"Never min', I'm tellin' youse; an dat's just where de stink_The False Gods

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THE FALSE GODS

GEORGE HORACE LORIMER

Author of "Letters from a Self-made Merchant to His Son"

[Illustration]

[Illustration: "Then ... the arms crushed him against the stone breast."]

[Illustration]

D. Appleton and Company

New York

1906

Entered at Stationer's Hall, London

Published April, 1906

[Illustration]

To A.V.L.

[Illustration]

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. 1

II. 11

III. 21

IV. 33

V. 39

VI. 51

VII. 59

VIII. 69

IX. 77

X. 81

[Illustration]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING

PAGE

"Then ... the arms crushed him

against the stone breast" _Frontispiece_

"'Aw, fergit it'" 4

"'She's the Real Thing'" 24

"Suddenly she felt him coming, and turned" 56

[Illustration]

THE FALSE GODS

It was shortly after ten o'clock one morning when Ezra Simpkins, a

reporter from the _Boston Banner_, entered the Oriental Building,

that dingy pile of brick and brownstone which covers a block on Sixth

Avenue, and began to hunt for the office of the Royal Society of

Egyptian Exploration and Research. After wandering through a labyrinth

of halls, he finally found it on the second floor. A few steps farther

on, a stairway led down to one of the side entrances; for the building

could be entered from any of the four bounding streets.

Simpkins regarded knocking on doors and sending in cards as formalities

which served merely to tempt people of a retiring disposition to lie, so

when he walked into the waiting-room and found it deserted, he passed

through it quickly and opened the door beyond. But if he had expected

this manoeuver to bring him within easy distance of the person whom

he was seeking, he was disappointed. He had simply walked into a small

outer office. A self-sufficient youth of twelve, who was stuffed into

a be-buttoned suit, was its sole occupant.

"Hello, bub!" said Simpkins to this Cerberus of the threshold. "Mrs.

Athelstone in?" and he drew out his letter of introduction; for he had

instantly decided to use it in place of a card, as being more likely to

gain him admittance.

"Aw, fergit it," the youth answered with fine American independence.

"I'll let youse know when your turn comes, an' youse can keep your

ref'rences till you're asked for 'em," and he surveyed Simpkins with

marked disfavor.

The reporter made no answer and asked no questions. Until that moment he

had not known that he had a turn, but if he had, he did not propose to

lose it by any foolish slip. So he settled down in his chair and began

to turn over his assignment in his mind.

That Simpkins had come over to New York was due to the conviction of

his managing editor, Mr. Naylor, that a certain feature which had been

shaping up in his head would possess a peculiar interest if it could be

"led" with a few remarks by Mrs. Athelstone. Though her husband, the

Rev. Alfred W.R. Athelstone, was a Church of England clergyman, whose

interest in Egyptology had led him to accept the presidency of the

American branch of the Royal Society, she was a leader among the

Theosophists. And now that the old head of the cult was dead, it was

rumored that Mrs. Athelstone had announced the reincarnation of Madame

Blavatsky in her own person. This in itself was a good "story," but it

was not until a second rumor reached Naylor's ears that his newspaper

soul was stirred to its yellowest depths. For there was in Boston an

association known as the American Society for the Investigation of

Ancient Beliefs, which was a rival of the Royal Society in its good work

of laying bare with pick and spade the buried mysteries along the Nile.

And this rivalry, which was strong between the societies and bitter

between their presidents, became acute in the persons of their

secretaries, both of whom were women. Madame Gianclis, who served the

Boston Society, boasted Egyptian blood in her veins, a claim which Mrs.

Athelstone, who acted as secretary for her husband's society, politely

conceded, with the qualification that some ancestor of her rival had

contributed a dash of the Senegambian as well.

[Illustration: "'Aw, fergit it.'"]

This remark, duly reported to Madame Gianclis, had not put her in a

humor to concede Madame Blavatsky's soul, or any part of it, to Mrs.

Athelstone. Promptly on hearing of her pretensions, so rumor had it,

the Boston woman had announced the reincarnation of Theosophy's high

priestess in herself. And Boston believers were inclined to accept her

view, as it was difficult for them to understand how any soul with

liberty of action could deliberately choose a New York residence.

Now, all these things had filtered through to Naylor from those just

without the temple gates, for whatever the quarrels of the two societies

and their enemies, they tried to keep them to themselves. They had had

experience with publicity and had found that ridicule goes hand in hand

with it in this iconoclastic age. But out of these rumors, unconfirmed

though they were, grew a vision in Naylor's brain--a vision of a

glorified spread in the _Sunday Banner's_ magazine section. Under

a two-page "head," builded cunningly of six sizes of type, he saw

ravishingly beautiful pictures of Madame Gianclis and Mrs. Athelstone,

and hovering between them the materialized, but homeless, soul of Madame

Blavatsky, trying to make choice of an abiding-place, the whole

enlivened and illuminated with much "snappy" reading matter.

Now, Simpkins was the man to make a managing editor's dreams come true,

so Naylor rubbed the lamp for him and told him what he craved. But the

reporter's success in life had been won by an ability to combine much

extravagance of statement in the written with great conservatism in

the spoken word. Early in his experience he had learned that Naylor's

optimism, though purely professional, entailed unpleasant consequences

on the reporter who shared it and then betrayed some too generous trust;

so he absolutely refused to admit that there was any basis for it now.

