“One minute, sir. I shan't hurt you!”
With a comical look at the inspector John Steadman submitted himself
to the hands of the little old man in the shabby black suit, who was
surveying him with critical eyes in the looking-glass, and who now
approached him with a curious little instrument looking like a pair of
very fine tweezers, combined with a needle so minute that it almost
required a microscope to see it.
They were in a small room at the back of a little shop in Soho,
whither the inspector had conducted John Steadman, and where the
former had already undergone a curious metamorphosis.
The presiding genius of the establishment was this little old man with
an oddly wrinkled face that reminded Steadman of a marmoset, and with
pale grey eyes that were set far apart, and that seemed to stare
straight at you and almost through you, with as little expression as a
stone. The room was odd-looking as well as its master. It had very
little furniture in it. Nothing on the wall but the big looking-glass
that ran from floor to ceiling, and occupied the greater part of one
side. Two tables stood near and a very old worm-eaten escritoire was
by the window. There were four chairs in the room, all of the plain
Windsor variety, one standing right in front of the mirror differing
from the others only in that it had arms and an adjustable head.
Inspector Furnival had just been released from its clutches, and now
John Steadman was taking his place. A huge enveloping sheet was thrown
over him; a brilliant incandescent light was focused upon him, and the
queer little marmoset face, with a big, curiously made magnifying
glass screwed into it, was submitting him to an anxious scrutiny.
“I shall not hurt you,” the soft, caressing voice with its foreign
intonation repeated. “Just a few hairs put in—a few put in, and
Monsieur's best friend would not know him.”
Steadman thought it very likely his best friend would not as he
glanced back at the inspector. But now the lean yellow fingers were at
work. From the angle at which the head-rest was fixed the barrister
could not see what they were doing, but they were pinching, prodding,
stabbing. It seemed to him that they would never stop. At last,
however, the tweezers were thrown aside and he felt little, tiny
brushes at work, dropping moisture here, drying it up with fragrant
powder.
“Monsieur's teeth?” the foreign voice said with its sing-song
intonation.
Steadman shrugged his shoulders as he took a plate from his mouth and
dropped it into the finger-bowl held out to him.
“Ah, all the top! That is goot—very goot!” Something soft and warm was
pressed into his mouth, pushed up and down until at last it felt
secure. Then, with a satisfied sigh, the yellow fingers raised the
head-rest; the little man stood back, the marmoset face wrinkled
itself into a satisfied smile. “I hope that Monsieur is pleased.”
Steadman, as he faced his reflection, thought that it was not a
question of his best friend but that he himself would not have
recognized the image he saw therein. The shape of the eyebrows had
been entirely altered. They now slanted upwards, while a clever
disposition of lines and hairs made the eyelids themselves appear to
narrow and lengthen. His hair, thin in front and near the temples for
many a long day now, had actually disappeared, and the enormously
broad, high expanse of forehead was furrowed with skilfully drawn
lines, and like the rest of his face of a greenish, greyish colour.
The nose had become thinner in a mysterious fashion, the bridge had
grown higher, the nostrils had widened. But the greatest change was in
the mouth—the lips were thicker, more sensual looking. Then, in place
of Steadman's perfectly fitting artificial teeth were several
projecting yellow fangs with hideous gaps between.
Altogether the effect of a particularly unprepossessing, partially
Anglicized Oriental.
“As the English talk, she, your own mother would not know you, eh?”
the silky voice questioned anxiously.
And John Steadman, smiling in the curiously stiff fashion which was
all the alterations would allow, said that he was sure she would not.
Both he and Furnival donned queerly designed overcoats that looked
more like dressing-gowns than anything else, and soft hats. As they
made their way through the streets with their hands folded in front
and hidden by their wide sleeves, their eyes masked in blue
spectacles, their heads turned neither to the right nor left, no one
would have suspected their disguise—no one would have taken them for
Englishmen. They got into a taxi and the inspector gave an address not
far from Stepney Causeway. Once safely inside, he handed Steadman an
automatic pistol and a police whistle.
“For emergencies,” he said shortly. “I don't fancy we shall have to
use them; but the police are all round the house. At the sound of the
whistle they will rush the place.”
“Yes, you may depend upon me, inspector,” Steadman said quietly.
“Here we are!” said the inspector, drawing a couple of parcels from
his capacious pockets. One of them he handed to John Steadman, the
other he unfastened himself. He shook out a voluminous, flimsy garment
of bright yellow and unwrapped from its tissue paper a small yellow
mask. “These dominoes we had better put on here beneath our overcoats,
Mr. Steadman, and our masks we shall have to slip on as soon as we get
inside.”
John Steadman was surveying his with some amusement. “Certainly, we
shall look like Yellow Dogs ourselves. You have had the cordon drawn
all round as I suggested, inspector?”
“It is as narrow as can be, sir. They will almost be able to hear what
we say. Oh, I am taking no risks. But I mean to catch the Big Yellow
Dog himself to-night—dead or alive.”
“Ay! Dead or alive!” Steadman echoed. “You have been near him once or
twice before, haven't you, inspector?”
“Not so near as I shall be to-night,” the inspector retorted.
They had no time for more. The taxi stopped and they got out. The
inspector paused to give a few low-toned directions to the cabman,
then he led the way down a side street. From this there seemed to
Steadman to spread out in every direction, a perfect network of narrow
streets and alleys. It was a veritable maze and the barrister would
have been utterly bewildered, but the inspector apparently knew his
ground, as he wound himself in and out with an eel-like dexterity. At
last, however, he slackened his steps and then, side by side, he and
Steadman made their way over the ill-kept, ill-lighted pavement. More
than once the barrister heard a faint cheeping sound issue from the
inspector's lips. Although he heard no response, he knew that the
cordon that the detective had spoken of was in its place.
