THE GREEN EYES
OF BÂST
BY SAX ROHMER
AUTHOR OF
"_The Golden Scorpion_," "_Dope_," "_The Hand of Fu-Manchu_,"
"_The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu_," "_The Return of Fu-Manchu_,"
"_Tales of Secret Egypt_," "_The Yellow Claw_,"
"_The Quest of the Sacred Slipper_," _etc._
A.L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with Robert M. McBride & Co.
Copyright, 1920, by
ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & Co.
* * * * *
_Printed in the
United States of America_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. I SEE THE EYES 1
II. THE SIGN OF THE CAT 12
III. THE GREEN IMAGE 22
IV. ISOBEL 32
V. THE INTERRUPTED SUPPER 41
VI. THE VOICE 52
VII. THE CAT OF BUBASTIS 63
VIII. MY VISITOR 73
IX. THE VELVET CURTAIN 84
X. "HANGING EVIDENCE" 95
XI. THE SCARRED MAN 105
XII. I DREAM OF GREEN EYES 117
XIII. DR. DAMAR GREEFE 125
XIV. THE BLACK DOCTOR 135
XV. I RECEIVE VISITORS 147
XVI. THE GOLDEN CAT 158
XVII. THE NUBIAN MUTE 169
XVIII. THE SECRET OF FRIAR'S PARK 177
XIX. THE MAN ON THE TOWER 187
XX. GATTON'S STORY 198
XXI. IN LONDON AGAIN 212
XXII. THE GRAY MIST 225
XXIII. THE INEVITABLE 240
XXIV. A CONFERENCE--INTERRUPTED 251
XXV. STATEMENT OF DAMAR GREEFE, M.D. 263
XXVI. STATEMENT OF DR. DAMAR GREEFE (CONTINUED) 273
XXVII. STATEMENT OF DR. DAMAR GREEFE (CONCLUDED) 285
XXVIII. THE CLAWS OF THE CAT 300
XXIX. AN AFTERWORD 309
THE GREEN EYES OF BÂST
CHAPTER I
I SEE THE EYES
"Good evening, sir. A bit gusty?"
"Very much so, sergeant," I replied. "I think I will step into your
hut for a moment and light my pipe if I may."
"Certainly, sir. Matches are too scarce nowadays to take risks with
'em. But it looks as if the storm had blown over."
"I'm not sorry," said I, entering the little hut like a sentry-box
which stands at the entrance to this old village high street for
accommodation of the officer on point duty at that spot. "I have a
longish walk before me."
"Yes. Your place is right off the beat, isn't it?" mused my
acquaintance, as sheltered from the keen wind I began to load my
briar. "Very inconvenient I've always thought it for a gentleman who
gets about as much as you do."
"That's why I like it," I explained. "If I lived anywhere accessible I
should never get a moment's peace, you see. At the same time I have to
be within an hour's journey of Fleet Street."
I often stopped for a chat at this point and I was acquainted with
most of the men of P. division on whom the duty devolved from time to
time. It was a lonely spot at night when the residents in the
neighborhood had retired, so that the darkened houses seemed to
withdraw yet farther into the gardens separating them from the
highroad. A relic of the days when trains and motor-buses were not,
dusk restored something of an old-world atmosphere to the village
street, disguising the red brick and stucco which in many cases had
displaced the half-timbered houses of the past. Yet it was possible in
still weather to hear the muted bombilation of the sleepless city and
when the wind was in the north to count the hammer-strokes of the
great bell of St. Paul's.
Standing in the shelter of the little hut, I listened to the rain
dripping from over-reaching branches and to the gurgling of a turgid
little stream which flowed along the gutter near my feet whilst now
and again swift gusts of the expiring tempest would set tossing the
branches of the trees which lined the way.
"It's much cooler to-night," said the sergeant.
I nodded, being in the act of lighting my pipe. The storm had
interrupted a spell of that tropical weather which sometimes in July
and August brings the breath of Africa to London, and this coolness
resulting from the storm was very welcome. Then:
"Well, good night," I said, and was about to pursue my way when the
telephone bell in the police-hut rang sharply.
"Hullo," called the sergeant.
I paused, idly curious concerning the message, and:
"The Red House," continued the sergeant, "in College Road? Yes, I know
it. It's on Bolton's beat, and he is due here now. Very good; I'll
tell him."
He hung up the receiver and, turning to me, smiled and nodded his head
resignedly.
"The police get some funny jobs, sir," he confided. "Only last night a
gentleman rang up the station and asked them to tell me to stop a
short, stout lady with yellow hair and a big blue hat (that was the
only description) as she passed this point and to inform her that her
husband had had to go out but that he had left the door-key just
inside the dog-kennel!"
