THE SCORPION WIND
This sudden and appalling change of weather had sadly affected the
mood of the gathering. That part of the carnival planned to take place
in the garden was perforce abandoned, together with the firework
display. A halfhearted attempt was made at dancing, but the howling of
the wind, and the omnipresent dust, perpetually reminded the
pleasure-seekers that _Khamsîn_ raged without--raged with a violence
unparalleled in the experience of the oldest residents. This was a
full-fledged sand-storm, a terror of the Sahara descended upon Cairo.
But there were few departures, although many of the visitors who had
long distances to go, especially those from Mena House, discussed the
advisability of leaving before this unique storm should have grown
even worse. The general tendency, though, was markedly gregarious;
safety seemed to be with the crowd, amid the gaiety, where music and
laughter were, rather than in the sand-swept streets.
"Guess we've outstayed our welcome!" confided an American lady to
Sime. "Egypt wants to drive us all home now."
"Possibly," he replied with a smile. "The season has run very late,
this year, and so this sort of thing is more or less to be expected."
The orchestra struck up a lively one-step, and a few of the more
enthusiastic dancers accepted the invitation, but the bulk of the
company thronged around the edge of the floor, acting as spectators.
Cairn and Sime wedged a way through the heterogeneous crowd to the
American Bar.
"I prescribe a 'tango,'" said Sime.
"A 'tango' is--?"
"A 'tango,'" explained Sime, "is a new kind of cocktail sacred to this
buffet. Try it. It will either kill you or cure you."
Cairn smiled rather wanly.
"I must confess that I need bucking up a bit," he said: "that
confounded sand seems to have got me by the throat."
Sime briskly gave his orders to the bar attendant.
"You know," pursued Cairn, "I cannot get out of my head the idea that
there was someone wearing a crocodile mask in the garden a while ago."
"Look here," growled Sime, studying the operations of the cocktail
manufacturer, "suppose there were--what about it?"
"Well, it's odd that nobody else saw him."
"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that the fellow might have
removed his mask?"
Cairn shook his head slowly.
"I don't think so," he declared; "I haven't seen him anywhere in the
hotel."
"Seen him?" Sime turned his dull gaze upon the speaker. "How should
you know him?"
Cairn raised his hand to his forehead in an oddly helpless way.
"No, of course not--it's very extraordinary."
They took their seats at a small table, and in mutual silence loaded
and lighted their pipes. Sime, in common with many young and
enthusiastic medical men, had theories--theories of that revolutionary
sort which only harsh experience can shatter. Secretly he was disposed
to ascribe all the ills to which flesh is heir primarily to a
disordered nervous system. It was evident that Cairn's mind
persistently ran along a particular groove; something lay back of all
this erratic talk; he had clearly invested the Mask of Set with a
curious individuality.
"I gather that you had a stiff bout of it in London?" Sime said
suddenly.
Cairn nodded.
"Beastly stiff. There is a lot of sound reason in your nervous theory,
Sime. It was touch and go with me for days, I am told; yet,
pathologically, I was a hale man. That would seem to show how nerves
can kill. Just a series of shocks--horrors--one piled upon another,
did as much for me as influenza, pneumonia, and two or three other
ailments together could have done."
Sime shook his head wisely; this was in accordance with his ideas.
"You know Antony Ferrara?" continued Cairn. "Well, he has done this
for me. His damnable practices are worse than any disease. Sime, the
man is a pestilence! Although the law cannot touch him, although no
jury can convict him--he is a murderer. He controls--forces--"
Sime was watching him intently.
"It will give you some idea, Sime, of the pitch to which things had
come, when I tell you that my father drove to Ferrara's rooms one
night, with a loaded revolver in his pocket--"
"For"--Sime hesitated--"for protection?"
"No." Cairn leant forward across the table--"to shoot him, Sime, shoot
him on sight, as one shoots a mad dog!"
"Are you serious?"
"As God is my witness, if Antony Ferrara had been in his rooms that
night, my father would have killed him!"
"It would have been a shocking scandal."
"It would have been a martyrdom. The man who removes Antony Ferrara
from the earth will be doing mankind a service worthy of the highest
reward. He is unfit to live. Sometimes I cannot believe that he does
live; I expect to wake up and find that he was a figure of a
particularly evil dream."
"This incident--the call at his rooms--occurred just before your
illness?"
"The thing which he had attempted that night was the last straw, Sime;
it broke me down. From the time that he left Oxford, Antony Ferrara
has pursued a deliberate course of crime, of crime so cunning, so
unusual, and based upon such amazing and unholy knowledge that no
breath of suspicion has touched him. Sime, you remember a girl I told
you about at Oxford one evening, a girl who came to visit him?"