"You know she won't talk to reporters," he protested. "Those New York

boys have joshed that whole bunch so they're afraid to say their prayers

out loud. Then she's English and dead swell, and that combination's hard

to open, unless you have a number in the Four Hundred, and then it ain't

refined to try. I can make a pass at her, but it'll be a frost for me."

"Nonsense! You must make her talk, or manage to be around while some one

else does," Naylor answered, waving aside obstacles with the noble scorn

of one whose business it is to set others to conquer them. "I want a

good snappy interview, understand, and descriptions for some red-hot

pictures, if you can't get photos. I'm going to save the spread in the

Sunday magazine for that story, and you don't want to slip up on the

Athelstone end of it. That hall is just what the story needs for a

setting. Get in and size it up."

"You remember what happened to that _Courier_ man who got in?"

ventured Simpkins.

"I believe I did hear something about a _Courier_ man's being

snaked out of a closet and kicked downstairs. Served him right.

_Very_ coarse work. Very coarse work _indeed_. There's a better

way and you'll find it." There was something unpleasantly significant in

his voice, as he terminated the interview by swinging around to his desk

and picking up a handful of papers, which warned the reporter that he

had gone the limit.

Simpkins had heard of the hall, for it had been written up just after

Doctor Athelstone, who was a man of some wealth, had assembled in it his

private collection of Egyptian treasures. But he knew, too, that it had

become increasingly difficult to penetrate since Mrs. Athelstone had

been made the subject of some entertaining, but too imaginative, Sunday

specials. Still, now that he had properly magnified the difficulties

of the undertaking to Naylor, that the disgrace of defeat might be

discounted or the glory of achievement enhanced, he believed that he

knew a way to gain access to the hall and perhaps to manage a talk with

Mrs. Athelstone herself. His line of thought started him for Cambridge,

where he had a younger brother whom he was helping through Harvard.

As a result of this fraternal visit, Simpkins minor cut the classes of

Professor Alexander Blackburn, the eminent archæologist, for the next

week, and went to his other lectures by back streets. For the kindly

professor had given him a letter, introducing him to Mrs. Athelstone as

a worthy young student with a laudable thirst for that greater knowledge

of Egyptian archæology, ethnology and epigraphy which was to be gained

by an inspection of her collection. And it was the possession of this

letter which influenced Simpkins major to take the smoking car and to

sit up all night, conning an instructive volume on Ancient Egypt,

thereby acquiring much curious information, and diverting two dollars of

his expense money to the pocket in which he kept his individual cash

balance.

[Illustration]

For five minutes the decorous silence of the anteroom was unbroken.

Then the door of the inner office swung open and closed behind a

dejected-looking young man, and the boy, without so much as asking

for a card, preceded the secretly-elated Simpkins into the hall.

They had stepped from the present into the past. Simpkins found himself

looking between a double row of pillars, covered with hieroglyphics in

red and black, to an altar of polished black basalt, guarded on either

side by stone sphinxes. Behind it, straight from the lofty ceiling, fell

a veil of black velvet, embroidered with golden scarabæi, and fringed

with violet. The approach, a hundred paces or more, was guarded by

twoscore mummies in black cases, standing upright along the pillars.

"Watcher gawkin' at?" demanded the youth, grinning up at the staring

Simpkins. "Lose dat farmer-boy face or it's back to de ole homestead

for youse. Her royal nibs ain't lookin' for no good milker."

"Oh, I'm just rubbering to see where the goat's kept," the reporter

answered, trying to assume a properly metropolitan expression. "Suppose

I'll have to take the third degree before I can get out of here."

The youth started noiselessly across the floor, and Simpkins saw that

he wore sandals. His own heavy walking boots rang loudly on the flagged

floors and woke the echoes in the vaulted ceiling. He began to tread on

tiptoe, as one moves in a death-chamber.

And that was what this great room was: a charnel-house filled with

the spoil of tombs and temples. The dim light fluttered down from

quaint, triangular windows, set with a checker-work of brick-red and

saffron-colored panes about a central design, a scarlet heart upon a

white star, and within that a black scarabæus. The white background of

the walls threw into relief the angular figures on the frieze, scenes

from old Egyptian life: games, marriages, feasts and battles, painted

in the crude colors of early art. Between were paneled pictures of the

gods, monstrous and deformed deities, half men, half beasts; and the

dado, done in black, pictured the funeral rites of the Egyptians, with

explanatory passages from the ritual of the dead. Rudely-sculptured

bas-reliefs and intaglios, torn from ancient mastabas, were set over

windows and doors, and stone colossi of kings and gods leered and

threatened from dusky corners. Sarcophagi of black basalt, red porphyry

and pink-veined alabaster, cunningly carved, were disposed as they had

been found in the pits of the dead, with the sepulchral vases and the

hideous wooden idols beside them.

The descriptions of the place had prepared Simpkins for something out

of the ordinary, but nothing like this; and he looked about him with

wonder in his eyes and a vague awe at his heart, until he found himself

standing in the corner of the hall to the right of the black altar in

the west. Two sarcophagi, one of basalt, the other of alabaster, were

placed at right angles to the walls, partially inclosing a small space.

