glared at his own reflection,
dazedly.
In that pose, he was interrupted. Said, silently opening the door behind
him, muttered:
“Ta'ala wayyaya!”
Soames whirled around in a sudden panic, his heart leaping madly. The
immobile brown face peered in at the door.
“Ta'ala wayyaya!” repeated Said, his face expressionless as a mask. He
pointed along the corridor. “Ho-Pin Effendi!” he explained.
Soames, raising his hands to his collarless neck, made a swallowing
noise, and would have spoken; but:
“Ta'ala wayyaya!” reiterated the Oriental.
Soames hesitated no more. Reentering the corridor, with its
straw-matting walls, he made a curious discovery. Away to the left it
terminated in a blank, matting-covered wall. There was no indication of
the door by which he had entered it. Glancing hurriedly to the right,
he failed also to perceive any door there. The bespectacled Ho-Pin
stood halfway along the passage, awaiting him. Following Said in that
direction, Soames was greeted with the announcement:
“Mr. King will see you.”
The words taught Soames that his capacity for emotion was by no means
exhausted. His endless conjectures respecting the mysterious Mr. King
were at last to be replaced by facts; he was to see him, to speak with
him. He knew now that it was a fearful privilege which gladly he would
have denied himself.
Ho-Pin opened a door almost immediately behind him, a door the existence
of which had not hitherto been evident to Soames. Beyond, was a dark
passage.
“You will follow me, closely,” said Ho-Pin with one of his piercing
glances.
Soames, finding his legs none too steady, entered the passage behind
Ho-Pin. As he did so, the door was closed by Said, and he found himself
in absolute darkness.
“Keep close behind me,” directed the metallic voice.
Soames could not see the speaker, since no ray of light penetrated
into the passage. He stretched out a groping hand, and, although he was
conscious of an odd revulsion, touched the shoulder of the man in front
of him and maintained that unpleasant contact whilst they walked on and
on through apparently endless passages, extensive as a catacomb. Many
corners they turned; they turned to the right, they turned to the left.
Soames was hopelessly bewildered. Then, suddenly, Ho-Pin stopped.
“Stand still,” he said.
Soames became vaguely aware that a door was being closed somewhere near
to him. A lamp lighted up directly over his head... he found himself in
a small library!
Its four walls were covered with book-shelves from floor to ceiling, and
the shelves were packed to overflowing with books in most unusual and
bizarre bindings. A red carpet was on the floor and a red-shaded lamp
hung from the ceiling, which was conventionally white-washed. Although
there was no fireplace, the room was immoderately hot, and heavy with
the perfume of roses. On three little tables were great bowls filled
with roses, and there were other bowls containing roses in gaps between
the books on the open shelves.
A tall screen of beautifully carved sandalwood masked one corner of
the room, but beyond it protruded the end of a heavy writing-table upon
which lay some loose papers, and, standing amid them, an enormous silver
rose-bowl, brimming with sulphur-colored blooms.
Soames, obeying a primary instinct, turned, as the light leaped into
being, to seek the door by which he had entered. As he did so, the
former doubts of his own sanity returned with renewed vigor.
The book-lined wall behind him was unbroken by any opening.
Slowly, as a man awaking from a stupor, Soames gazed around the library.
It contained no door.
He rested his hand upon one of the shelves and closed his eyes. Beyond
doubt he was going mad! The tragic events of that night had proved too
much for him; he had never disguised from himself the fact that his
mental capacity was not of the greatest. He was assured, now, that
his brain had lost its balance shortly after his flight from Palace
Mansions, and that the events of the past two hours had been phantasmal.
He would presently return to sanity (or, blasphemously, he dared to
petition heaven that he would) and find himself...? Perhaps in the hands
of the police!
“Oh, God!” he groaned--“Oh, God!”
He opened his eyes...
A woman stood before the sandalwood screen! She had the pallidly dusky
skin of a Eurasian, but, by virtue of nature or artifice, her cheeks
wore a peachlike bloom. Her features were flawless in their chiseling,
save for the slightly distended nostrils, and her black eyes were
magnificent.