He laughed good-humoredly.
"Now to-night," he resumed, "here's somebody just rung up to say that
he thinks, only _thinks_, mind you, that he has forgotten to lock his
garage and will the constable on that beat see if the keys have been
left behind. If so, will he lock the door from the inside, go out
through the back, lock that door and leave the keys at the station on
coming off duty!"
"Yes," I said. "There are some absent-minded people in the world. But
do you mean the Red House in College Road?"
"That's it," replied the sergeant, stepping out of the hut and looking
intently to the left.
"Ah, here comes Bolton."
He referred to a stolid, red-faced constable who at that moment came
plodding across the muddy road, and:
"A job for you, Bolton," he cried. "Listen. You know the Red House in
College Road?"
Bolton removed his helmet and scratched his closely-cropped head.
"Let me see," he mused; "it's on the right--"
"No, no," I interrupted. "It is a house about half-way down on the
left; very secluded, with a high brick wall in front."
"Oh! You mean the _empty_ house?" inquired the constable.
"Just what I was about to remark, sergeant," said I, turning to my
acquaintance. "To the best of my knowledge the Red House has been
vacant for twelve months or more."
"Has it?" exclaimed the sergeant. "That's funny. Still, it's none of
my business; besides it may have been let within the last few days.
Anyway, listen, Bolton. You are to see if the garage is unlocked. If
it is and the keys are there, go in and lock the door behind you.
There's another door at the other end; go out and lock that too. Leave
the keys at the depôt when you go off. Got that fixed?"
"Yes," replied Bolton, and he stood helmet in hand, half inaudibly
muttering the sergeant's instructions, evidently with the idea of
impressing them upon his memory.
"I have to pass the Red House, constable," I interrupted, "and as you
seem doubtful respecting its whereabouts, I will point the place out
to you."
"Thank you, sir," said Bolton, replacing his helmet and ceasing to
mutter.
"Once more--good night, sergeant," I cried, and met by a keen gust of
wind which came sweeping down the village street, showering cascades
of water from the leaves above, I set out in step with my stolid
companion.
It is supposed poetically that unusual events cast their shadows
before them, and I am prepared to maintain the correctness of such a
belief. But unless the silence of the constable who walked beside me
was due to the unseen presence of such a shadow, and not to a habitual
taciturnity, there was nothing in that march through the deserted
streets calculated to arouse me to the fact that I was entering upon
the first phase of an experience more strange and infinitely more
horrible than any of which I had ever known or even read.
The shadow had not yet reached me.
We talked little enough on the way, for the breeze when it came was
keen and troublesome, so that I was often engaged in clutching my hat.
Except for a dejected-looking object, obviously a member of the tramp
fraternity, who passed us near the gate of the old chapel, we met
never a soul from the time that we left the police-box until the
moment when the high brick wall guarding the Red House came into view
beyond a line of glistening wet hedgerow.
"This is the house, constable," I said. "The garage is beyond the main
entrance."
We proceeded as far as the closed gates, whereupon:
"There you are, sir," said Bolton triumphantly. "I told you it was
empty."
An estate agent's bill faced us, setting forth the desirable features
of the residence, the number of bedrooms and reception rooms, modern
conveniences, garage, etc., together with the extent of the garden,
lawn and orchard.
A faint creaking sound drew my glance upward, and stepping back a pace
I stared at a hatchet-board projecting above the wall which bore two
duplicates of the bill posted upon the gate.
"That seems to confirm it," I declared, peering through the trees in
the direction of the house. "The place has all the appearance of being
deserted."
"There's some mistake," muttered Bolton.
"Then the mistake is not ours," I replied. "See, the bills are headed
'To be let or sold. The Red House, etc.'"
"H'm," growled Bolton. "It's a funny go, this is. Suppose we have a
look at the garage."
We walked along together to where, set back in a recess, I had often
observed the doors of a garage evidently added to the building by some
recent occupier. Dangling from a key placed in the lock was a ring to
which another key was attached!
"Well, I'm blowed," said Bolton, "this _is_ a funny go, this is."
He unlocked the door and swept the interior of the place with a ray of
light cast by his lantern. There were one or two petrol cans and some
odd lumber suggesting that the garage had been recently used, but no
car, and indeed nothing of sufficient value to have interested even
such a derelict as the man whom we had passed some ten minutes before.
That is if I except a large and stoutly-made packing-case which
rested only a foot or so from the entrance so as partly to block it,
and which from its appearance might possibly have contained spare
parts. I noticed, with vague curiosity, a device crudely representing
a seated cat which was painted in green upon the case.
"If there ever was anything here," said Bolton, "it's been pinched and
we're locking the stable door after the horse has gone. You'll bear me
out, sir, if there's any complaint?"
