Satan's Garden
By E. HOFFMANN PRICE
_The story of a terrific adventure in Bayonne, two
ravishingly beautiful girls, occult evil and sudden
death in the lair of the hasheesh-eaters._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales April and May 1934.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Since the publication of "The Rajah's Gift" in WEIRD TALES nine
years ago, followed by "The Stranger from Kurdistan," E. Hoffmann
Price has been acclaimed one of the masters of quality fiction;
yet his superb artistry has not interfered in any way with the
vividness and thrilling power of his fascinating stories. West
Point graduate, expert swordsman, orientalist and former soldier
of fortune, his life itself is a thrilling tale of adventure.
Endowed with a natural gift for narrative, he possesses also a
warm imagination and unsurpassed literary craftsmanship. All these
qualities are woven into the strange weird tale presented herewith:
"Satan's Garden."
_1. Invisible Scourge_
It was long past the hour of tinkling glass, and song to the guitar,
and crowded tables at the Café du Théâtre. The gray-walled city of
Bayonne slept in the moonlight like an odalisque overcome with wine and
lying bejewelled in a garden whence the musicians had departed. It is
thus that Bayonne has slept each night of the full moon for more than
nineteen centuries at the junction of the Nive and the Adour, guarding
the road to Spain.
There were two who sat in a room on the second floor of a house
that faced the street running along the city wall. One was old and
leathery, with fierce, upturned gray mustaches, and eyes that smoldered
beneath shaggy brows; the other was not more than half his age, a lean,
broad-shouldered man whose bronzed features were rugged as the masonry
of the fortress, and seamed with a saber slash that ran from his
cheek-bone almost to the chin.
The younger emerged from the depths of his chair like a panther leaving
his cage. He paced the length of the room and paused at the window to
stare out into the dazzling moon-brightness that slowly marched from
the rolling, tree-clustered parkway and invaded the shadows cast by the
city wall across the dry moat that skirted it. Then, as he retraced his
steps, he glanced at his watch.
"Later than usual tonight, Pierre," he observed. His voice was weary
from baffled wrath. "Do you suppose that It may skip a night?"
Pierre d'Artois shook his gray head and sighed.
"Why should It fail to torment her? We sit here like dummies, you and
I. And to what purpose? Look!" He indicated the seals on the door
at his left. "It could get through neither door nor window without
breaking those seals----"
"But It did, by heaven!" exclaimed the younger. And Glenn Farrell
resumed his pacing the length of the Boukhara rug that carpeted the
room. He made a gesture of futile rage, then resumed, "But how,
Pierre--and why?"
Pierre d'Artois twisted his mustache, shook his head again, and struck
light to a cigarette. Farrell sank into the depths of his chair and
retrieved the cigar butt he had laid on its arm.
"We couldn't have slept on post without one of us being aware of
it," resumed Farrell. His voice was monotonous from repetition of a
statement so often made that he himself had begun to doubt it. "And if
we had----"
He regarded the waxen seals on the door.
"Those seals couldn't have been duplicated, with your die locked in a
bank vault each night. And she couldn't have escaped."
"No, she could not," agreed d'Artois. "But some one--some _thing_--got
in."
"A weasel, a cat, a snake," enumerated Farrell, "might slip through
those bars. Nothing larger. Certainly nothing large enough to--good
God! _Listen!_"
Grim and trembling they stood at the sealed door. They heard a moaning
and a sobbing, then the screams of a woman seeking to stifle her outcry.
"Give me that key!" demanded Farrell.
He unlocked the door and flung it open, shattering the seals and
breaking the cord that ran from panel to jamb. D'Artois followed him.
They halted a few paces past the threshold.
"Look, damn it, look!"
As Farrell switched on the lights, he pointed at the woman who lay
face down on the broad, canopied bed. She was writhing and moaning.
At regular intervals she flinched as from a blow, then shuddered, and
relaxed.
"Lord! I can almost hear the whip," muttered Farrell. He leaped forward
and thrust out his arm as if to ward off blows that flailed the girl's
bare shoulders. Then he retreated, shaking his head.
"If we can't see it, how can we stop it?" he muttered despairingly.