She was divinely petite, slender and girlish; but there was that in
the lines of her figure, so seductively defined by her clinging Chinese
dress, in the poise of her small head, with the blush rose nestling
amid the black hair--above all in the smile of her full red lips--which
discounted the youth of her body; which whispered “Mine is a soul old
in strange sins--a soul for whom dead Alexandria had no secrets, that
learnt nothing of Athenean Thais and might have tutored Messalina”...
In her fanciful robe of old gold, with her tiny feet shod in
ridiculously small, gilt slippers, she stood by the screen watching
the stupefied man--an exquisite, fragrantly youthful casket of ancient,
unnameable evils.
“Good evening, Soames!” she said, stumbling quaintly with her English,
but speaking in a voice musical as a silver bell. “You will here be
known as Lucas. Mr. King he wishing me to say that you to receive two
pounds, at each week.”...
Soames, glassy-eyed, stood watching her. A horror, the horror of
insanity, had descended upon him--a clammy, rose-scented mantle. The
room, the incredible, book-lined room, was a red blur, surrounding the
black, taunting eyes of the Eurasian. Everything was out of focus; past,
present, and future were merged into a red, rose-haunted nothingness...
“You will attend to Block A,” resumed the girl, pointing at him with a
little fan. “You will also attend to the gentlemen.”...
She laughed softly, revealing tiny white teeth; then paused, head tilted
coquettishly, and appeared to be listening to someone's conversation--to
the words of some person seated behind the screen. This fact broke in
upon Soames' disordered mind and confirmed him in his opinion that he
was a man demented. For only one slight sound broke the silence of the
room. The red carpet below the little tables was littered with
rose petals, and, in the super-heated atmosphere, other petals kept
falling--softly, with a gentle rustling. Just that sound there was...
and no other. Then:
“Mr. King he wishing to point out to you,” said the girl, “that he hold
receipts of you, which bind you to him. So you will be free man, and
have liberty to go out sometimes for your own business. Mr. King he
wishing to hear you say you thinking to agree with the conditions and be
satisfied.”
She ceased speaking, but continued to smile; and so complete was the
stillness, that Soames, whose sense of hearing had become nervously
stimulated, heard a solitary rose petal fall upon the corner of the
writing-table.
“I... agree,” he whispered huskily; “and... I am... satisfied.”
He looked at the carven screen as a lost soul might look at the gate of
Hades; he felt now that if a sound should come from beyond it he would
shriek out, he would stop up his ears; that if the figure of the Unseen
should become visible, he must die at the first glimpse of it.
The little brown girl was repeating the uncanny business of listening
to that voice of silence; and Soames knew that he could not sustain his
part in this eerie comedy for another half-minute without breaking out
into hysterical laughter. Then:
“Mr. King he releasing you for to-night,” announced the silver bell
voice.
The light went out.
Soames uttered a groan of terror, followed by a short, bubbling laugh,
but was seized firmly by the arm and led on into the blackness--on
through the solid, book-laden walls, presumably; and on--on--on, along
those interminable passages by which he had come. Here the air was
cooler, and the odor of roses no longer perceptible, no longer stifling
him, no longer assailing his nostrils, not as an odor of sweetness, but
as a perfume utterly damnable and unholy.
With his knees trembling at every step, he marched on, firmly supported
by his unseen companion.
“Stop!” directed a metallic, guttural voice.
Soames pulled up, and leaned weakly against the wall. He heard the clap
of hands close behind him; and a door opened within twelve inches of the
spot whereat he stood.
He tottered out into the matting-lined corridor from which he had
started upon that nightmare journey; Ho-Pin appeared at his elbow, but
no door appeared behind Ho-Pin!
“This is your wroom,” said the Chinaman, revealing his yellow teeth in a
mirthless smile.
He walked across the corridor, threw open a door--a real, palpable
door... and there was Soames' little white room!
Soames staggered across, for it seemed a veritable haven of
refuge--entered, and dropped upon the bed. He seemed to see the
rose-petals fall--fall--falling in that red room in the labyrinth--the
room that had no door; he seemed to see the laughing eyes of the
beautiful Eurasian.