"Certainly," I replied. "Technically I shall be trespassing if I come
in with you, so I shall say good night."
"Good night, sir," cried the constable, and entering the empty garage,
he closed the door behind him.
I set off briskly alone towards the cottage which I had made my home.
I have since thought that the motives which had induced me to choose
this secluded residence were of a peculiarly selfish order. Whilst I
liked sometimes to be among my fellowmen and whilst I rarely missed an
important first night in London, my inherent weakness for obscure
studies and another motive to which I may refer later had caused me to
abandon my chambers in the Temple and to retire with my library to
this odd little backwater where my only link with Fleet Street, with
the land of theaters and clubs and noise and glitter, was the
telephone. I scarcely need add that I had sufficient private means to
enable me to indulge these whims, otherwise as a working journalist I
must have been content to remain nearer to the heart of things. As it
was I followed the careless existence of the independent free-lance,
and since my work was accounted above the average I was enabled to
pick and choose the subjects with which I should deal. Mine was not an
ambitious nature--or it may have been that stimulus was lacking--and
all I wrote I wrote for the mere joy of writing, whilst my studies, of
which I shall have occasion to speak presently, were not of a nature
calculated to swell my coffers in this commercial-minded age.
Little did I know how abruptly this chosen calm of my life was to be
broken nor how these same studies were to be turned in a new and
strange direction. But if on this night which was to witness the
overture of a horrible drama, I had not hitherto experienced any
premonition of the coming of those dark forces which were to change
the whole tenor of my existence, suddenly, now, in sight of the elm
tree which stood before my cottage the _shadow_ reached me.
Only thus can I describe a feeling otherwise unaccountable which
prompted me to check my steps and to listen. A gust of wind had just
died away, leaving the night silent save for the dripping of rain from
the leaves and the vague and remote roar of the town. Once, faintly, I
thought I detected the howling of a dog. I had heard nothing in the
nature of following footsteps, yet, turning swiftly, I did not doubt
that I should detect the presence of a follower of some kind. This
conviction seized me suddenly and, as I have said, unaccountably. Nor
was I wrong in my surmise.
Fifty yards behind me a vaguely defined figure showed for an instant
outlined against the light of a distant lamp--ere melting into the
dense shadow cast by a clump of trees near the roadside.
Standing quite still, I stared in the direction of the patch of shadow
for several moments. It may be said that there was nothing to occasion
alarm or even curiosity in the appearance of a stray pedestrian at
that hour; for it was little after midnight. Indeed thus I argued with
myself, whereby I admit that at sight of that figure I had experienced
a sensation which was compounded not only of alarm and curiosity but
also of some other emotion which even now I find it hard to define.
Instantly I knew that the lithe shape, glimpsed but instantaneously,
was that of no chance pedestrian--was indeed that of no ordinary
being. At the same moment I heard again, unmistakably, the howling of
a dog.
Having said so much, why should I not admit that, turning again very
quickly, I hurried on to the gate of my cottage and heaved a great
sigh of relief when I heard the reassuring bang of the door as I
closed it behind me? Coates, my batman, had turned in, having placed a
cold repast upon the table in the little dining-room; but although I
required nothing to eat I partook of a stiff whisky and soda, idly
glancing at two or three letters which lay upon the table.
They proved to contain nothing of very great importance, and having
smoked a final cigarette, I turned out the light in the dining-room
and walked into the bedroom--for the cottage was of bungalow
pattern--and, crossing the darkened room, stood looking out of the
window.
It commanded a view of a little kitchen-garden and beyond of a high
hedge, with glimpses of sentinel trees lining the main road. The wind
had dropped entirely, but clouds were racing across the sky at a
tremendous speed so that the nearly full moon alternately appeared and
disappeared, producing an ever-changing effect of light and shadow. At
one moment a moon-bathed prospect stretched before me as far as the
eye could reach, in the next I might have been looking into a cavern
as some angry cloud swept across the face of the moon to plunge the
scene into utter darkness.
And it was during such a dark spell and at the very moment that I
turned aside to light the lamp that I saw _the eyes_.
From a spot ten yards removed, low down under the hedges bordering the
garden, they looked up at me--those great, glittering cat's eyes, so
that I stifled an exclamation, drawing back instinctively from the
window. A tiger, I thought, or some kindred wild beast, must have
escaped from captivity. And so rapidly does the mind work at such
times that instinctively I had reviewed the several sporting pieces in
my possession and had selected a rifle which had proved serviceable in
India ere I had taken one step towards the door.
Before that step could be taken the light of the moon again flooded
the garden; and although there was no opening in the hedge by which
even a small animal could have retired, no living thing was in sight!
But, near and remote, dogs were howling mournfully.