THE DAMASCUS CURTAIN
The British public poured contributions into the air-fleet fund with a
lavishness that has never been equalled in history. For, after the
stupendous sums, each one a big fortune in itself, which the Jewish
financiers had subscribed, every man who called himself a Britisher (and
who thought that Britain really needed airships) came forward with his
dole.
There was a special service held at the Great Synagogue in Aldgate, and
Juda was exalted in public estimation to a dizzy pinnacle.
One morning, whilst the enthusiasm was at its height, Mr. Oppner rose
from the breakfast table upon hearing the 'phone bell ring.
"Zoe," he said, "if that's a reporter, tell him I'm ill in bed."
He shuffled from the room. Since the night of the abortive raid upon The
Cedars he had showed a marked aversion from the society of newspaper
men. Regarding the facts of his donation to the fund he had vouchsafed
no word to Zoe. Closely had the story of his doings at Richmond been
hushed up; as closely as a bottomless purse can achieve such silencing,
but, nevertheless, Zoe knew the truth.
Sheard was shown in.
"Excuse me," he said hastily, "but I wanted to ask Mr. Oppner if there
is anything in this article"--he held out a proof slip--"that he would
like altered. It's for the _Magazine of Empire_. They're having
full-page photographs of all the Aero Millionaires, that's what they
call them now!"
"Can you leave it?" asked Zoe. "He is dressing--and not in a very good
temper."
"Right!" said Sheard promptly, and laid the slip on the table. "'Phone me
if there is anything to come out. Good-bye."
Zoe was reading the proof when her father came in again.
"Newspaper men been here?" he drawled. "Thought so. What a poor old
addle-pated martyr I am."
"Listen," began Zoe, "this is an article all about you! It quotes Dr.
Herman Hertz, that is to say, it represents you as quoting him! It
says:--
"'The true Jew is an integral part of the life and spiritual endeavour
of every nation where Providence has allotted his home. And as for the
Jews of this Empire, which is earth's nearest realisation hitherto of
justice coupled with humanity, finely has a noble Anglo-Jewish soldier,
Colonel Goldschmidt, expressed it: "Loyalty to the flag for which the
sun once stood still can only deepen our devotion to the flag on which
the sun never sets."' Is that all right?"
"H'm!" said Oppner. "Have Rohscheimer and Jesson seen this article?"
"Don't know!" answered Zoe.
"Because," explained Oppner, "they've showed their blame devotion to the
flag on which the sun don't set, same as me, and if _they_ can stand it,
my hide's as tough as theirs, I reckon."
It was whilst Mr. Oppner was thus expressing himself that Sheard, who,
having left the proof at the Astoria, had raced back to the club to keep
an appointment, quitted the club again (his man had disappointed him),
and walked down the court to Fleet Street.
Mr. Aloys. X. Alden, arrayed in his capacious tweed suit, a Stetson felt
hat, and a pair of brogues with eloquent Broadway welts, liquidated the
business that had detained him in the "Cheshire Cheese" and drifted idly
in the same direction.
A taxi-driver questioned Sheard with his eyebrows, but the pressman,
after a moment's hesitancy, shook his head, and, suddenly running out
into the stream of traffic, swung himself on a westward bound bus.
Pausing in the act of lighting a Havana cigarette, Alden hailed the
disappointed taxi-driver and gave him rapid instructions. The
broad-brimmed Stetson disappeared within the cab, and the cab darted off
in the wake of the westward bound bus.
Such was the price that Mr. Thomas Sheard must pay for the reputation
won by his inspired articles upon Séverac Bablon. For what he had learnt
of him during their brief association had enabled that clever journalist
to invest his copy with an atmosphere of "exclusiveness" which had
attracted universal attention.
As a less pleasant result, the staff of the _Gleaner_--and Sheard in
particular--were being kept under strict surveillance.
Sheard occupied an outside seat, and as the bus travelled rapidly
westward, Fleet Street and the Strand offered to his gratified gaze one
long vista of placards:
"M. DUQUESNE IN LONDON."