Within this inclosure, bowed over a stone table, sat a woman, writing.

At either end of the table a mummy case, one black, the other gilt,

stood upright. The boy halted just outside this singular private office,

and the woman rose and came toward them.

Simpkins had never read Virgil, but he knew the goddess by her walk. She

was young--not over thirty--and tall and stately. Her gown was black,

some soft stuff which clung about her, and a bunch of violets at her

waist made the whole corner faintly sweet. Her features were regular,

but of a type strange to Simpkins, the nose slightly aquiline, the lips

full and red--vividly so by contrast to the clear white of the skin--and

the forehead low and straight. Black hair waved back from it, and was

caught up by the coils of a golden asp, from whose lifted head two

rubies gleamed. Doubtless a woman would have pronounced her gown absurd

and her way of wearing her hair an intolerable affectation. But it was

effective with the less discriminating animal--instantly so with

Simpkins.

And then she raised her eyes and looked at him. To the first glance they

were dusky eyes, deep and fathomless, changing swiftly to the blue-black

of the northern skies on a clear winter night, and flashing out sharp

points of light, like star-rays. He knew that in that glance he had been

weighed, gauged and classed, and, though he was used to questioning

Governors and Senators quite unabashed and unafraid, he found himself

standing awkward and ill-at-ease in the presence of this woman.

Had she addressed him in Greek or Egyptian, he would have accepted it as

a matter of course. But when she did speak it was in the soft, clear

tones of a well-bred Englishwoman, and what she said was commonplace

enough.

"I suppose you've called to see about the place?" she asked.

"Ye-es," stammered Simpkins, but with wit enough to know that he had

come at an opportune moment. If there were a place, decidedly he had

called to see about it.

"Who sent you?" she continued, and he understood that he was not there

in answer to a want advertisement.

"Professor Blackburn." And he presented his letter and went on, with

a return of his glibness: "You see, I've been working my way through

Harvard--preparing for the ministry--Congregationalist. Found I'd have

to stop and go to work regularly for a while before I could finish. So

I've come over here, where I can attend the night classes at Columbia at

the same time. And as I'm interested in Egyptology, and had heard a good

deal about your collection, I got that letter to you. Thought you might

know some one in the building who wanted a man, as work in a place like

this would be right in my line. Of course, if you're looking for any

one, I'd like to apply for the place." And he paused expectantly.

"I see. You want to be a Dissenting minister, and you're working for

your education. Very creditable of you, I'm sure. And you're a stranger

in New York, you say?"

"Utter," returned Simpkins.

Mrs. Athelstone proceeded to question him at some length about his

qualifications. When he had satisfied her that he was competent to

attend to the easy, clerical work of the office and to care for the

more valuable articles in the hall, things which she did not care to

leave to the regular cleaners, she concluded:

"I'm disposed to give you a trial, Mr. Simpkins, but I want you to

understand that under no circumstances are you to talk about me or

your work outside the office. I've been so hunted and harried by

reporters----" And her voice broke. "What I want above all else is

a clerk that I can trust."

The assurance which Simpkins gave in reply came harder than all the lies

he had told that morning, and, some way, none of them had slipped out

so smoothly as usual. He was a fairly truthful and tender-hearted man

outside his work, but in it he had accustomed himself to regard men and

women in a purely impersonal way, and their troubles and scandals simply

as material. To his mind, nothing was worth while unless it had a news

value; and nothing was sacred that had. But he was uneasily conscious

now that he was doing a deliberately brutal thing, and for the first

time he felt that regard for a subject's feelings which is so fatal to

success in certain branches of the new journalism. But he repressed

the troublesome instinct, and when Mrs. Athelstone dismissed him a few

minutes later, it was with the understanding that he should report the

next morning, ready for work.

He stopped for a moment in the ante-chamber on the way out; for the

bright light blinded him, and there were red dots before his eyes. He

felt a little subdued, not at all like the self-confident man who had

passed through the oaken door ten minutes before. But nothing could long

repress the exuberant Simpkins, and as he started down the stairway to

the street he was exclaiming to himself:

"Did you butt in, Simp., old boy, or were you pushed?"

[Illustration]

III

At nine o'clock the next morning Simpkins presented himself at the

Society's office, and a few minutes later he found himself in the

fascinating presence of Mrs. Athelstone. He soon grasped the details of

his simple duties, and then, like a lean, awkward mastiff, padded along

at her heels while she moved about the hall and pointed out the things

which would be under his care.

"If I were equal to it, I should look after these myself," she

explained. "Careless hands would soon ruin this case." And she touched

the gilt mummy beside her writing-table affectionately. "She was a

queen, Nefruari, daughter of the King of Ethiopia. They called her 'the

good and glorious woman.'"

"And this--this black boy?" questioned Simpkins respectfully. "Looks as

if he might have lived during the eighteenth dynasty." He had not been

poring over volumes on Ancient Egypt for two nights without knowing a

thing or two about black mummies.

"Quite right, Simpkins," Mrs. Athelstone replied, evidently pleased by

his interest and knowledge. "He was Amosis, a king of the eighteenth

dynasty, and Nefruari's husband. A big, powerful man!"

