"There's devil's work done, Costigan! The Scorpion has struck again!"
I sprang up, still half asleep and only partly realizing what he was
saying. He helped me into my coat, thrust my hat at me, and then his
firm grip on my arm was propelling me out of his door and down the
stairs. The street lights were blazing; I had slept an incredible time.
"A logical victim!" I was aware that my companion was saying. "He
should have notified me the instant of his arrival!"
"I don't understand----" I began dazedly.
We were at the curb now and Gordon hailed a taxi, giving the address of
a small and unassuming hotel in a staid and prim section of the city.
"The Baron Rokoff," he rapped as we whirled along at reckless speed,
"a Russian free-lance, connected with the war office. He returned from
Mongolia yesterday and apparently went into hiding. Undoubtedly he
had learned something vital in regard to the slow waking of the East.
He had not yet communicated with us, and I had no idea that he was in
England until just now."
"And you learned----"
"The baron was found in his room, his dead body mutilated in a
frightful manner!"
The respectable and conventional hotel which the doomed baron had
chosen for his hiding-place was in a state of mild uproar, suppressed
by the police. The management had attempted to keep the matter quiet,
but somehow the guests had learned of the atrocity and many were
leaving in haste--or preparing to, as the police were holding all for
investigation.
The baron's room, which was on the top floor, was in a state to
defy description. Not even in the great war have I seen a more
complete shambles. Nothing had been touched; all remained just as
the chambermaid had found it a half-hour since. Tables and chairs
lay shattered on the floor, and the furniture, floor and walls were
spattered with blood. The baron, a tall, muscular man in life, lay in
the middle of the room, a fearful spectacle. His skull had been cleft
to the brows, a deep gash under his left armpit had shorn through his
ribs, and his left arm hung by a shred of flesh. The cold bearded face
was set in a look of indescribable horror.
"Some heavy, curved weapon must have been used," said Gordon,
"something like a saber, wielded with terrific force. See where a
chance blow sank inches deep into the window-sill. And again, the
thick back of this heavy chair has been split like a shingle. A saber,
surely."
"A tulwar," I muttered, somberly. "Do you not recognize the handiwork
of the Central Asian butcher? Yar Khan has been here."
"The Afghan! He came across the roofs, of course, and descended to
the window-ledge by means of a knotted rope made fast to something on
the edge of the roof. About one-thirty the maid, passing through the
corridor, heard a terrific commotion in the baron's room--smashing of
chairs and a sudden short shriek which died abruptly into a ghastly
gurgle and then ceased--to the sound of heavy blows, curiously muffled,
such as a sword might make when driven deep into human flesh. Then all
noises stopped suddenly.
"She called the manager and they tried the door and, finding it locked,
and receiving no answer to their shouts, opened it with the desk key.
Only the corpse was there, but the window was open. This is strangely
unlike Kathulos' usual procedure. It lacks subtlety. Often his victims
have appeared to have died from natural causes. I scarcely understand."
"I see little difference in the outcome," I answered. "There is nothing
that can be done to apprehend the murderer as it is."
"True," Gordon scowled. "We know who did it but there is no proof--not
even a finger print. Even if we knew where the Afghan is hiding and
arrested him, we could prove nothing--there would be a score of men
to swear alibis for him. The baron returned only yesterday. Kathulos
probably did not know of his arrival until tonight. He knew that on the
morrow Rokoff would make known his presence to me and impart what he
learned in northern Asia. The Egyptian knew he must strike quickly, and
lacking time to prepare a safer and more elaborate form of murder, he
sent the Afridi with his tulwar. There is nothing we can do, at least
not until we discover the Scorpion's hiding-place; what the baron had
learned in Mongolia, we shall never know, but that it dealt with the
plans and aspirations of Kathulos, we may be sure."
* * * * *
We went down the stairs again and out on the street, accompanied by one
of the Scotland Yard men, Hansen. Gordon suggested that we walk back to
his apartment and I greeted the opportunity to let the cool night air
blow some of the cobwebs out of my mazed brain.
As we walked along the deserted streets, Gordon suddenly cursed
savagely.
"This is a veritable labyrinth we are following, leading nowhere! Here,
in the very heart of civilization's metropolis, the direst enemy of
that civilization commits crimes of the most outrageous nature and
goes free! We are children, wandering in the night, struggling with an
unseen evil--dealing with an incarnate devil, of whose true identity we
know nothing and whose true ambitions we can only guess.
"Never have we managed to arrest one of the Egyptian's direct henchmen,
and the few dupes and tools of his we have apprehended have died
mysteriously before they could tell us anything. Again I repeat: what
strange power has Kathulos that dominates these men of different
creeds and races? The men in London with him are, of course, mostly
renegades, slaves of dope, but his tentacles stretch all over the East.
Some dominance is his: the power that sent the Chinaman, Li Kung, back
to kill you, in the face of certain death; that sent Yar Khan the
Moslem over the roofs of London to do murder; that holds Zuleika the
Circassian in unseen bonds of slavery.