That item was exclusive to the _Gleaner_, and had been communicated to
Sheard upon a plain correspondence card, such as he had learnt to
associate with Séverac Bablon. The _Gleaner_, amongst all London's
news-sheets, alone could inform a public, strung to a tense pitch of
excitement, that M. Duquesne, of the Paris police, was staying at the
Hotel Astoria, in connection with the Séverac Bablon case.
As the bus stopped outside Charing Cross Station, Sheard took a quick
and anxious look back down the Strand. A taxi standing near the gates
attracted his attention, for, although he could not see the Stetson
inside, he noted that the cab was engaged, and, therefore, possibly
occupied. It was sufficient, in these days of constant surveillance, to
arouse his suspicion; it was more than sufficient to-day to set his
brain working upon a plan to elude the hypothetical pursuer. He had
become, latterly, an expert in detecting detectives, and now his wits
must be taxed to the utmost.
For he had a correspondence card in his pocket which differed from those
he was used to, in that it bore the address, 70A Finchley Road, and
invited him to lunch with Séverac Bablon that day!
With the detectives of New York and London busy, and, now, with the
famous Duquesne in town, Sheard well might survey the Strand behind,
carefully, anxiously, distrustfully.
Séverac Bablon, so far as he was aware, no longer had any actual hold
upon him. There was no substantial reason why he should not hand the
invitation--bearing that address which one man, alone, in London at that
hour cheerfully would have given a thousand pounds to know--to the
proper authorities. But Séverac Bablon had appealed strongly,
irresistibly, to something within Sheard that had responded with warmth
and friendship. Despite his reckless, lawless deeds, the pressman no
more would have thought of betraying him than of betraying the most
sacred charge. In fact, as has appeared, he did not hesitate to aid and
abet him in his most outrageous projects. But yet he wondered at the
great, the incredible audacity of this super-audacious man who now had
entrusted to him the secret of his residence.
Hastily descending from the bus, he walked quickly forward to the
nearest tobacconist's and turned in the entrance to note if the man who
might be in the taxi would betray his presence.
He did.
The Stetson appeared from the window, and a pair of keen grey eyes fixed
themselves upon the door wherein Sheard was lurking.
A rapid calculation showed the pressman where lay his best chance.
Darting across the road, he dived, rabbit-like, into the burrow of the
Tube, got his ticket smartly, and ran to the stairway. With his head on
a level with the floor of the booking-offices he paused.
An instant later the canoe-shaped brogues came clattering down from
above. The American took in the people in the hall with one
comprehensive glance, got a ticket without a moment's delay, and jumped
into a lift that was about to descend.
Two minutes afterwards Sheard was in a cab bound for the house of
Séverac Bablon. The New Journalism is an exciting vocation.
He discharged the cabman at the corner of Finchley Road, and walked
along to No. 70A.
Opening the monastic looking gate, he passed around a trim lawn and
stood in the porch of one of those small and picturesque houses which
survive in some parts of red-brick London.
A man who wore conventional black, but who looked like an Ababdeh Arab,
opened the door before he had time to ring. He confirmed Sheard's guess
at his Eastern nationality by the manner of his silent salutation.
Without a word of inquiry he conducted the visitor to a small room on
the left of the hall and retired in the same noiseless fashion.
The journalist had anticipated a curious taste in decoration, and he was
not disappointed. For this apartment could not well be termed a room; it
was a mere cell.
The floor was composed of blocks--or perhaps only faced with layers of
red granite; the walls showed a surface of smooth plaster. An unglazed
window which opened on a garden afforded ample light, and, presumably
for illumination at night, an odd-looking antique lamp stood in a niche.
A littered table, black with great age and heavily carved, and a chair
to match, stood upon a rough fibre mat. There was no fireplace. The only
luxurious touch in the strange place was afforded by a richly Damascened
curtain, draped before a recess at the farther end.
From the table arose Séverac Bablon, wearing a novel garment strangely
like a bernouse.