"What a bully cigarette brand he'd make!" thought Simpkins, and aloud

he added:

"They must have been a fine-looking pair."

"Indeed, yes," was the earnest answer, and so they moved about the hall,

she explaining, he listening and questioning, until at last they stood

before the black altar in the west and the veil of velvet. Simpkins saw

that there was an inscription carved in the basalt, and, drawing nearer,

slowly spelled out:

TIBI

VNA QVE

ES OMNIA

DEA ISIS

"And what's behind the curtain?" he began, turning toward Mrs.

Athelstone.

"The truth, of course. But remember," and her tone was half serious,

"none but an adept may look behind the veil and live."

"The truth is my long suit," returned Simpkins mendaciously. "So I'll

take a chance." As he spoke, the heavy velvet fell aside and disclosed

a statue of a woman carved in black marble. It stood on a pedestal of

bronze, overlaid with silver, and above and behind were hangings of

blue-gray silk. A brilliant ray of light beat down on it. Glancing up,

Simpkins saw that it shone from a crescent moon in the arched ceiling

above the altar. Then his eyes came back to the statue. There was

something so lifelike in the pose of the figure, something so winning in

the smile of the face, something so alluring in the outstretched arms,

that he involuntarily stepped nearer.

"And now that you've seen Isis, what do you think of her?" asked Mrs.

Athelstone, breaking the momentary silence.

"She's the real thing--the naked truth, sure enough," returned Simpkins

with a grin.

"It _is_ a wonderful statue!" was the literal answer. "There's no

other like it in the world. Doctor Athelstone found it near Thebes, and

took a good deal of pride in arranging this shrine. The device _is_

clever; the parting of the veil you see, makes the light shine down on

the statue, and it dies out when I close it--so"; and, as she pulled a

cord, the veil fell before the statue and the light melted away.

[Illustration: "'She's the Real Thing.'"]

"Aren't you initiating the neophyte rather early?" a man's voice asked

at Simpkins' elbow, and, as he turned to see who it was, Mrs. Athelstone

explained: "This is our new clerk, Mr. Simpkins; Doctor Brander is our

treasurer, and our acting president while my husband's away. He left a

few days ago for a little rest." And Mrs. Athelstone turned back to her

desk.

Simpkins instantly decided to dislike the young clergyman beside him. He

was tall and athletic-looking, but with a slight stoop, that impressed

the reporter as a physical assumption of humility which the handsome

face, with its faintly sneering lines and bold eyes, contradicted. But

he acknowledged Brander's offhand "How d'ye do?" in a properly

deferential manner, and listened respectfully to a few careless

sentences of instructions.

For the rest of the morning, Simpkins mechanically addressed circulars

appealing for funds to carry on the good work of the Society, while his

mind was busy trying to formulate a plan by which he could get Mrs.

Athelstone to tell what she knew about the whereabouts of Madame

Blavatsky's soul. He felt, with the accurate instinct of one used to

classing the frailties of flesh and blood according to their worth in

columns, that those devices which had so often led women to confide

to him the details of the particular sensation that he was working up

would avail him nothing here. "You simply haven't got her Bertillon

measurements, Simp.," he was forced to admit, after an hour of fruitless

thinking. "You'll have to trust in your rabbit's foot."

But if Mrs. Athelstone was a new species to him, the office boy was not.

He knew that youth down to the last button on his jacket. He knew, too,

that an office boy often whiles away the monotonous hours by piecing

together the president's secrets from the scraps in his waste-basket.

So at the noon hour he slipped out after Buttons, caught him as he was

disappearing up a near-by alley in a cloud of cigarette smoke, like the

disreputable little devil that he was, and succeeded in establishing

friendly and even familiar relations with him.

It was not, however, until late in the afternoon, when he was called

into the ante-chamber to discover the business of a caller, that he

improved the opportunity to ask the youth some leading questions.

"Suppose you open up mornings?" he began carelessly.

"Naw; Mrs. A. does. She bunks here."

"How?"

"In a bed. She's got rooms in de buildin'. That door by Booker T. leads

to 'em."

"Booker T.? Oh, sure! The brunette statue. And that other door--the one

to the left. Where does that go?"

"Into Brander's storeroom. He sells mummies on de side."

"Does, eh? Curious business!" commented Simpkins. "Seems to rub it into

_you_ pretty hard. And stuck on himself! Don't seem able to spit

without ringing his bell for some one to see him do it. Guess you'd have

to have four legs to satisfy _him_, all right."

"Say, dat duck ain't on de level," the grievance for which Simpkins had

been probing coming to the surface.

"Holds out on what he collects? Steals?"

"Sure t'ing--de loidies," and the boy lowered his voice; "he's dead

stuck on Mrs. A."

"Oh! nonsense," commented Simpkins, an invitation to continue in his

voice. "She's a married woman."

"Never min', I'm tellin' youse; an dat's just where de stink comes in.

Ain't I seen 'im wid my own eyes a-makin' goo-goos at 'er. An' wasn't

there rough house for fair goin' on in dere last mont', just before de

Doc. made his get-away? He tumbled to somethin', all right, all right,

or why don't he write her? Say, I don't expect _him_ back in no

hurry. He's hived up in South Dakote right now, an' she's in trainin'

for alimony, or my name's Dennis Don'tknow."

