his constitutional nervousness. In his waistcoat pocket was a brand new
Yale key which, his latest employer had assured him, fitted the lock
of the end door of Block A. The door between the cave of the dragon
and Block A was never locked, so far as Soames was aware, nor was that
opening from the corridor in which his own room was situated. Therefore,
only a few moments--fearful moments, certainly--need intervene, ere
he should have a companion; and within a few minutes of that time, the
police--his friends!--would be there to protect him! He recognized that
the law, after all, was omnipotent, and of all masters was the master to
be served.
There was no light in the corridor. Leaving his door ajar, he tiptoed
cautiously along toward the cave. Assuring himself once again that the
pistol lay in his pocket, he fumbled for the lever which opened the
door, found it, depressed it, and stepped quietly forward in his
slippered feet.
The unmistakable odor of the place assailed his nostrils. All was in
darkness, and absolute silence prevailed. He had a rough idea of the
positions of the various little tables, and he stepped cautiously
in order to skirt them; but evidently he had made a miscalculation.
Something caught his foot, and with a muffled thud he sprawled upon the
floor, barely missing one of the tables which he had been at such pains
to avoid.
Trembling like a man with an ague, he lay there, breathing in short,
staccato breaths, and clutching the pistol in his pocket. Certainly he
had made no great noise, but...
Nothing stirred.
Soames summoned up courage to rise and to approach again the door of
Block A. Without further mishap he reached it, opened it, and entered
the blackness of the corridor. He could make no mistake in regard to
the door, for it was the end one. He stole quietly along, his fingers
touching the matting, until he came in contact with the corner angle;
then, feeling along from the wall until he touched the strip of bamboo
which marked the end of the door, he probed about gently with the key;
for he knew to within an inch or so where the keyhole was situated.
Ah! he had it! His hand trembling slightly, he sought to insert the key
in the lock. It defied his efforts. He felt it gently with the fingers
of his left hand, thinking that he might have been endeavoring to
insert the key with the irregular edge downward, and not uppermost; but
no--such was not the case.
Again he tried, and with no better result. His nerves were threatening
to overcome him, now; he had not counted upon any such hitch as this:
but fear sharpened his wits. He recollected the fall which he had
sustained, and how he had been precipitated upon the polished floor,
outside.
Could he have mistaken his direction? Was it not possible that owing to
his momentary panic, he had arisen, facing not the door at the foot of
the steps, as he had supposed, but that by which a moment earlier he had
entered the cave of the golden dragon?
Desperation was with him now; he was gone too far to draw back. Trailing
his fingers along the matting covering of the wall, he retraced his
steps, came to the open door, and reentered the apartment of the dragon.
He complimented himself, fearfully, upon his own address, for he was
inspired with an idea whereby he might determine his position. Picking
his way among the little tables and the silken ottomans, he groped about
with his hands in the impenetrable darkness for the pedestal supporting
the dragon. At last his fingers touched the ivory. He slid them
downward, feeling for the great vase of poppies which always stood
before the golden image....
The vase was on the LEFT and not on the RIGHT of the pedestal. His
theory was correct; he had been groping in the mysterious precincts of
that Block B which he had never entered, which he had never seen any one
else enter, and from whence he had never known any one to emerge! It
was the fall that had confused him; now, he took his bearings anew, bent
down to feel for any tables that might lie in his path, and crept across
the apartment toward the door which he sought.
Ah! this time there could be no mistake! He depressed the lever handle,
and, as the door swung open before him, crept furtively into the
corridor.
Repeating the process whereby he had determined the position of the end
door, he fumbled once again for the keyhole. He found it with even less
difficulty than he had experienced in the wrong corridor, inserted the
key in the lock, and with intense satisfaction felt it slip into place.
He inhaled a long breath of the lifeless air, turned the key, and threw
the door open. One step forward he took...
A whistle (God! he knew it!) a low, minor whistle, wavered through the
stillness. He was enveloped, mantled, choked, by the perfume of ROSES!
The door, which, although it had opened easily, had seemed to be a
remarkably heavy one, swung to behind him; he heard the click of the
lock. Like a trapped animal, he turned, leaped back, and found his
quivering hands in contact with books--books--books...