"My dear Sheard," he said warmly and familiarly, "I am really delighted
to see you again."
Sheard shook his hand heartily. Séverac Bablon was as irresistible as
ever.
"Take the arm-chair," he continued, "and try to overlook the
peculiarities of my study. Believe me, they are not intended for mere
effect. Every item of my arrangements has its peculiar note of
inspiration, I assure you."
Sheard turned, and found that a deep-seated, heavily-cushioned chair,
also antique, and which he had overlooked, stood close behind him. An
odd perfume hung in the air.
"Ah," said Séverac Bablon, in his softly musical voice, "you have
detected my vice."
He passed an ebony box to his visitor, containing cigarettes of a dark
yellow colour. Sheard lighted one, and discovered it possessed a
peculiar aromatic flavour, which he found very fascinating. Séverac
Bablon watched him with a quizzical smile upon his wonderfully handsome
face.
"I am afraid there is opium in them," he said.
Sheard started.
"Do not fear," laughed the other. "You cannot develop the vice, for
these cigarettes are unobtainable in London. Their history serves to
disprove the popular theory that the use of tobacco was introduced from
Mexico in the sixteenth century. These were known in the East
generations earlier."
And so, with the mere melody of his voice, he re-established his
sovereignty over Sheard's mind. His extraordinary knowledge of
extraordinary matters occasioned the pressman's constant amazement. From
the preparations made for the reception of the Queen of Sheba at
Solomon's court in 980 B.C. he passed to the internal organisation of
the Criminal Investigation Department.
"I should mention," said Sheard at this point, "that an attempt was made
to follow me here."
Séverac Bablon waved a long white hand carelessly.
"Never mind," he replied soothingly. "It is annoying for you, but I give
you my word that you shall not be compromised by _me_--come, luncheon is
waiting. I will show you the only three men in Europe and America who
might associate the bandit, the incendiary, with him who calls himself
Séverac Bablon."
He stood up and gazed abstractedly in the direction of the garden. In
silence he stood looking, not at the garden, but beyond it, into some
vaster garden of his fancy. Sheard studied him with earnest curiosity.
"Will you never tell me," he began abruptly, "who you are really, what
is the source of your influence, and what is your aim in all this wild
business?"
Séverac Bablon turned and regarded him fixedly.
"I will," he said, "when the day comes--if ever it does come." A shadow
crept over his mobile features.
"I am a dreamer, Sheard," he continued, "and perhaps a trifle mad. I am
trying to wield a weapon that my fathers were content to let rust in its
scabbard. For the source of the influence you speak of--its emblem lies
there."
He pointed a long, thin finger to the recess veiled with its heavy
Damascus curtain.
"May I see it?"
The quizzical smile returned to the fine face.
"Oh, thou of the copy-hunting soul," exclaimed Séverac Bablon. "A day
may come. But it is not to-day."
He seized Sheard by the arm and led him out into the hall.
"Look at these three portraits," he directed. "The three great practical
investigators of the world. Mr. Brinsley Monro, of Dearborn Street,
Chicago; Mr. Paul Harley, of Chancery Lane; and last, but greatest, M.
Victor Lemage, of Paris."
"Is Duquesne acting under his instructions?"
"M. Lemage took charge of the case this morning."
Sheard looked hard at Séverac Bablon. Victor Lemage, inventor of the
anthroposcopic system of identification, the greatest living authority
upon criminology, was a man to be feared.
Séverac Bablon smiled, clapped both hands upon his shoulders, and looked
into his eyes.
"It is the lighter side of my strange warfare," he said. "I revel in it,
Sheard. It refreshes me for more serious things. This evening you must
arrange to meet me for a few moments. I shall have a 'scoop' to offer
you for the _Gleaner_. Do not fail me. It will leave you ample time to
get on to Downing Street afterwards. You see, I knew you were going to
Downing Street to-night! Am I not a magician? I shall wire you. If, when
you ring at the door of the house to which you will be directed, no one
replies, go away at once. I will then communicate the news later. And
now--lunch."