They stood, fascinated and horrified, watching a lovely girl being
flayed by an invisible scourge. They saw the red welts rising, crossing
and recrossing her shoulders, and cropping up under the filmy silken
folds of her nightgown.
"Look at it! Her gown didn't move a hair's breadth, but the whip raised
another welt! Pierre, it's impossible! That gown ought to be cut to
pieces by that flogging. Or else nothing's really hitting her. Or
else"--Farrell shook his head in bewildered despair--"or else we're
both crazy as hoot-owls!"
"_Tenez donc_," said the old Frenchman, taking his friend by the arm.
Though he himself shrank in sympathy with the girl who writhed under
the invisible lash, his voice was calmer than Farrell's. "Let us study
this thing. And man or devil, in the end we will have his hide!"
"You take the devils, Pierre, and give me a handful of whatever men you
think are messed up in it! I'll--eh, what's that?"
He knelt beside the bed, gestured to d'Artois.
"Listen to that, Pierre!" he said in a tense whisper.
"_Junayn' ash-Shaytan_ ..." they heard her say.
"Holy smoke!" gasped Farrell. "_Junayn' ash-Shaytan_ ... and did you
get what she said after that?" Then, before d'Artois could reply, "It's
over now."
* * * * *
The sleeping girl had ceased writhing and tossing. Her cries had
subsided to a drowsy murmuring. The two watchers stared at each other
for a moment.
"But yes," said d'Artois finally. "I heard it, though it has been
several years since I heard any one use such villainous language. It
would do credit to one of the dancing-girls in Abu Aswad's dive in
Cairo. But this _junayn' ash-Shaytan_, that puzzles me."
"Simple!" said Farrell. "Satan's garden."
"_Mais oui!_" agreed d'Artois with a touch of impatience. "Only, what
is the point?"
He frowned fiercely and twisted his mustache.
"_Mon vieux_," he said after a moment's reflection, "in this first
articulate speech in her sleep we may find a clue to the invisible
scourge that leaves her back crossed with welts."
Farrell shook his head.
"Crazier and crazier," he muttered. "We're all nutty. I am, you are,
she is--all of us! Now she's talking Arabic! I'm beginning to wonder
whether her back is really beaten or whether we're both suffering the
same delusion she is."
D'Artois led the way to the door. Farrell followed.
"I have been expecting that," he said as he reached for a brief-case
lying on the table. He opened it and withdrew a photograph. "Look."
Farrell scrutinized the glossy print.
"That proves your point," he admitted. "The camera isn't subject to
hallucinations or delusions of persecution. Antoinette has been
beaten. Severely. The old black-and-blue marks photographed darker
than the new, red welts. No argument. I'm not, she isn't, you're not
bug-house. That is, _not yet_. But if this doesn't stop soon----"
He bit the tip off a fresh cigar, chewed it for a moment, struck light.
"Let us be impersonal about it for a moment," suggested d'Artois, "and
consider what we have.
"First, she tells us that her dreams have become so real that she
is confused and wonders during the day which is dream, and which is
reality. She dreams that she is in an outlandishly beautiful garden,
dim as by moonlight, yet warm as the glow of morning sun. The plants
are strange, and the flowers have an unnatural, poison sweetness.
"And strangest of all, she herself has a different body, brown-skinned,
with blue-black hair, and very large, dark eyes. The other girls, her
companions, are also dark," summarized d'Artois. "Now do you see how
her first speech in this troubled sleep begins to lend a touch of
rationality?"
Farrell pondered for a moment, then replied.
"Yes. Those few words she spoke in Arabic tonight suggest a dual
personality, give us a bit more background. But on the other hand,
didn't she tell us that she couldn't understand the language of the
other girls, and of the guests: lean, swarthy fellows with staring,
dilated eyes? If she couldn't understand them, how the devil is she
talking the fluent, unsavory Arabic of a dancing-girl in a Port Said
dive?"
"That sudden gift of tongues can be resolved," said d'Artois. "There
is something else, which is perhaps more relevant: the veiled Master,
whom the guests of the garden regard with great reverence. Does that
suggest anything?"