"Does look sort of funny," Simpkins replied, sympathetic, but not too

interested. "When was it Doc. left? Last week?"

"Last week, not; more'n a mont' ago, an' he ain't peeped since, for I've

skinned every mail dat's come in, an' not a picture-postal, see?"

"That isn't very affectionate of Doc., but I wouldn't mention it to any

one else; it might get you into trouble," was Simpkins' comment. "You

better--Holy, jumping Pharaoh! what a husky pussy!" As he spoke a big

black cat, with blinking, tawny eyes, sprang from the floor and curled

itself up on the youth's desk. "Where'd that----"

A snarl interrupted the question; for the temptation to pull the cat's

tail had proved too strong for the boy. Bowed over his desk in a fit of

laughter at the result, he did not see the door behind him open, but

Simpkins did. And he saw Mrs. Athelstone, her eyes blazing, spring into

the room, seize the youth by the collar and shake him roughly.

"You nasty little brute!" she cried. "How dared you do that to a----"

And then catching sight of Simpkins, she dropped the frightened boy back

into his chair.

"I can't stand cruelty to animals," she explained, panting a little from

her effort. "If anything of this sort happens again, I'll discharge you

on the spot," she added to the boy.

"Shame!" Simpkins echoed warmly. "Didn't know what was up or I'd have

stopped him."

"I'm sure of it," she answered graciously, and, stooping, she picked up

the now purring cat and left the room.

Simpkins followed her back to his desk and went on with his addressing,

but he had something worth thinking about now. Not for nothing had he

been educated in that newspaper school which puts two and two together

and makes six. And by the time he was through work for the day and back

in his room at the hotel, he had his result. He embodied it in this

letter to Naylor:

_Dear Mr. Naylor_:

I am in the employ of Mrs. Athelstone. How I managed it is a yarn

that will keep till I get back. [He meant until he could invent the

story which would reflect the most credit on his ingenuity, for

though he knew that the whole thing had been a piece of luck he had

no intention of cheapening himself with Naylor by owning as much.]

I had intended to return to Boston to-night, but I'm on the track of

real news, a lovely stink, something much bigger than the Sunday story.

There's a sporting parson, quite a swell, in the office here who's gone

on Mrs. A., and I'm inclined to hope she is on him. Anyway, the Doc.

left in a hurry after some sort of a row over a month ago, and hasn't

written a line to his wife since. She's as cool as a cucumber about it

and handed me a hot one right off the bat about poor old Doc.'s having

gone away for a rest _a few days ago_. I've drawn cards and am going

to sit in the game, unless you wire me to come home, for I smell a large,

fat, front-page exclusive, which will jar the sensitive slats of some of

our first families both here and in dear old London.

Yours,

SIMPKINS.

He hesitated a few minutes before he mailed the letter. He really did

not want to do anything to involve _her_ in a scandal, but, after

all, it was simply anticipating the inevitable, and--he pulled himself

up short and put the letter in the box. He could not afford any mawkish

sentiment in this.

[Illustration]

Simpkins received a monosyllabic telegram from Naylor, instructing him

to "stay," but after working in the Society's office for another three

days he was about ready to give up all hope of getting at the facts.

Some other reason, he scarcely knew what, kept him on. Perhaps it was

Mrs. Athelstone herself. For though he appreciated how ridiculous his

infatuation was, he found a miserable pleasure in merely being near her.

And she was pleased with her new clerk, amused at what she called his

quaint Americanisms, and if she noticed his too unrepressed admiration

for her, she smiled it aside. It was something to which she was

accustomed, an involuntary tribute which most men who saw her often

rendered her.

She never referred, even indirectly, to her husband, but Simpkins,

as he watched her move about the hall, divined that he was often in

her thoughts. And there was another whom he watched--Brander; for he

felt certain now that the acting president's interest in his handsome

secretary was not purely that of the Egyptologist. And though there was

nothing but a friendly courtesy in her manner toward him, Simpkins knew

his subject well enough to understand that, whatever her real feelings

were, she was far too clever to be tripped into betraying them to him.

"She doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve--if she has a heart," he

decided.

He was trying to make up his mind to force things to some sort of a

crisis, one morning, when Mrs. Athelstone called him to her desk and

said rather sharply:

"You've been neglecting your work, Simpkins. Isis looks as if she hadn't

been dusted since you came."

This was the fact. Simpkins never passed the black altar without a

backward glance, as if he were fearful of an attack from behind. And he

had determined that nothing should tempt him to a tête-à-tête with the

statue behind the veil. But having so senseless, so cowardly a feeling

was one thing, and letting Mrs. Athelstone know it another. So he only

replied:

"I'm very sorry; afraid I have been a little careless about the statue."

And taking up a soft cloth, he walked toward the altar.

It was quite dark behind the veil; so dark that he could see nothing at

first. But after the moment in which his eyes grew accustomed to the

change, he made out the vague lines of the statue in the faint light

from above. He set to work about the pedestal, touching it gingerly at

first, then more boldly. At length he looked up into the face, blurred

in the half-light.

When he had finished with the pedestal he pulled himself up between the

outstretched arms, and perhaps a trifle hurriedly now, as he saw the

face more distinctly, began to pass the cloth over the arms and back.

