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THE BOOK OF ALL-POWER
BY
EDGAR WALLACE
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE
_Made and printed in Great Britain by_
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED, LONDON.
POPULAR NOVELS
BY
EDGAR WALLACE
PUBLISHED BY
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED.
_In Various Editions._
SANDERS OF THE RIVER
BONES
BOSAMBO OF THE RIVER
BONES IN LONDON
THE KEEPERS OF THE KING'S PEACE
THE COUNCIL OF JUSTICE
THE DUKE IN THE SUBURBS
THE PEOPLE OF THE RIVER
DOWN UNDER DONOVAN
PRIVATE SELBY
THE ADMIRABLE CARFEW
THE MAN WHO BOUGHT LONDON
THE JUST MEN OF CORDOVA
THE SECRET HOUSE
KATE, PLUS TEN
LIEUTENANT BONES
THE ADVENTURES OF HEINE
JACK O' JUDGMENT
THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY
THE NINE BEARS
THE BOOK OF ALL POWER
MR. JUSTICE MAXELL
THE BOOKS OF BART
THE DARK EYES OF LONDON
CHICK
SANDI, THE KING-MAKER
THE THREE OAK MYSTERY
THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG
BLUE HAND
GREY TIMOTHY
A DEBT DISCHARGED
THOSE FOLK OF BULBORO'
THE MAN WHO WAS NOBODY
THE GREEN RUST
THE FOURTH PLAGUE
THE RIVER OF STARS
To
HARRY HUGHES-ONSLOW
THE BOOK OF ALL-POWER
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I INTRODUCING MALCOLM HAY 9
II A GUN-MAN REFUSES WORK 24
III THE GRAND DUCHESS IRENE 38
IV THE PRINCE WHO PLANNED 56
V THE RAID ON THE SILVER LION 67
VI PRINCE SERGANOFF PAYS THE PRICE 80
VII KENSKY OF KIEFF 96
VIII THE GRAND DUKE IS AFFABLE 112
IX THE HAND AT THE WINDOW 126
X TERROR IN MAKING 139
XI THE COMMISSARY WITH THE CROOKED NOSE 152
XII IN THE PRISON OF ST. BASIL 163
XIII CHERRY BIM MAKES A STATEMENT 176
XIV IN THE HOLY VILLAGE 191
XV THE RED BRIDE 198
XVI THE BOOK OF ALL-POWER 210
XVII ON THE ROAD 221
XVIII THE MONASTERY OF ST. BASIL THE LEPER 233
XIX THE END OF BOOLBA 244
CHAPTER THE LAST 253
THE BOOK OF ALL-POWER
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCING MALCOLM HAY
If a man is not eager for adventure at the age of twenty-two, the
enticement of romantic possibilities will never come to him.
The chairman of the Ukraine Oil Company looked with a little amusement
at the young man who sat on the edge of a chair by the chairman's desk,
and noted how the eye of the youth had kindled at every fresh
discouragement which the chairman had put forward. Enthusiasm, reflected
the elder man, was one of the qualities which were most desirable in the
man who was to accept the position which Malcolm Hay was at that moment
considering.
"Russia is a strange country," said Mr. Tremayne. "It is one of the
mystery places of the world. You hear fellows coming back from China who
tell you amazing stories of the idiosyncrasies of the Chink. But I can
tell you, from my own personal observations, that the Chinaman is an
open book in words of one syllable compared with the average Russian
peasant. By the way, you speak Russian, I understand?"
Hay nodded.
"Oh, yes, sir," he said, "I have been talking Russian ever since I was
sixteen, and I speak both the dialects."
"Good!" nodded Mr. Tremayne. "Now, all that remains for you to do is to
think both dialects. I was in Southern Russia attending to our wells for
twenty years. In fact, long before our wells came into being, and I can
honestly say that, though I am not by any means an unintelligent man, I
know just as little about the Russian to-day as I did when I went there.
He's the most elusive creature. You think you know him two days after
you have met him. Two days later you find that you have changed all your
opinions about him; and by the end of the first year, if you have kept a
careful note of your observations and impressions in a diary, you will
discover that you have three hundred and sixty-five different
views--unless it happens to be a leap year."
"What happens in a leap year?" asked the innocent Hay.
"You have three hundred and sixty-six views," said the solemn Mr.
Tremayne.