"Of course we know," he continued after a brooding silence, "that the
East has secret societies which are behind and above all considerations
of creeds. There are cults in Africa and the Orient whose origin dates
back to Ophir and the fall of Atlantis. This man must be a power in
some or possibly all of these societies. Why, outside the Jews, I know
of no Oriental race which is so cordially despised by the other Eastern
races, as the Egyptians! Yet here we have a man, an Egyptian by his own
word, controlling the lives and destinies of orthodox Moslems, Hindoos,
Shintos and devil-worshipers. It's unnatural.
"Have you ever"--he turned to me abruptly--"heard the ocean mentioned
in connection with Kathulos?"
"Never."
"There is a widespread superstition in northern Africa, based on a very
ancient legend, that the great leader of the colored races would come
out of the sea! And I once heard a Berber speak of the Scorpion as 'The
Son of the Ocean.'"
"That is a term of respect among that tribe, is it not?"
"Yes; still I wonder sometimes."
_16. The Mummy Who Laughed_
"Laughing as littered skulls that lie
After lost battles turn to the sky
An everlasting laugh."
--Chesterton.
"A shop open this late," Gordon remarked suddenly.
A fog had descended on London and along the quiet street we were
traversing the lights glimmered with the peculiar reddish haze
characteristic of such atmospheric conditions. Our footfalls echoed
drearily. Even in the heart of a great city there are always sections
which seem overlooked and forgotten. Such a street was this. Not even a
policeman was in sight.
The shop which had attracted Gordon's attention was just in front of
us, on the same side of the street. There was no sign over the door,
merely some sort of emblem something like a dragon. Light flowed from
the open doorway and the small show windows on each side. As it was
neither a café nor the entrance to a hotel we found ourselves idly
speculating over its reason for being open. Ordinarily, I suppose,
neither of us would have given the matter a thought, but our nerves
were so keyed up that we found ourselves instinctively suspicious
of anything out of the ordinary. Then something occurred which was
distinctly out of the ordinary.
A very tall, very thin man, considerably stooped, suddenly loomed up
out of the fog in front of us, and beyond the shop. I had only a
glance of him--an impression of incredible gauntness, of worn, wrinkled
garments, a high silk hat drawn close over the brows, a face entirely
hidden by a muffler; then he turned aside and entered the shop. A cold
wind whispered down the street, twisting the fog into wispy ghosts, but
the coldness that came upon me transcended the wind's.
"Gordon!" I exclaimed in a fierce, low voice; "my senses are no longer
reliable or else Kathulos himself has just gone into that house!"
Gordon's eyes blazed. We were now close to the shop, and lengthening
his strides into a run he hurled himself into the door, the detective
and I close upon his heels.
A weird assortment of merchandise met our eyes. Antique weapons covered
the walls, and the floor was piled high with curious things. Maori
idols shouldered Chinese josses, and suits of mediæval armor bulked
darkly against stacks of rare Oriental rugs and Latin-make shawls. The
place was an antique shop. Of the figure who had aroused our interest
we saw nothing.
An old man clad bizarrely in red fez, brocaded jacket and Turkish
slippers came from the back of the shop; he was a Levantine of some
sort.
"You wish something, sirs?"
"You keep open rather late," Gordon said abruptly, his eyes traveling
swiftly over the shop for some secret hiding-place that might conceal
the object of our search.
"Yes, sir. My customers number many eccentric professors and students
who keep very irregular hours. Often the night boats unload special
pieces for me and very often I have customers later than this. I remain
open all night, sir."
"We are merely looking around," Gordon returned, and in an aside to
Hansen: "Go to the back and stop anyone who tries to leave that way."
Hansen nodded and strolled casually to the rear of the shop. The
back door was clearly visible to our view, through a vista of antique
furniture and tarnished hangings strung up for exhibition. We had
followed the Scorpion--if he it was--so closely that I did not believe
he would have had time to traverse the full length of the shop and make
his exit without our having seen him as we came in. For our eyes had
been on the rear door ever since we had entered.
Gordon and I browsed around casually among the curios, handling and
discussing some of them but I have no idea as to their nature. The
Levantine had seated himself cross-legged on a Moorish mat close to the
center of the shop and apparently took only a polite interest in our
explorations.
After a time Gordon whispered to me: "There is no advantage in keeping
up this pretense. We have looked everywhere the Scorpion might be
hiding, in the ordinary manner. I will make known my identity and
authority and we will search the entire building openly."
Even as he spoke a truck drew up outside the door and two burly negroes
entered. The Levantine seemed to have expected them, for he merely
waved them toward the back of the shop and they responded with a grunt
of understanding.
Gordon and I watched them closely as they made their way to a large
mummy-case which stood upright against the wall not far from the back.
They lowered this to a level position and then started for the door,
carrying it carefully between them.
"Halt!" Gordon stepped forward, raising his hand authoritatively.
[Illustration: "Halt!" Gordon stepped forward, raising his hand
authoritatively.]