Then, quick as the strike of a snake, the arms crushed him against the

stone breast. He could not move; he could not cry out; he could not

breathe. The statue, seen from the level of the pedestal, had changed

its whole expression. Hate glowed in its eyes; menace lived in every

line of its face. The arms tightened slowly, inexorably; then, as

quickly as they had closed, unclasped; and Simpkins half-slid, half-fell

to the floor.

When the breath came back into his lungs and he found himself unharmed,

he choked back the cry on his lips, for in that same moment a suspicion

floated half-formed through his brain. He forced himself to climb up on

the pedestal again, and made a careful inspection of the statue--but

from behind this time.

The arms were metal, enameled to the smoothness of the body, and

jointed, though the joints were almost invisible. The statue was one of

those marvelous creations of the ancient priests, and once, no doubt, it

had stood behind the veil in some Egyptian temple to tempt and to punish

the curiosity of the neophyte.

Though Simpkins could find no clew to the mechanism of the statue, he

determined that he had sprung it with his feet, and that during his

struggles a lucky kick had touched the spring which relaxed the arms.

"Did any one beside himself know their strength?" he asked himself, as

he stepped out into the hall again. Mrs. Athelstone was bent over her

desk writing; Brander was yawning over a novel in his corner, and

neither paid any attention to him. So he busied himself going over the

mummy-cases, and by the time he had worked around to the two beside Mrs.

Athelstone he had himself well in hand, outwardly. But he was still so

shaken internally that he knocked the black case rather roughly as he

dusted.

"What way is that to treat a king?" demanded Mrs. Athelstone; and the

anger in her voice was so real that Simpkins, startled, blundered out:

"I really meant no disrespect. Very careless of me, I'm sure." He looked

so distressed that Mrs. Athelstone's anger melted into a delicious

little laugh, as she answered:

"Really, Simpkins, you musn't be so bungling. These mummies are

priceless." And she got up and made a careful inspection of the case.

Simpkins, rather crestfallen, went back to his desk and began to address

circulars, his brain busy with the shadow which had crept into it. But

there was nothing to make it more tangible, everything to dispel it,

and he was forced to own as much. "It's a lovely little cozy corner,"

was his final conclusion; "but keep out of it, Simp., old boy. These

mechanical huggers are great stuff, but they're too strong for a fellow

that's been raised on Boston girls."

[Illustration]

[Illustration ]

Mrs. Athelstone was not in the office when he came down the next

day--she had gone to Washington on the Society's affairs, Brander

said--and so he moped about, finding the place dreary without her

brightening presence. In fact, when Brander went out, he slipped into

the sunlit ante-chamber, for companionship, he told himself; but in his

heart he knew that he did not want to be alone with that thing behind

the altar. He had satisfactorily explained its mechanism to himself, but

there was something else about it which he could not explain.

Naylor had telegraphed that very morning: "Get story. Come home. What do

you think you're doing?" and he tried to make up his mind to end the

whole affair by taking the night train to Boston. But he hated to go

back empty-handed from a four days' assignment. Besides, though he knew

himself a fool for it, he wanted to see Mrs. Athelstone once more.

So it happened that he was lingering on in the outer office when the

postman threw the afternoon mail on the desk. Simpkins was alone at the

moment, and he ran over the letters carelessly until he came to one

addressed to Brander in Mrs. Athelstone's writing. The blue card of the

palace car company was in a corner of the envelope.

"Why the deuce is she writing that skunk before she's well out of town?"

he thought, scanning the envelope with jealous eyes. Then he held it up

to the light, but the thick paper told nothing of what was within.

Frowning, he laid the letter down, fingered it, withdrew his itching

hand, hesitated, and finally put it in his pocket.

Simpkins went straight from the office to his hotel, for, though he

told himself that the letter contained some instructions which Mrs.

Athelstone had forgotten to give Brander before leaving, he was anxious

to see just how those instructions were worded. Alone in his little

room, he ripped open the letter and ran over its two pages with

bewilderment growing in his face. He finished by throwing it down on

the table and exclaiming helplessly: "Well, I'll be damned!"

The first sheet, without beginning or ending, contained only a line in

Mrs. Athelstone's handwriting, reading: "I had to leave in such a hurry

that I missed seeing you."

There was not an intelligible word on the second sheet; it was simply a

succession of scrawls and puerile outline pictures, such as a child

might have drawn.

To Simpkins' first aggrieved feeling that his confidence had been

abused, the certainty that he had stumbled on something of importance

quickly succeeded. He concluded a second and more careful scrutiny of

the letter with the exclamation, "Cipher! all right, all right," and,

after a third, he jumped up excitedly and rushed off to Columbia

University.

An hour later, Professor Ashmore, whose well-known work on "Hieratic

Writings" is so widely accepted an authority on that fascinating

subject, looked across to Simpkins, who for some minutes had been

sitting quietly in a corner of his study, and observed dryly:

"This is a queer jumble of hieroglyphics and hieratic writing, and is

not, I should judge," and his eyes twinkled, "of any great antiquity."

"Quite right, Professor," Simpkins assented cheerfully. "The lady who

wrote it is interested in Egyptology, and is trying to have a little fun

with me."