He struck a bell.
"We shan't want you to leave London for a week or two," he said, "and in
the meantime you had better study up our own special literature. We can
give you particulars about the country--that part of the country in
which the wells are situated--which you will not find in the guidebooks.
There are also a few notable personages whom it will be advisable for
you to study."
"I know most of them," said the youth with easy confidence. "As a matter
of fact, I got the British Consul to send me a local directory and
swotted it."
Mr. Tremayne concealed a smile.
"And what did the local directory say about Israel Kensky?" he asked
innocently.
"Israel Kensky?" said the puzzled youth. "I don't remember that name."
"It is the only name worth remembering," said the other dryly, "and, by
the way, you'll be able to study him in a strange environment, for he is
in London at this moment."
A clerk had answered the bell and stood waiting in the doorway.
"Get Mr. Hay those books and pamphlets I spoke to you about," said
Tremayne. "And, by the way, when did M. Kensky arrive?"
"To-day," said the clerk.
Tremayne nodded.
"In fact," he said, "London this week will be filled with people whose
names are not in your precious directory, and all of whom you should
know. The Yaroslavs are paying a sort of state visit."
"The Yaroslavs?" repeated Hay. "Oh, of course----"
"The Grand Duke and his daughter," added Mr. Tremayne.
"Well," smiled the young man, "I'm not likely to meet the Grand Duke or
the Grand Duchess. I understand the royal family of Russia is a little
exclusive."
"Everything is likely in Russia," said the optimistic Mr. Tremayne. "If
you come back in a few years' time and tell me that you've been
appointed an admiral in the Russian Navy, or that you've married the
Grand Duchess Irene Yaroslav, I shall not for one moment disbelieve you.
At the same time, if you come back from Russia without your ears, the
same having been cut off by your peasant neighbours to propitiate the
ghost of a martyr who died six hundred years ago, I shall not be
surprised either. That is the country you're going to--and I envy you."
"I'm a little surprised at myself," admitted Malcolm, "it seems almost
incredible. Of course, sir, I have a lot to learn and I'm not placing
too much reliance upon my degree."
"Your science degree?" said Tremayne. "It may be useful, but a divinity
degree would have been better."
"A divinity degree?"
Tremayne nodded.
"It is religion you want in Russia, and especially local religion.
You'll have to do a mighty lot of adapting when you're out there, Hay,
and I don't think you could do better than get acquainted with the local
saints. You'll find that the birth or death of four or five of them are
celebrated every week, and that your workmen will take a day's holiday
for each commemoration. If you're not pretty smart, they'll whip in a
few saints who have no existence, and you'll get no work done at
all--that will do."
He ended the interview with a jerk of his head, and as the young man got
to his feet to go, added: "Come back again to-morrow. I think you ought
to see Kensky."
"Who is he?" asked Hay courteously. "A local magnate?"
"In a sense he is and in a sense he's not," said the careful Mr.
Tremayne. "He's a big man locally, and from a business point of view, I
suppose he is a magnate. However, you'll be able to judge for yourself."
Malcolm Hay went out into the teeming streets of London, walking on air.
It was his first appointment--he was earning money, and it seemed
rather like a high-class dream.
In Maida Vale there are many little side streets, composed of shabby
houses covered with discoloured stucco, made all the more desolate and
gloomy in appearance by the long and narrow strip of "garden" which runs
out to the street. In one of these, devoted to the business of a
boarding-house, an old man sat at a portable bench, under the one
electric light which the economical landlady had allowed him. The room
was furnished in a typically boarding-house style.
But both the worker at the bench, and the woman who sat by the table,
her chin on her palms, watching him, seemed unaffected by the poverty of
their surroundings. The man was thin and bent of back. As he crouched
over the bench, working with the fine tools on what was evidently
intended to be the leather cover of a book, his face lay in the shadow,
and only the end of his straggling white beard betrayed his age.
Presently he looked up at the woman and revealed himself as a hawk-nosed
man of sixty. His face was emaciated and seamed, and his dark eyes shone
brightly. His companion was a woman of twenty-four, obviously of the
Jewish type, as was the old man; what good looks she possessed were
marred by the sneer on her lips.
"If these English people see you at work," she said presently, "they
will think you are some poor man, little father."
Israel Kensky did not stop his work.