"I represent Scotland Yard," he said swiftly, "and have sanction for
anything I choose to do. Set that mummy down; nothing leaves this shop
until we have thoroughly searched it."
The negroes obeyed without a word and my friend turned to the
Levantine, who, apparently not perturbed or even interested, sat
smoking a Turkish water-pipe.
"Who was that tall man who entered just before we did, and where did he
go?"
"No one entered before you, sir. Or, if anyone did, I was at the back
of the shop and did not see him. You are certainly at liberty to search
my shop, sir."
And search it we did, with the combined craft of a secret service
expert and a denizen of the underworld--while Hansen stood stolidly at
his post, the two negroes standing over the carved mummy-case watched
us impassively and the Levantine sitting like a sphinx on his mat,
puffing a fog of smoke into the air. The whole thing had a distinct
effect of unreality.
At last, baffled, we returned to the mummy-case, which was certainly
long enough to conceal even a man of Kathulos' height. The thing did
not appear to be sealed as is the usual custom, and Gordon opened it
without difficulty. A formless shape, swathed in moldering wrappings,
met our eyes. Gordon parted some of the wrappings and revealed an inch
or so of withered, brownish, leathery arm. He shuddered involuntarily
as he touched it, as a man will do at the touch of a reptile or some
inhumanly cold thing. Taking a small metal idol from a stand near by,
he rapped on the shrunken breast and the arm. Each gave out a solid
thumping, like some sort of wood.
Gordon shrugged his shoulders. "Dead for two thousand years anyway and
I don't suppose I should risk destroying a valuable mummy simply to
prove what we know to be true."
He closed the case again.
"The mummy may have crumbled some, even from this much exposure, but
perhaps it did not."
This last was addressed to the Levantine who replied merely by a
courteous gesture of his hand, and the negroes once more lifted the
case and carried it to the truck, where they loaded it on, and a moment
later mummy, truck and negroes had vanished in the fog.
Gordon still nosed about the shop, but I stood stock-still in the
center of the floor. To my chaotic and dope-ridden brain I attributed
it, but the sensation had been mine, that through the wrappings of
the mummy's face, great eyes had burned into mine, eyes like pools of
yellow fire, that seared my soul and froze me where I stood. And as
the case had been carried through the door, I knew that the lifeless
thing in it, dead, God only knows how many centuries, was _laughing_,
hideously and silently.
_17. The Dead Man from the Sea_
"The blind gods roar and rave and dream
Of all cities under the sea."
--Chesterton.
Gordon puffed savagely at his Turkish cigarette, staring abstractedly
and unseeingly at Hansen, who sat opposite him.
"I suppose we must chalk up another failure against ourselves. That
Levantine, Kamonos, is evidently a creature of the Egyptian's and the
walls and floors of his shop are probably honeycombed with secret
panels and doors which would baffle a magician."
Hansen made some answer but I said nothing. Since our return to
Gordon's apartment, I had been conscious of a feeling of intense
languor and sluggishness which not even my condition could account
for. I knew that my system was full of the elixir--but my mind seemed
strangely slow and hard of comprehension in direct contrast with the
average state of my mentality when stimulated by the hellish dope.
This condition was slowly leaving me, like mist floating from the
surface of a lake, and I felt as if I were waking gradually from a
long and unnaturally sound sleep.
Gordon was saying: "I would give a good deal to know if Kamonos is
really one of Kathulos' slaves or if the Scorpion managed to make his
escape through some natural exit as we entered."
"Kamonos is his servant, true enough," I found myself saying slowly, as
if searching for the proper words. "As we left, I saw his gaze light
upon the scorpion which is traced on my hand. His eyes narrowed, and as
we were leaving he contrived to brush close against me--and to whisper
in a quick low voice: 'Soho, 48.'"
Gordon came erect like a loosened steel bow.
"Indeed!" he rapped. "Why did you not tell me at the time?"
"I don't know."
My friend eyed me sharply.
"I noticed you seemed like a man intoxicated all the way from the
shop," said he. "I attributed it to some aftermath of hashish. But no.
Kathulos is undoubtedly a masterful disciple of Mesmer--his power over
venomous reptiles shows that, and I am beginning to believe it is the
real source of his power over humans.
"Somehow, the Master caught you off your guard in that shop and partly
asserted his dominance over your mind. From what hidden nook he sent
his thought waves to shatter your brain, I do not know, but Kathulos
was somewhere in that shop, I am sure."
"He was. He was in the mummy-case."
"The mummy-case!" Gordon exclaimed rather impatiently. "That is
impossible! The mummy quite filled it and not even such a thin being as
the Master could have found room there."
I shrugged my shoulders, unable to argue the point but somehow sure of
the truth of my statement.
"Kamonos," Gordon continued, "doubtless is not a member of the inner
circle and does not know of your change of allegiance. Seeing the
mark of the scorpion, he undoubtedly supposed you to be a spy of the
Master's. The whole thing may be a plot to ensnare us, but I feel that
the man was sincere--Soho 48 can be nothing less than the Scorpion's
new rendezvous."