A lamp lighted up in the center of the room.
Soames turned and stood pressed closely against the book-shelves,
against the book-shelves which magically had grown up in front of the
door by which he had entered. He was in the place of books and roses--in
the haunt of MR. KING!
A great clarity of mind came to him, as it comes to a drowning man; he
knew that those endless passages, through which once he had been led
in darkness, did not exist, that he had been deceived, had been guided
along the same corridor again and again; he knew that this room of roses
did not lie at the heart of a labyrinth, but almost adjoined the cave of
the golden dragon.
He knew that he was a poor, blind fool; that his plotting had been
known to those whom he had thought to betray; that the new key which
had opened a way into this place of dread was not the key which his
accomplice had given him. He knew that that upon which he had tripped at
the outset of his journey had been set in his path by cunning design, in
order that the fall might confuse his sense of direction. He knew that
the great vase of poppies had been moved, that night....
God! his brain became a seething furnace.
There, before him, upstood the sandalwood screen, with one corner of the
table projecting beyond it. Nothing of life was visible in the perfumed
place, where deathly silence prevailed....
No lion has greater courage than a cornered rat. Soames plucked the
pistol from his pocket and fired at the screen--ONCE!--TWICE!
He heard the muffled report, saw the flash of the little weapon, saw
the two holes in the carven woodwork, and gained a greater, hysterical
courage--the courage of a coward's desperation.
Immediately before him was a little ebony table, bearing a silver bowl,
laden to the brim with sulphur-colored roses. He overturned the table
with his foot, laughing wildly. In three strides he leapt across the
room, grasped the sandalwood screen, and hurled it to the floor....
In the instant of its fall, he became as Lot's wife. The pistol dropped
from his nerveless grasp, thudding gently on the carpet, and, with his
fingers crooked paralytically, he stood swaying... and looking into the
face of MR. KING!
Soames' body already was as rigid as it would be in death; his mind was
numbed--useless. But his outraged soul forced utterance from the lips of
the man.
A scream, a scream to have made the angels shudder, to have inspired
pity in the devils of Hell, burst from him. Two yellow hands leaped at
his throat....
XXXVIII
THE SECRET TRAPS
Gaston Max, from his silken bed in the catacombs of Ho-Pin, watched the
hand of his watch which lay upon the little table beside him. Already it
was past two o'clock, and no sign had come from Soames; a hundred times
his imagination had almost tricked him into believing that the door was
opening; but always the idea had been illusory and due to the purple
shadow of the lamp-shade which overcast that side of the room and the
door.
He had experienced no difficulty in arranging with Gianapolis to occupy
the same room as formerly; and, close student of human nature though he
was, he had been unable to detect in the Greek's manner, when they
had met that night, the slightest restraint, the slightest evidence of
uneasiness. His reception by Ho-Pin had varied scarce one iota from that
accorded him on his first visit to the cave of the golden dragon. The
immobile Egyptian had brought him the opium, and had departed silently
as before. On this occasion, the trap above the bed had not been opened.
But hour after hour had passed, uneventfully, silently, in that still,
suffocating room....
A key in the lock!--yes, a key was being inserted in the lock! He
must take no unnecessary risks; it might be another than Soames. He
waited--the faint sound of fumbling ceased. Still, he waited, listening
intently.
Half-past-two. If it had been Soames, why had he withdrawn? M. Max arose
noiselessly and looked about him. He was undecided what to do, when...
Two shots, followed by a most appalling shriek--the more frightful
because it was muffled; the shriek of a man in extremis, of one who
stands upon the brink of Eternity, brought him up rigid, tense,
with fists clenched, with eyes glaring; wrought within this fearless
investigator an emotion akin to terror.
Just that one gruesome cry there was and silence again.
What did it mean?
M. Max began hastily to dress. He discovered, in endeavoring to fasten
his collar, that his skin was wet with cold perspiration.
“Pardieu!” he said, twisting his mouth into that wry smile, “I know,
now, the meaning of fright!”
He was ever glancing toward the door, not hopefully as hitherto, but
apprehensively, fearfully.
That shriek in the night might portend merely the delirium of some other
occupant of the catacombs; but the shots...