"What book are you binding?" she asked after awhile. "Is it the Talmud
which Levi Leviski gave you?"
The old man did not answer, and a dark frown gathered on the woman's
heavy face. You might not guess that they were father and daughter, yet
such was the case. But between Sophia Kensky and her father there was
neither communion of spirit nor friendship. It was amazing that she
should accompany him, as she did, wherever he went, or that he should be
content to have her as his companion. The gossips of Kieff had it that
neither would trust the other out of sight; and it may be that there was
something in this, though a stronger motive might be suspected in so far
as Sophia's actions were concerned.
Presently the old man put down his tools, blinked, and pushed back his
chair.
"It is a design for a great book," he said, and chuckled hoarsely. "A
book with steel covers and wonderful pages." He smiled contemptuously.
"The Book of All-Power," he said.
"Little father, there are times when I think you are mad. For how can
you know the secrets which are denied to others? And you who write so
badly, how can you fill a great book with your writings?"
"The Book of All-Power," repeated the man, and the smile on the woman's
face grew broader.
"A wonderful book!" she scoffed, "filled with magic and mystery and
spells--do you wonder that we of Kieff suspect you?"
"We of Kieff?" he repeated mockingly, and she nodded.
"We of Kieff," she said.
"So you are with the rabble, Sophia!" He lifted one shoulder in a
contemptuous little gesture.
"You are also of the rabble, Israel Kensky," she said. "Do you take your
dinner in the Grand Duke's palace?"
He was gathering together the tools on the table, and methodically
fitting each graver into a big leather purse.
"The Grand Duke does not stone me in the street, nor set fire to my
houses," he said.
"Nor the Grand Duchess," said the girl meaningly, and he looked at her
from under his lowered brows.
"The Grand Duchess is beyond the understanding of such as you," he said
harshly, and the woman laughed.
"There will come a day when she will be on her knees to me," she said
prophetically, and she got up from the table with a heavy yawn. "That I
promise myself, and with this promise I put myself to sleep every
night."
She went on and she spoke without heat.
"I see her sweeping my floors and eating the bread I throw to her."
Israel Kensky had heard all this before, and did not even smile.
"You are an evil woman, Sophia," he said. "God knows how such a one
could be a daughter of mine. What has the Grand Duchess done to you that
you should harbour such venom?"
"I hate her because she is," said the woman evenly. "I hate her not for
the harm she has done me, but for the proud smile she gives to her
slaves. I hate her because she is high and I am low, and because all the
time she is marking the difference between us."
"You are a fool," said Israel Kensky as he left the room.
"Perhaps I am," said the woman, his daughter. "Are you going to bed
now?"
He turned in the doorway.
"I am going to my room. I shall not come down again," he said.
"Then I will sleep," she yawned prodigiously. "I hate this town."
"Why did you come?" he asked. "I did not want you."
"I came because you did not want me," said Sophia Kensky.
Israel went to his room, closed the door and locked it. He listened and
presently he heard the sound of his daughter's door close also and heard
the snap of the key as it turned. But it was a double snap, and he knew
that the sound was intended for him and that the second click was the
unlocking of the door. She had locked and unlocked it in one motion. He
waited, sitting in an arm-chair before a small fire, for ten minutes,
and then, rising, crossed the room softly and switched out the light.
There was a transom above the door, so that anybody in the passage
outside could tell whether his light was on or off. Then he resumed his
seat, spreading his veined hands to the fire, and listened.
He waited another quarter of an hour before he heard a soft creak and
the sound of breathing outside the door. Somebody was standing there
listening. The old man kept his eyes fixed on the fire, but his senses
were alive to every sound. Again he heard the creaking, this time
louder. A jerry-built house in Maida Vale does not offer the best
assistance to the furtive business in which Sophia Kensky was engaged.
Another creak, this time farther away and repeated at intervals, told
him that she was going down the stairs. He walked to the window and
gently pulled up the blind, taking his station so that he could command
a view of the narrow strip of garden. Presently his vigil was rewarded.
He saw her dark figure walk along the flagged pavement, open the gate
and disappear into the darkened street.
Israel Kensky went back to his chair, stirred the fire and settled down
to a long wait, his lined face grave and anxious.
The woman had turned to the right and had walked swiftly to the end of
the street. The name of that street, or its pronunciation, were beyond
her. She neither spoke English, nor was she acquainted with the
topography of the district in which she found herself. She slowed her
pace as she reached the main road and a man came out of the shadows to
meet her.