"If I may judge from the letter, she seems to be interested in you as

well," the professor went on smilingly. "In fact, it appears to

be--ahem--a love-letter."

"Eh! What?" exclaimed Simpkins, suddenly serious, "Let's have it."

"Well, roughly, it goes something like this: 'My heart's dearest, my

sun, my Nile duck--the hours are days without thee, the days an æon. The

gods be thanked that this separation is not for long. For apart from

thee I have no life. That thing that I have to do is about done. May the

gods guard thee and the all-mother protect thee. I embrace thee: I kiss

thine eyes and thy lips.' That's a fair translation, though one or two

of the hieroglyphics are susceptible of a slightly different rendering;

but the sense would not be materially affected by the change," the

Professor concluded.

His words fell on inattentive ears; for Simpkins was sitting stunned

under the revelation of the letter. Now that he had his story, he knew

that he had not wanted it.

But he roused himself when he became conscious that the professor was

peering at him curiously over the top of his glasses, and said:

"Pretty warm stuff, eh! Good josh! Great girl! Ought to know her. She's

daft on this Egyptian business."

"Her letter is perhaps a trifle er--impulsive," the professor answered.

"But she combines the ancient and the modern charmingly. I congratulate

you."

"Thanks, Professor," Simpkins answered awkwardly, and took his leave.

Once in the street, he plunged along, head down. It was worse than he

had suspected. He had felt all along that the boy's surmises about

Brander were correct; now he knew that his suspicions of Mrs. Athelstone

were well founded. But he would keep her from that hypocrite, that hawk,

that--murderer! Simpkins stopped short at the intrusion of that word.

It had come without logic or reason, but he knew now that it had been

shaping in his head for two days past. And once spoken, it began to

justify itself. There was the motive, clear, distinct and proven; there

were the means and the man.

Next morning Simpkins was earlier than usual at the Oriental Building,

where he found the youth waiting for Brander to come and open up the

inner office.

"Parson's late, eh?" he threw out by way of greeting.

"Always is," was the surly answer. "He's de 'rig'nal seven sleepers."

"Puts you behind with your cleaning, eh?"

"Naw; youse ought to know I don't do no cleanin'."

"You don't? I thought you tended to Mrs. Athelstone's rooms and--Mr.

Brander's storeroom."

"Aw, go wan. I'm no second girl, an' de storeroom's never cleaned.

Dere's nothin' to clean but a lot of stones an' bum mummies an' such."

"Brander can't sell much stuff; I never see anything being shipped."

"Oh! I don't know! We sent a couple of embammed dooks to Chicago last

week."

"And last month?"

"Search me; I only copped out me job here last mont'; but seems as if

his whiskers did say dere was somethin' doin'." And just then Mr.

Brander came along.

Simpkins had found out what he wanted to know, and he decided that he

must bring his plans to a head at once. Mrs. Athelstone was expected

back the next day; he must search the storeroom that very night.

If--well, he thought he could spoil one scoundrel.

He worked to good advantage during the day, and at nine o'clock that

night, when he was back outside the Oriental Building, there were three

new keys in his pocket.

He unlocked the door noiselessly, tiptoed up the staircase, and gained

the friendly blackness of the ante-chamber quite unobserved. The

watchman was half a block away, sitting by the only street entrance kept

open at night.

Simpkins took off his shoes and found his sandals without striking a

light, and then felt his way to the door leading into the hall. The knob

rattled a little under his hand. All that evening he had been nerving

himself to go in there alone and in the dark, but now he could have

turned and run like a country boy passing a graveyard at night.

The hall was not utterly black, as he had expected. Light from the

electric lamps without flickered through the stained-glass windows.

Ghastly rays of yellow played over the painted faces on the walls and

lit up the gilded features of the mummy by Mrs. Athelstone's desk. There

were crimson spots, like blotches of blood, on the veil of Isis. And all

about were moving shadows, creeping forward stealthily, falling back

slowly, as the light without flared up or died down.

Step by step Simpkins advanced on the black altar, his muscles rigid,

his nerves quivering, his eyes staring straight ahead, as a child stares

into the dark for some awful shape which it fears to see, yet dares not

leave unseen. Once past that altar he would be safe at the door of the

storeroom.

How his heart was beating! He was almost at it. Steady! A few steps now

and he would gain the storeroom. Good God! What was that!

In the blackness behind the altar two eyes flamed.

Simpkins stopped; he was helpless to turn or to advance. Perhaps if he

did not move, it would not. A moment he stood there, tense with terror,

then--straight from the altar the thing flew at his throat. But quick as

it was: the involuntary jerk of his arm upward was quicker, and it

received the blow. Snarling, the thing fell to the floor, and leaped

back into the darkness. It was Mrs. Athelstone's cat.

So strong was Simpkins' revulsion of feeling, so great his relief, that

he forgot the real cause of his terror, and sank down on the very steps

of the altar, weakly exclaiming over and over again: "Only the cat! Only

the cat! Great Scott! how it frightened me!"