“It was SOAMES!” he whispered aloud; “I have risked too much; I am fast
in the rat-trap!”
He looked about him for a possible weapon. The time for inactivity was
past. It would be horrible to die in that reeking place, whilst outside,
it might be, immediately above his head, Dunbar and the others waited
and watched.
The construction of the metal bunk attracted his attention. As in the
case of steamer bunks one of the rails--that nearer to the door--was
detachable in order to facilitate the making of the bed. Rapidly,
nervously, he unscrewed it; but the hinges were riveted to the main
structure, and after a brief examination he shrugged his shoulders
despairingly. Then, he recollected that in the adjoining bathroom there
was a metal towel rail, nickeled, and with a heavy knock at either end,
attached by two brackets to the wall.
He ran into the inner room and eagerly examined these fastenings. They
were attached by small steel screws. In an instant he was at work with
the blade of his pocket-knife. Six screws in all there were to be dealt
with, three at either end. The fifth snapped the blade and he uttered an
exclamation of dismay. But the shortened implement proved to be an even
better screw-driver than the original blade, and half a minute later he
found himself in possession of a club such as would have delighted the
soul of Hercules.
He managed to unscrew one of the knobs, and thus to slide off from the
bar the bracket attachments; then, replacing the knob, he weighed the
bar in his hand, appreciatively. His mind now was wholly composed, and
his course determined. He crossed the little room and rapped loudly upon
the door.
The rapping sounded muffled and dim in that sound-proof place. Nothing
happened, and thrice he repeated the rapping with like negative results.
But he had learnt something: the door was a very heavy one.
He made a note of the circumstance, although it did not interfere with
the plan which he had in mind. Wheeling the armchair up beside the bed,
he mounted upon its two arms and, ONCE--TWICE--THRICE--crashed the knob
of the iron bar against that part of the wall which concealed the trap.
Here the result was immediate. At every blow of the bar the trap
behind yielded. A fourth blow sent the knob crashing through the gauze
material, and far out into some dark place beyond. There was a sound as
of a number of books falling.
He had burst the trap.
Up on the back of the chair he mounted, resting his bar against the
wall, and began in feverish haste to tear away the gauze concealing the
rectangular opening.
An almost overpowering perfume of roses was wafted into his face. In
front of him was blackness.
Having torn away all the gauze, he learned that the opening was some two
feet long by one foot high. Resting the bar across the ledge he
extended his head and shoulders forward through this opening into the
rose-scented place beyond, and without any great effort drew himself up
with his hands, so that, provided he could find some support upon
the other side, it would be a simple matter to draw himself through
entirely.
He felt about with his fingers, right and left, and in doing so
disturbed another row of books, which fell upon the floor beneath him.
He had apparently come out in the middle of a large book-shelf. To
the left of him projected the paper-covered door of the trap, at right
angles; above and below were book-laden shelves, and on the right there
had been other books, until his questing fingers had disturbed them.
M. Max, despite his weight, was an agile man. Clutching the shelf
beneath, he worked his way along to the right, gradually creeping
further and further into the darkened room, until at last he could draw
his feet through the opening and crouch sideways upon the shelf.
He lowered his left foot, sought for and found another shelf beneath,
and descended as by a ladder to the thickly carpeted floor. Grasping the
end of the bar, he pulled that weapon down; then he twisted the button
which converted his timepiece into an electric lantern, and, holding the
bar in one tensely quivering hand, looked rapidly about him.
This was a library; a small library, with bowls of roses set upon
tables, shelves, in gaps between the books, and one lying overturned
upon the floor. Although it was almost drowned by their overpowering
perfume, he detected a faint smell of powder. In one corner stood
a large writing-table with papers strewn carelessly upon it. Its
appointments were markedly Chinese in character, from the singular, gold
inkwell to the jade paperweight; markedly Chinese--and--FEMININE. A very
handsome screen lay upon the floor in front of this table, and the rich
carpet he noted to be disordered as if a struggle had taken place upon
it. But, most singular circumstance of all, and most disturbing... there
was no door to this room!
For a moment he failed to appreciate the entire significance of this.
A secret room difficult to enter he could comprehend, but a secret room
difficult to QUIT passed his comprehension completely. Moreover, he was
no better off for his exploit.