When the inspector stopped again he looked round and up and down, then
turned sharply to the right into a small _cul-de-sac_ apparently
running between two high brick walls, for Steadman could see no
windows on either side. As they were nearing the opposite end to that
by which they had entered, however, they came upon a low door at the
right. To the barrister's heated fancy there was something sinister
about its very aspect. The windows on either side were grimy and
closely shuttered; they and the door were badly in need of a coat of
paint. What there was on it was blistered, and so filthy that it was
impossible even to guess at its original colour. There was no sign of
either knocker or bell, but right at the top of the door was a small
grille through which the janitor could survey the applicants for
admission, himself unseen. The inspector applied his knuckles to the
door, softly at first, then with a crescendo of taps that was
evidently a signal.
Steadman, with his eyes fixed on the grille, could see nothing, no
faintest sign of movement, but for one moment he felt a sickening
sense of being looked at, he could almost have fancied of being looked
through. Then moving softly, noiselessly, in spite of its apparently
dilapidated condition, the door in front of them opened.
The inspector stepped inside, Steadman keeping close to him, and gave
the word—“Chink-a-pin,” and at the same moment Steadman became aware
of a figure veiled in black from head to foot standing motionless
against the wall behind the door. The door closed after them with a
snap in which Steadman fancied he heard something ominous. They found
themselves in a long, rather wide passage down which they proceeded,
the inspector still leading; their bare hands held out in front of
them, thumb-tip joined to thumb-tip, finger-tip to finger-tip. On the
door at the end of the passage the inspector knocked again so softly
that it seemed impossible that he should be heard.
However, as if by magic, this door opened suddenly.
Inside, in contrast with the brightness in the passage, everything
looked dark, but gradually Steadman made out a faint, flickering
light. A soft, sibilant voice spoke, this time apparently out of the
air, since there was no sign of any speaker:
“The Great Dane bites.”
“His enemies will bite the dust.” The inspector gave the countersign.
Once again they moved forward and found themselves in a narrow passage
running at right angles to the first. Here, instead of bareness, were
softly carpeted floors and heavy hangings on the walls, and a sickly,
sweet smell as of incense. The light, dim and flickering at first,
grew stronger and more diffused. Steadman saw that the passage in
which they stood served as an ante-chamber or vestibule to some larger
room into which folding doors standing slightly ajar gave access. They
were not alone, either. At a sign from the inspector Steadman had
donned his yellow mask. In another moment shadowy hands had relieved
him of his coat and were gently pushing him forward, and he saw
faintly that there were other yellow-clad forms flitting backwards and
forwards. Between the half-open doors he could glimpse more light,
golden, dazzling, while over everything there brooded a sense of
mystery, of evil unutterable. In that moment there came over John
Steadman a certainty of the danger of this enterprise to which they
stood committed, and brave man though he was he would have drawn back
if he could. But it was too late. With one hand beneath his yellow
domino clutching his automatic firmly he paced by the inspector's side
into the Golden Room. As the first sight of it burst upon him he asked
himself whether he could really be living in sober twentieth-century
England, or whether he had not been translated into some scene of the
“Arabian Nights.”
The room was oblong in shape; the ceiling, pale yellow in colour, was
low, and across it sprawled great golden flowers. In the centre of
each blazed, like some lovely exotic jewel, a radiant amber light. The
walls of this extraordinary room were panelled in yellow too, and
round about them were ranged twelve golden seats. Ten of them were
occupied by figures, masked and dominoed as he and the inspector were.
The two seats at the end of the room nearest to them were unoccupied,
while at the opposite end stood a raised dais, also of gold; an empty
golden chair, looking like a throne, stood upon it. Right in the
middle of the room stood a great mimosa in full bloom, its powerful
fragrance mingling with that other perfume that Steadman had sensed
before. His feet sank into the pile of the carpet as he followed the
inspector to the unoccupied chairs nearest to them. At the same moment
the hangings at the back of the throne were parted and a tall figure
came through, masked, and wearing the same kind of yellow domino as
all the others. He seated himself upon the throne upon the dais. At
the same moment a sweet-toned bell began to ring slowly.
Steadman had hardly realized that there was any sound to be heard, but
now he became conscious by its sudden cessation that there had been a
low incessant hum going on around. Then the bell ceased, and the
silence grew deadly. The very immobility of those yellow figures began
to get on John Steadman's nerves, though up to now he would have
denied that he possessed any. His eyes were fixed upon that figure in
the chair on the dais. Silent, immobile, it sat, hands joined together
in front like those of every other figure in the room; but in these
hands there was a curious defect—the thumb was extraordinarily long,
the first finger short, so that they looked to be of the same length.
And, as Steadman noticed this, his fingers clutched his revolver and
felt the cool metal of the police whistle. Of what use was it, he
asked himself, for surely no sound could reach the outside world from
this terrible room. Suddenly he became conscious of a slight, a very
slight movement close to him. Had the inspector moved, he wondered as
he glanced round. And then the arms of his chair seemed to contract
and lengthen; he felt himself gripped in a vice. Now he knew that the
danger he had felt was upon him. He saw the inspector at his side
begin to struggle violently. Desperately he tried to bring out his
revolver—he was powerless, caught as in a vice. Some hidden mechanism
in those chairs had been released, arms and legs were held more firmly
than human hands could have held them.
An oath broke from the inspector's lips as he realized the nature of
the trap in which they were caught. But there came no answering sound
from those waiting, motionless, yellow figures on every side. Their
very immobility seemed only to render the position more terrible. And
then at last the silence was broken by a laugh, a wicked, malicious
laugh, the very sound of which made Steadman's blood run cold in his
veins.