He had been sitting there for a few minutes when he heard a soft click,

click, just to his right. Some one was turning a key in the door leading

from Mrs. Athelstone's apartments. As he jumped to his feet, he heard a

hand grasp the doorknob. He looked around for a hiding-place, ran a few

steps from the altar, doubled like a baited rat, and dove into the

blackness behind the veil of Isis. There had been no time to choose; for

hardly was he safe under cover and peeping out from between the folds of

the veil than the door swung open slowly.

[Illustration]

It was Mrs. Athelstone who came through the doorway. She was all in

white, a soft, silken white, which floated about her like a cloud,

drifting back from her bare arms and throat, and suggesting the rounded

outlines of her limbs. Her black hair, braided, hung below her waist,

and from her forehead the golden asp bound back the curls. Her arms were

full of roses--yellow, white and red.

For an uncertain moment she stood just within the hall, bathed in the

light that shone through from her apartments. Then she closed the door

and walked toward the veil. As she came through the shafts of light from

the windows, her gown was stained with crimson spots. She was at the

altar now, and Simpkins could no longer see her without changing his

position. Stealthily he edged along, careless of the statue just behind

him. As he parted the folds of the veil he saw that the altar was heaped

with flowers. Just beyond, the light playing fantastically on her

upturned face, stood Mrs. Athelstone.

Simpkins closed the veil abruptly. There came to him the remembrance

of the time when the boy had pulled the cat's tail, her anger and her

curious exclamation; and again, the repetition of it in his case, when

he had handled the mummy of Amosis roughly; and her affectation of

Egyptian symbols as ornaments. "She's the simon-pure Blavatsky, all

right," he concluded, as he pieced these things into what he had just

seen. "All others are base imitations."

The reporter had gathered from his little reading that behind these

monstrous gods and this complex symbolism there was something near akin

to Christianity in a few great essentials, and he understood how a woman

of Mrs. Athelstone's temperament, engrossed in the study of these things

and living in these surroundings, might be affected by them. Even he,

shrewd, hard Yankee that he was, had felt the influence of the place,

and there was that behind him then which made his heart beat quicker at

the thought.

When he looked out again Mrs. Athelstone was gone. He was impatient to

get to his work in the storeroom; but first he peeped out again to make

sure that she had returned to her room. She was still in the hall,

walking about in the corner where she ordinarily worked. There was

something methodical in her movements now that woke a new interest in

Simpkins. "What the dickens can she be up to?" he thought.

She had lit a lamp, and had shaded it, so that its rays were contracted

in a circle on the floor. From a cupboard let into the wall she was

taking bottles and brushes, a roll of linen bandages and some boxes of

pigments. After laying these on the floor, she walked over to the big

black mummy case by her table, and pushed until she had turned it around

with its face to the wall.

What heathen game was this? Simpkins' interest increased, and he poked

his head out boldly from the sheltering veil.

Mrs. Athelstone was standing directly in front of the case now, pulling

and tugging in an effort to bring it down on her shoulders. Finally, she

managed to tilt it toward her, and then, straining, she lowered it until

it rested flat on the floor.

"Sorry I couldn't have lent a hand," thought the gallant Simpkins; "the

old buck must weigh a ton. Now what's she bothering around that passé,

three-thousand-years-dead sport for?"

Her back was toward him; so, cautious and catlike, he stole from behind

the veil and glided to the shelter of a post not ten feet from her.

He peered around it eagerly. Still panting from her efforts, she was on

her knees beside the case, fumbling a key in the Yale lock, a curious

anachronism which Simpkins, in his cleaning, had found on all the more

valuable mummy cases.

The lid was of sycamore wood, comparatively light, and she lifted it

without trouble. Then the rays of the lamp shone full into the open

case, and Simpkins looked over the shoulders of the kneeling woman at

the mummy of a man who had stood full six feet in life. He stared long

at the face, seeking in those shriveled features a reason for the horror

which grew in him as he gazed, trying to build back into life again that

thing which once had been a man. For there was something about it which

seemed different from those Egyptians of whom he had read. Slowly the

vaguely-familiar features filled out, until Simpkins saw--not the

swarthy, low-browed face of an Egyptian king, but the ruddy, handsome

face of an Englishman, and--at last he was sure, a face like that of a

photograph in his pocket. And in that same moment there went through his

mind a sentence from the curious picture letter: "_That thing that I

have to do is about done._"

Already, in his absorption, he had started out from the shelter of

the pillar, and now he crept forward. He was almost on her, and she

had heard nothing, seen nothing, but suddenly she felt him coming,

and turned. And as her eyes, full of fear in the first startled

consciousness of discovery, met his, he sprang at her, and pinioned her

arms to her side. But only for a moment. Fear fought with her, and by a

mighty effort she half shook herself free.

[Illustration: "Suddenly she felt him coming, and turned."]

Simpkins found himself struggling desperately now to regain his

advantage. Already his greater strength was telling, when the lamp

crashed over, leaving them in darkness, and he felt the blow of a heavy

body striking his back. Claws dug through his clothes, deep into his

flesh. Something was at his head now, biting and tearing, and the warm

blood was trickling down into his eyes. A stealthy paw reached round

for his throat. He could feel its silken surface passing over his bare

flesh, the unsheathing of its steel to strike, and, as it sank into

his throat, he seized it, loosening, to do this, his hold on Mrs.

Athelstone, quite careless of her in the pain and menace of that moment.