"It does, and it doesn't," replied Farrell, "'Way back in my mind it's
there, but I can't express it. And you, I fancy, are in about the same
fix?"
"I am," admitted d'Artois. "But before many days pass, we will pick up
the trail. We will have this invisible wielder of an unseen scourge.
Him, or his hide. But now get yourself some sleep, _mon ami_."
Farrell glanced at the door at his left.
"She'll be all right," assured d'Artois. "The ordeal is over. And what
purpose did we serve, after all?"
"Guess you're right, Pierre," assented Farrell. "Let's go."
2. _La Dorada_
Glenn Farrell was up at dawn. His carefully tiptoeing down the winding
stairway of Pierre d'Artois' house, however, was wasted consideration.
He found that gray-haired _ferrailleur_ hunched over the littered desk
of his study, fuming and muttering in a thick, foul cloud of smoke
that momentarily became more dense as the cigarette between d'Artois'
fingers added its stench of burning rags. The shining brass pot of
Syrian workmanship, and half a dozen tiny cups, each with a thick
residue of pulverized coffee grounds and cigarette stumps, indicated
that the old man had been at work ever since they had left Antoinette
Delatour some six hours ago.
In the clear space in front of d'Artois was an open book whose pages
were in illuminated Arabic script. Beside it were a pad of note-paper
and a half-dozen loose sheets closely scribbled.
"Pierre, why didn't you tell me you were going to carry on?" reproached
Farrell as he drew up a chair. "This is really more my funeral than
yours, getting Antoinette out of this terrible mess."
"_Mordieu!_" exclaimed d'Artois. "This is work for a scholar, not a
towering blockhead like yourself."
"Oh, all right, all right," said Farrell with a smile that for a moment
cleared his features of the dismay and wrath of the preceding night.
"Only, I can read that stuff myself, almost as well as you can." He
scrutinized the book for a moment; then, indicating the title, he said,
"_Siret al Haken_--how's that for a blockhead?"
"Very good," approved d'Artois. Then, with a wink and a grin, "And
after all, perhaps I should not call you a blockhead, even though I do
exceed you in intelligence and in skill with the sword."
He paused a moment after that time-honored raillery in which each
reviled the other's talents, then continued, "But seriously, I have
been pursuing some exceedingly roundabout speculations, and before I
inflicted them on you, I wanted to study them out myself."
"Oh, all right, then," agreed Farrell as he found a clean _demi-tasse_
and poured some of the lukewarm, sirupy Turkish coffee with which
d'Artois drugged himself during his midnight studies. "But I see no
connection with the _Memoirs of Haken_ and Antoinette's terrible
predicament."
"Listen then, I will enlighten you!" began d'Artois. "Mademoiselle
Antoinette has been dreaming of a garden rich with roses, and lilies,
and jasmine. It is alive with strangely colored birds. In fact, she
described the very garden"--d'Artois indicated the page of Arabic
script before him--"that Haken has so glowingly described: lovely girls
playing the _sitar_ and the _oudh_, and entertaining the guests of
paradise with song and wine. And a veiled master who ruled the garden."
"But what," demanded Farrell, "has that to do with those unmerciful
beatings? How about it?"
"Did I not say that I was working indirectly?" countered d'Artois. "The
scourgings, you understand, did not come until later, after the dreams
had recurred for some time. Therefore they must be but an indication of
the gradual increase----"
"Of the undoubted insanity of all three of us!" interpolated Farrell.
"Mademoiselle Antoinette," declared d'Artois, ignoring his friend's
outburst, "is not dreaming. She actually spends her nights in that
devil's paradise. She awakes and tells us that she had another body;
but her _self_ retained its identity. I conclude then that her
personality, her spiritual essence, whatever you will, is wandering,
driven by some damnable compulsion to inhabit that garden, and a
strange body."
Farrell sighed wearily and shook his head.
"This scrambling of selves and personalities is enough to drive one
nutty. It doesn't make any sense."
"Ah, say you so?" murmured d'Artois as he reached for another
cigarette. "My logic is scrambled, in that I have not attempted to show
_how_ this can be; but by assuming that it is, I get to the next point.