Three minutes sufficed him in which to examine the shelves covering the
four walls of the room from floor to ceiling. None of the books were
dummies, and slowly the fact began to dawn upon his mind that what at
first he had assumed to be a rather simple device, was, in truth, almost
incomprehensible.
For how, in the name of Sanity, did the occupant of this room--and
obviously it was occupied at times--enter and leave it?
“Ah!” he muttered, shining the light upon a row of yellow-bound volumes
from which he had commenced his tour of inspection and to which that
tour had now led him back, “it is uncanny--this!”
He glanced back at the rectangular patch of light which marked the trap
whereby he had entered this supernormal room. It was situated close to
one corner of the library, and, acting upon an idea which came to him
(any idea was better than none) he proceeded to throw down the books
occupying the corresponding position at the other end of the shelf.
A second trap was revealed, identical with that through which he had
entered!
It was fastened with a neat brass bolt; and, standing upon one of the
little Persian tables--from which he removed a silver bowl of roses--he
opened this trap and looked into the lighted room beyond. He saw an
apartment almost identical with that which he himself recently had
quitted; but in one particular it differed. It was occupied... AND BY A
WOMAN!
Arrayed in a gossamer nightrobe she lay in the bed, beneath the trap,
her sunken face matching the silken whiteness. Her thin arms drooped
listlessly over the rails of the bunk, and upon her left hand M. Max
perceived a wedding ring. Her hair, flaxen in the electric light, was
spread about in wildest disorder upon the pillow, and a breath of fetid
air assailed his nostrils as he pressed his face close to the gauze
masking the opening in order to peer closely at this victim of the
catacombs.
He watched the silken covering of her bosom, intently, but failed to
detect the slightest movement.
“Morbleu!” he muttered, “is she dead?”
He rent the gauze with a sweep of his left hand, and standing upon the
bottom shelf of the case, craned forward into the room, looking all
about him. A purple shaded lamp burnt above the bed as in the adjoining
apartment which he himself had occupied. There were dainty feminine
trifles littered in the big armchair, and a motor-coat hung upon the
hook of the bathroom door. A small cabin-trunk in one corner of the room
bore the initials: “M. L.”
Max dropped back into the incredible library with a stifled gasp.
“Pardieu!” he said. “It is Mrs. Leroux that I have found!”
A moment he stood looking from trap to trap; then turned and surveyed
again the impassable walls, the rows of works, few of which were
European, some of them bound in vellum, some in pigskin, and one row of
huge volumes, ten in number, on the bottom shelf, in crocodile hide.
“It is weird, this!” he muttered, “nightmare!”--turning the light from
row to row. “How is this lamp lighted that swings here?”
He began to search for the switch, and, even before he found it, had
made up his mind that, once discovered, it would not only enable him
more fully to illuminate the library, but would constitute a valuable
clue.
At last he found it, situated at the back of one of the shelves, and set
above a row of four small books, so that it could readily be reached by
inserting the hand.
He flooded the place with light; and perceived at a glance that a length
of white flex crossing the ceiling enabled anyone seated at the table
to ignite the lamp from there also. Then, replacing his torch in his
pocket, and assuring himself that the iron bar lay within easy reach, he
began deliberately to remove all of the books from the shelves covering
that side of the room upon which the switch was situated. His theory
was a sound one; he argued that the natural and proper place for such a
switch in such a room would be immediately inside the door, so that one
entering could ignite the lamp without having to grope in the darkness.
He was encouraged, furthermore, by the fact that at a point some four
feet to the left of this switch there was a gap in the bookcases,
running from floor to ceiling; a gap no more than four inches across.
Having removed every book from its position, save three, which occupied
a shelf on a level with his shoulder and adjoining the gap, he desisted
wearily, for many of the volumes were weighty, and the heat of the room
was almost insufferable. He dropped with a sigh upon a silk ottoman
close beside him....
A short, staccato, muffled report split the heavy silence... and a
little round hole appeared in the woodwork of the book-shelf before
which, an instant earlier, M. Max had been standing--in the woodwork of
that shelf, which had been upon a level with his head.
In one giant leap he hurled himself across the room--... as a second
bullet pierced the yellow silk of the ottoman.