“Good night!” came the metallic voice of Ho-Pin.
The light in the corridor went out.
XVI
HO-PIN'S CATACOMBS
The newly-created Mr. Lucas entered upon a sort of cave-man existence
in this fantastic abode where night was day and day was night; where the
sun never shone.
He was awakened on the first morning of his sojourn in the establishment
of Ho-Pin by the loud ringing of an electric bell immediately beside his
bed. He sprang upright with a catching of the breath, peering about him
at the unfamiliar surroundings and wondering, in the hazy manner of a
sleeper newly awakened, where he was, and how come there. He was fully
dressed, and his strapped-up grip lay beside him on the floor; for he
had not dared to remove his clothes, had not dared to seek slumber
after that terrifying interview with Mr. King. But outraged nature had
prevailed, and sleep had come unbeckoned, unbidden.
The electric light was still burning in the room, as he had left it, and
as he sat up, looking about him, a purring whistle drew his attention to
a speaking-tube which protruded below the bell.
Soames rolled from the bed, head throbbing, and an acrid taste in his
mouth, and spoke into the tube:
“Hullo!”
“You will pwrepare for youwr duties,” came the metallic gutturals of
Ho-Pin. “Bwreakfast will be bwrought to you in a quawrter-of-an-hour.”
He made no reply, but stood looking about him dully. It had not been a
dream, then, nor was he mad. It was a horrible reality; here, in London,
in modern, civilized London, he was actually buried in some incredible
catacomb; somewhere near to him, very near to him, was the cave of the
golden dragon, and, also adjacent--terrifying thought--was the doorless
library, the rose-scented haunt where the beautiful Eurasian spoke,
oracularly, the responses of Mr. King!
Soames could not understand it all; he felt that such things could
not be; that there must exist an explanation of those seeming
impossibilities other than that they actually existed. But the
instructions were veritable enough, and would not be denied.
Rapidly he began to unpack his grip. His watch had stopped, since he
had neglected to wind it, and he hurried with his toilet, fearful of
incurring the anger of Ho-Pin--of Ho-Pin, the beetlesque.
He observed, with passive interest, that the operation of shaving did
not appreciably lighten the stain upon his skin, and, by the time that
he was shaved, he had begun to know the dark-haired, yellow-faced
man grimacing in the mirror for himself; but he was far from being
reconciled to his new appearance.
Said peeped in at the door. He no longer wore his chauffeur's livery,
but was arrayed in a white linen robe, red-sashed, and wore loose, red
slippers; a tarboosh perched upon his shaven skull.
Pushing the door widely open, he entered with a tray upon which was
spread a substantial breakfast.
“Hurryup!” he muttered, as one word; wherewith he departed again.
Soames seated himself at the little table upon which the tray rested,
and endeavored to eat. His usual appetite had departed with his
identity; Mr. Lucas was a poor, twitching being of raw nerves and
internal qualms. He emptied the coffee-pot, however, and smoked a
cigarette which he found in his case.
Said reappeared.
“Ta'ala!” he directed.
Soames having learnt that that term was evidently intended as an
invitation to follow Said, rose and followed, dumbly.
He was conducted along the matting-lined corridor to the left; and now,
where formerly he had seen a blank wall, he saw an open door! Passing
this, he discovered himself in the cave of the golden dragon.
Ho-Pin, dressed in a perfectly fitting morning coat and its usual
accompaniments, received him with a mirthless smile.
“Good mowrning!” he said; “I twrust your bwreakfast was satisfactowry?”
“Quite, sir,” replied Soames, mechanically, and as he might have replied
to Mr. Leroux.
“Said will show you to a wroom,” continued Ho-Pin, “where you will find
a gentleman awaiting you. You will valet him and perfowrm any other
services which he may wrequire of you. When he departs, you will clean
the wroom and adjoining bath-wroom, and put it into thowrough order
for an incoming tenant. In short, your duties in this wrespect will be
identical to those which formerly you perfowrmed at sea. There is
one important diffewrence: your name is Lucas, and you will answer no
questions.”