Sime nodded slowly.
"Well--he killed her! Oh! there is no doubt about it; I saw her body
in the hospital."
"_How_ had he killed her, then?"
"How? Only he and the God who permits him to exist can answer that,
Sime. He killed her without coming anywhere near her--and he killed
his adoptive father, Sir Michael Ferrara, by the same unholy means!"
Sime watched him, but offered no comment.
"It was hushed up, of course; there is no existing law which could be
used against him."
"_Existing_ law?"
"They are ruled out, Sime, the laws that _could_ have reached him; but
he would have been burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages!"
"I see." Sime drummed his fingers upon the table. "You had those ideas
about him at Oxford; and does Dr. Cairn seriously believe the same?"
"He does. So would you--you could not doubt it, Sime, not for a
moment, if you had seen what we have seen!" His eyes blazed into a
sudden fury, suggestive of his old, robust self. "He tried night after
night, by means of the same accursed sorcery, which everyone thought
buried in the ruins of Thebes, to kill _me_! He projected--things--"
"Suggested these--things, to your mind?"
"Something like that. I saw, or thought I saw, and smelt--pah!--I seem
to smell them now!--beetles, mummy-beetles, you know, from the skull
of a mummy! My rooms were thick with them. It brought me very near to
Bedlam, Sime. Oh! it was not merely imaginary. My father and I caught
him red-handed." He glanced across at the other. "You read of the
death of Lord Lashmore? It was just after you came out."
"Yes--heart."
"It was his heart, yes--but Ferrara was responsible! That was the
business which led my father to drive to Ferrara's rooms with a loaded
revolver in his pocket."
The wind was shaking the windows, and whistling about the building
with demoniacal fury as if seeking admission; the band played a
popular waltz; and in and out of the open doors came and went groups
representative of many ages and many nationalities.
"Ferrara," began Sime slowly, "was always a detestable man, with his
sleek black hair, and ivory face. Those long eyes of his had an
expression which always tempted me to hit him. Sir Michael, if what
you say is true--and after all, Cairn, it only goes to show how little
we know of the nervous system--literally took a viper to his bosom."
"He did. Antony Ferrara was his adopted son, of course; God knows to
what evil brood he really belongs."
Both were silent for a while. Then:
"Gracious heavens!"
Cairn started to his feet so wildly as almost to upset the table.
"Look, Sime! look!" he cried.
Sime was not the only man in the bar to hear, and to heed his words.
Sime, looking in the direction indicated by Cairn's extended finger,
received a vague impression that a grotesque, long-headed figure had
appeared momentarily in the doorway opening upon the room where the
dancers were; then it was gone again, if it had ever been there, and
he was supporting Cairn, who swayed dizzily, and had become ghastly
pale. Sime imagined that the heated air had grown suddenly even more
heated. Curious eyes were turned upon, his companion, who now sank
back into his chair, muttering:
"The Mask, the Mask!"
"I think I saw the chap who seems to worry you so much," said Sime
soothingly. "Wait here; I will tell the waiter to bring you a dose of
brandy; and whatever you do, don't get excited."
He made for the door, pausing and giving an order to a waiter on his
way, and pushed into the crowd outside. It was long past midnight, and
the gaiety, which had been resumed, seemed of a forced and feverish
sort. Some of the visitors were leaving, and a breath of hot wind
swept in from the open doors.
A pretty girl wearing a _yashmak_, who, with two similarly attired
companions, was making her way to the entrance, attracted his
attention; she seemed to be on the point of swooning. He recognised
the trio for the same that had pelted Cairn and himself with confetti
earlier in the evening.
"The sudden heat has affected your friend," he said, stepping up to
them. "My name is Dr. Sime; may I offer you my assistance?"
The offer was accepted, and with the three he passed out on to the
terrace, where the dust grated beneath the tread, and helped the
fainting girl into an _arabîyeh_. The night was thunderously black,
the heat almost insufferable, and the tall palms in front of the hotel
bowed before the might of the scorching wind.
As the vehicle drove off, Sime stood for a moment looking after it.
His face was very grave, for there was a look in the bright eyes of
the girl in the _yashmak_ which, professionally, he did not like.
Turning up the steps, he learnt from the manager that several visitors
had succumbed to the heat. There was something furtive in the manner
of his informant's glance, and Sime looked at him significantly.