Close under the trap he crouched, staring up, fearful-eyed....
A yellow hand and arm--a hand and arm of great nervous strength and of
the hue of old ivory, directed a pistol through the opening above him.
As he leaped, the hand was depressed with a lightning movement, but,
lunging suddenly upward, Max seized the barrel of the pistol, and with
a powerful wrench, twisted it from the grasp of the yellow hand. It was
his own Browning!
At the time--in that moment of intense nervous excitement--he ascribed
his sensations to his swift bout with Death--with Death who almost
had conquered; but later, even now, as he wrenched the weapon into
his grasp, he wondered if physical fear could wholly account for the
sickening revulsion which held him back from that rectangular opening in
the bookcase. He thought that he recognized in this a kindred horror--as
distinct from terror--to that which had come to him with the odor of
roses through this very trap, upon the night of his first visit to the
catacombs of Ho-Pin.
It was not as the fear which one has of a dangerous wild beast, but
as the loathing which is inspired by a thing diseased, leprous,
contagious....
A mighty effort of will was called for, but he managed to achieve it.
He drew himself upright, breathing very rapidly, and looked through into
the room--the room which he had occupied, and from which a moment ago
the murderous yellow hand had protruded.
That room was empty... empty as he had left it!
“Mille tonnerres! he has escaped me!” he cried aloud, and the words did
not seem of his own choosing.
WHO had escaped? Someone--man or woman; rather some THING, which, yellow
handed, had sought to murder him!
Max ran across to the second trap and looked down at the woman whom he
knew, beyond doubt, to be Mrs. Leroux. She lay in her death-like trance,
unmoved.
Strung up to uttermost tension, he looked down at her and
listened--listened, intently.
Above the fumes of the apartment in which the woman lay, a stifling odor
of roses was clearly perceptible. The whole place was tropically hot.
Not a sound, save the creaking of the shelf beneath him, broke the heavy
stillness.
XXXIX
THE LABYRINTH
Feverishly, Max clutched at the last three books upon the shelf
adjoining the gap. Of these, the center volume, a work bound in yellow
calf and bearing no title, proved to be irremovable; right and left it
could be inclined, but not moved outward. It masked the lever handle of
the door!
But that door was locked.
Max, with upraised arms, swept the perspiration from his brows and eyes;
he leant dizzily up against the door which defied him; his mind was
working with febrile rapidity. He placed the pistol in his pocket,
and, recrossing the room, mounted up again upon the shelves, and crept
through into the apartment beyond, from which the yellow hand had
protruded. He dropped, panting, upon the bed, then, eagerly leaping to
the door, grasped the handle.
“Pardieu!” he muttered, “it is unlocked!”
Though the light was still burning in this room, the corridor outside
was in darkness. He pressed the button of the ingenious lamp which was
also a watch, and made for the door communicating with the cave of the
dragon. It was readily to be detected by reason of its visible handle;
the other doors being externally indistinguishable from the rest of the
matting-covered wall.
The cave of the dragon proved to be empty, and in darkness. He ran
across its polished floor and opened at random the door immediately
facing him. A corridor similar to the one which he had just quitted
was revealed. Another door was visible at one end, and to this he ran,
pulled it open, stepped through the opening, and found himself back in
the cave of the dragon!
“Morbleu!” he muttered, “it is bewildering--this!”
Yet another door, this time one of ebony, he opened; and yet another
matting-lined corridor presented itself to his gaze. He swept it with
the ray of the little lamp, detected a door, opened it, and entered a
similar suite to those with which he already was familiar. It was empty,
but, unlike the one which he himself had tenanted, this suite possessed
two doors, the second opening out of the bathroom. To this he ran; it
was unlocked; he opened it, stepped ahead... and was back again in the
cave of the dragon.
“Mon dieu!” he cried, “this is Chinese--quite Chinese!”
He stood looking about him, flashing the ray of light upon doors which
were opened and upon openings in the walls where properly there should
have been no doors.
“I am too late!” he muttered; “they had information of this and they
have 'unloaded.' That they intend to fly the country is proven by their
leaving Mrs. Leroux behind. Ah, nom d'un nom, the good God grant that
they have left also.”...