"Is it you, little mother?" he asked in Russian.
"Thank God you're here! Who is this?" asked Sophia breathlessly.
"Boris Yakoff," said the other, "I have been waiting for an hour, and it
is very cold."
"I could not get away before," she said as she fell in beside him. "The
old man was working with his foolery and it was impossible to get him to
go to bed. Once or twice I yawned, but he took no notice."
"Why has he come to London?" asked her companion. "It must be something
important to bring him away from his money-bags."
To this the woman made no reply. Presently she asked:
"Do we walk? Is there no droski or little carriage?"
"Have patience, have patience!" grinned the man good humouredly. "Here
in London we do things in grand style. We have an auto-car for you. But
it was not wise to bring it so close to your house, little mother. The
old man----"
"Oh, finish with the old man," she said impatiently; "do not forget that
I am with him all the day."
The antipathy between father and daughter was so well known that the man
made no apology for discussing the relationship with that frankness
which is characteristic of the Russian peasant. Nor did Sophia Kensky
resent the questions of a stranger, nor hesitate to unburden herself of
her grievances. The "auto-car" proved to be a very common-place
taxi-cab, though a vehicle of some luxury to Yakoff.
"They say he practises magic," said that garrulous man, as the taxi got
on its way; "also that he bewitches you."
"That is a lie," said the woman indifferently: "he frightens me
sometimes, but that is because I have here"--she tapped her
forehead--"a memory which is not a memory. I seem to remember something
just at the end of a thread, and I reach for it, and lo! it is gone!"
"That is magic," said Yakoff gravely. "Evidently he practises his spells
upon you. Tell me, Sophia Kensky, is it true that you Jews use the blood
of Christian children for your beastly ceremonies?"
The woman laughed.
"What sort of man are you that you believe such things?" she asked
contemptuously. "I thought all the comrades in London were educated?"
Yakoff made a little clicking noise with his mouth to betray his
annoyance. And well he might resent this reflection upon his education,
for he held a university degree and had translated six revolutionary
Russian novels into English and French. This, he explained with some
detail, and the girl listened with little interest. She was not
surprised that an educated man should believe the fable of human
sacrifices, which had gained a certain currency in Russia. Only it
seemed to her just a little inexplicable.
The cab turned out of the semi-obscurity of the side street into a
brilliantly lighted thoroughfare and bowled down a broad and busy road.
A drizzle of rain was falling and blurred the glass; but even had the
windows been open, she could not have identified her whereabouts.
"To what place are you taking me?" she asked. "Where is the meeting?"
Yakoff lowered his voice to a husky whisper.
"It is the cafe of the Silver Lion, in a place called Soho," he said.
"Here we meet from day to day and dream of a free Russia. We also play
bagatelle." He gave the English name for the latter. "It is a club and a
restaurant. To-night it is necessary that you should be here, Sophia
Kensky, because of the great happenings which must follow."
She was silent for awhile, then she asked whether it was safe, and he
laughed.
"Safe!" he scoffed. "There are no secret police in London. This is a
free country, where one may do as one wishes. No, no, Sophia Kensky, be
not afraid."
"I am not afraid," she answered, "but tell me, Yakoff, what is this
great meeting about?"
"You shall learn, you shall learn, little sister," said Yakoff
importantly.
He might have added that he also was to learn, for as yet he was in
ignorance.
They drove into a labyrinth of narrow streets and stopped suddenly
before a doorway. There was no sign of a restaurant, and Yakoff
explained, before he got out of the cab, that this was the back
entrance to the Silver Lion, and that most of the brethren who used the
club also used this back door.
He dismissed the cab and pressed a bell in the lintel of the door.
Presently it was opened and they passed in unchallenged. They were in a
small hallway, lighted with a gas-jet. There was a stairway leading to
the upper part of the premises, and a narrower stairway, also lighted by
gas, at the foot leading to the cellar; and it was down the latter that
Yakoff moved, followed by the girl.
They were now in another passage, whitewashed and very orderly. A
gas-jet lit this also, and at one end the girl saw a plain, wooden door.
To this Yakoff advanced and knocked. A small wicket, set in the panel,
was pushed aside, and after a brief scrutiny by the door's custodian, it
was opened and the two entered without further parley.