"_Khamsîn_ brings clouds of septic dust with it," he said. "Let us
hope that these attacks are due to nothing more than the unexpected
rise in the temperature."
An air of uneasiness prevailed now throughout the hotel. The wind had
considerably abated, and crowds were leaving, pouring from the steps
into the deserted street, a dreamlike company.
Colonel Royland took Sime aside, as the latter was making his way back
to the buffet. The Colonel, whose regiment was stationed at the
Citadel, had known Sime almost from childhood.
"You know, my boy," he said, "I should never have allowed Eileen" (his
daughter) "to remain in Cairo, if I had foreseen this change in the
weather. This infernal wind, coming right through the native town, is
loaded with infection."
"Has it affected her, then?" asked Sime anxiously.
"She nearly fainted in the ball-room," replied the Colonel. "Her
mother took her home half an hour ago. I looked for you everywhere,
but couldn't find you."
"Quite a number have succumbed," said Sime.
"Eileen seemed to be slightly hysterical," continued the Colonel. "She
persisted that someone wearing a crocodile mask had been standing
beside her at the moment that she was taken ill."
Sime started; perhaps Cairn's story was not a matter of imagination
after all.
"There is someone here, dressed like that, I believe," he replied,
with affected carelessness. "He seems to have frightened several
people. Any idea who he is?"
"My dear chap!" cried the Colonel, "I have been searching the place
for him! But I have never once set eyes upon him. I was about to ask
if _you_ knew anything about it!"
Sime returned to the table where Cairn was sitting. The latter seemed
to have recovered somewhat; but he looked far from well. Sime stared
at him critically.
"I should turn in," he said, "if I were you. _Khamsîn_ is playing the
deuce with people. I only hope it does not justify its name and blow
for fifty days."
"Have you seen the man in the mask!" asked Cairn.
"No," replied Sime, "but he's here alright; others have seen him."
Cairn stood up rather unsteadily, and with Sime made his way through
the moving crowd to the stairs. The band was still playing, but the
cloud of gloom which had settled upon the place, refused to be
dissipated.
"Good-night, Cairn," said Sime, "see you in the morning."
Robert Cairn, with aching head and a growing sensation of nausea,
paused on the landing, looking down into the court below. He could not
disguise from himself that he felt ill, not nervously ill as in
London, but physically sick. This superheated air was difficult to
breathe; it seemed to rise in waves from below.
Then, from a weary glancing at the figures beneath him, his attitude
changed to one of tense watching.
A man, wearing the crocodile mask of Set, stood by a huge urn
containing a palm, looking up to the landing!
Cairn's weakness left him, and in its place came an indescribable
anger, a longing to drive his fist into that grinning mask. He turned
and ran lightly down the stairs, conscious of a sudden glow of energy.
Reaching the floor, he saw the mask making across the hall, in the
direction of the outer door. As rapidly as possible, for he could not
run, without attracting undesirable attention, Cairn followed. The
figure of Set passed out on to the terrace, but when Cairn in turn
swung open the door, his quarry had vanished.
Then, in an _arabîyeh_ just driving off, he detected the hideous mask.
Hatless as he was, he ran down the steps and threw himself into
another. The carriage-controller was in attendance, and Cairn rapidly
told him to instruct the driver to follow the _arabîyeh_ which had
just left. The man lashed up his horses, turned the carriage, and went
galloping on after the retreating figure. Past the Esbekîya Gardens
they went, through several narrow streets, and on to the quarter of
the Mûski. Time after time he thought he had lost the carriage ahead,
but his own driver's knowledge of the tortuous streets enabled him
always to overtake it again. They went rocking along lanes so narrow
that with outstretched arms one could almost have touched the walls on
either side; past empty shops and unlighted houses. Cairn had not the
remotest idea of his whereabouts, save that he was evidently in the
district of the bazaars. A right-angled corner was abruptly
negotiated--and there, ahead of him, stood the pursued vehicle! The
driver was turning his horses around, to return; his fare was
disappearing from sight into the black shadows of a narrow alley on
the left.
Cairn leaped from the _arabîyeh_, shouting to the man to wait, and
went dashing down the sloping lane after the retreating figure. A sort
of blind fury possessed him, but he never paused to analyse it, never
asked himself by what right he pursued this man, what wrong the latter
had done him. His action was wholly unreasoning; he knew that he
wished to overtake the wearer of the mask and to tear it from his
head; upon that he acted!
He discovered that despite the tropical heat of the night, he was
shuddering with cold, but he disregarded this circumstance, and ran
on.
The pursued stopped before an iron-studded door, which was opened
instantly; he entered as the runner came up with him. And, before the
door could be reclosed, Cairn thrust his way in.
Blackness, utter blackness, was before him. The figure which he had
pursued seemed to have been swallowed up. He stumbled on, gropingly,
hands outstretched, then fell--fell, as he realised in the moment of
falling, down a short flight of stone steps.
Still amid utter blackness, he got upon his feet, shaken but otherwise
unhurt by his fall. He turned about, expecting to see some glimmer of
light from the stairway, but the blackness was unbroken. Silence and
gloom hemmed him in. He stood for a moment, listening intently.
A shaft of light pierced the darkness, as a shutter was thrown open.
Through an iron-barred window the light shone; and with the light came
a breath of stifling perfume. That perfume carried his imagination
back instantly to a room at Oxford, and he advanced and looked through
into the place beyond. He drew a swift breath, clutched the bars, and
was silent--stricken speechless.
He looked into a large and lofty room, lighted by several hanging
lamps. It had a carpeted divan at one end and was otherwise scantily
furnished, in the Eastern manner. A silver incense-burner smoked upon
a large praying-carpet, and by it stood the man in the crocodile mask.
An Arab girl, fantastically attired, who had evidently just opened the
shutters, was now helping him to remove the hideous head-dress.
She presently untied the last of the fastenings and lifted the thing
from the man's shoulders, moving away with the gliding step of the
Oriental, and leaving him standing there in his short white tunic,
bare-legged and sandalled.
The smoke of the incense curled upward and played around the straight,
slim figure, drew vaporous lines about the still, ivory face--the
handsome, sinister face, sometimes partly veiling the long black eyes
and sometimes showing them in all their unnatural brightness. So the
man stood, looking towards the barred window.
It was Antony Ferrara!
"Ah, dear Cairn--" the husky musical voice smote upon Cairn's ears as
the most hated sound in nature--"you have followed me. Not content
with driving me from London, you would also render Cairo--my dear
Cairo--untenable for me."
Cairn clutched the bars but was silent.
"How wrong of you, Cairn!" the soft voice mocked. "This attention is
so harmful--to you. Do you know, Cairn, the Sudanese formed the
extraordinary opinion that I was an _efreet_, and this strange
reputation has followed me right down the Nile. Your father, my dear
friend, has studied these odd matters, and he would tell you that
there is no power, in Nature, higher than the human will. Actually,
Cairn, they have ascribed to me the direction of the _Khamsîn_, and so
many worthy Egyptians have made up their minds that I travel with the
storm--or that the storm follows me--that something of the kind has
really come to pass! Or is it merely coincidence, Cairn? Who can say?"
Motionless, immobile, save for a slow smile, Antony Ferrara stood, and
Cairn kept his eyes upon the evil face, and with trembling hands
clutched the bars.
"It is certainly odd, is it not," resumed the taunting voice, "that
_Khamsîn_, so violent, too, should thus descend upon the Cairene
season? I only arrived from the Fayûm this evening, Cairn, and, do you
know, they have the pestilence there! I trust the hot wind does not
carry it to Cairo; there are so many distinguished European and
American visitors here. It would be a thousand pities!"
Cairn released his grip of the bars, raised his clenched fists above
his head, and in a voice and with a maniacal fury that were neither
his own, cursed the man who stood there mocking him. Then he reeled,
fell, and remembered no more.
* * * * *
"All right, old man--you'll do quite nicely now."
It was Sime speaking.
Cairn struggled upright ... and found himself in bed! Sime was seated
beside him.
"Don't talk!" said Sime, "you're in hospital! I'll do the talking; you
listen. I saw you bolt out of Shepheard's last night--shut up! I
followed, but lost you. We got up a search party, and with the aid of
the man who had driven you, ran you to earth in a dirty alley behind
the mosque of El-Azhar. Four kindly mendicants, who reside upon the
steps of the establishment, had been awakened by your blundering in
among them. They were holding you--yes, you were raving pretty badly.
You are a lucky man, Cairn. You were inoculated before you left home?"
Cairn nodded weakly.
"Saved you. Be all right in a couple of days. That damned _Khamsîn_
has brought a whiff of the plague from somewhere! Curiously enough,
over fifty per cent. of the cases spotted so far are people who were
at the carnival! Some of them, Cairn--but we won't discuss that now. I
was afraid of it, last night. That's why I kept my eye on you. My boy,
you were delirious when you bolted out of the hotel!"
"Was I?" said Cairn wearily, and lay back on the pillow. "Perhaps I
was."