"Listen somewhat further, yes? We have but to find that place which
Antoinette's physical body, speaking like a Syrian dancing-girl, so
graphically damned and called _junayn' ash-Shaytan_, Satan's garden.
"There is such a garden at this moment in physical existence; or
else there is one which, reaching out of the dimness of nine hundred
departed years, is _en rapport_ with Antoinette."
"Hell's fire!" muttered Farrell. "The ghost of a garden haunting a
woman in Bayonne, in 1933!"
D'Artois tapped the cover of _Siret al Haken_.
"The author," he said, "tells of Hassan al Sabbah. _Shaykh al Djibal_,
the Chief of the Mountains. The lord of the _Hashisheen_----"
"I get it!" exclaimed Farrell. "The garden paradise into which
hasheesh-drugged devotees were tossed while unconscious, so that when
they awoke they would believe themselves to be in the Moslem heaven of
cool water, beautiful women, and forbidden wine?"
"Precisely, my excellent blockhead! I drink to your wit!" said d'Artois
with a smile that flashed over the edge of his cup of cold coffee.
"And your Antoinette is bedeviled in some way by a garden like that
of Hassan al Sabbah, the master of those assassins who terrorized all
Syria and Persia, centuries ago."
Farrell grimaced.
"Worse and worse yet! Hasn't this old city of Bayonne got enough ghosts
and devils in its own right, lurking under the blood-soaked foundations
of the citadel, without importing them from Asia?" His eyes shifted to
the clustered simitars and yataghans, kreeses and kampilans, darts and
assegais that adorned the walls of the study. "Now if they were men, we
might do something about it!"
"Have no fear on that score," assured d'Artois. "We find that every
phantom as malignantly directed as this ghostly garden has a man
pulling the strings--a flesh-and-blood man you can neatly riddle with
bullets, or slice asunder with some of those toys up there on the wall."
Farrell smiled grimly and took heart.
"Reasonable, at that. And now, suppose that we drop in and see what
Antoinette has to say about her newly acquired gift of Arabic speech.
It took me several years to learn that fluently."
"Barbarian!" scoffed d'Artois. "It is too early. You with your military
hours----"
"And you're another," countered Farrell. "Working the clock around. But
see if you can persuade Félice to scramble some eggs, at least a pound
of bacon, and perhaps a stack of waffles."
"_Magnifique!_" agreed d'Artois. "Some of those barbarous American
customs of yours are not utterly vile. And since you so kindly sent me
an electric waffle-iron, _à l'Américain_--but as a lover, you are most
unconvincing! At six of the morning, you howl for food--utterly out of
keeping! Romance is dead, slain by such as you."
"Ghosts," submitted Farrell, "can not be fought on an empty stomach."
* * * * *
Breakfast stemmed Farrell's impatience for a while; but as they
lingered over the brandy-laden coffee, he proposed again that they set
out at once to call on Antoinette Delatour.
"Or at least, let's stretch our legs and get the air. I'll be turning
flip-flops if I don't get going."
"The air, then," agreed d'Artois. "Look! It is but little past eight."
So saying, d'Artois selected one of his collection of canes and led
the way down the stairs of the restored ruin which served as his town
house. The circular donjon dated back to the Thirteenth Century; the
remainder, though not so ancient, was old when Columbus set sail; and
the narrow street on which it faced was in accord with those far-off
days, crooked, dingy, and paved with cobblestones. Yet, being in the
heart of that colorful city which he loved so well, d'Artois was
content, and with the modernization of the interior, he contrived to be
comfortable.
They strolled along the _quai_ that follows the Nive to its junction
with the Adour, then turned to the left toward Place du Théâtre. Before
crossing the street that skirted the plaza, d'Artois paused a moment
at the curbing to give the right of way to the glittering, costly
Italian car which was approaching, presumably from the Biarritz road.
The chauffeur and footman were in livery; and the crest on the door
was one that d'Artois recognized as that of the Marquis des Islots.
Farrell, however, being ignorant of heraldry, had eyes only for the
passenger in the back seat: a dazzlingly beautiful girl whose costly
furs and sparkling jewels betokened a background as golden as her hair.
Her lovely features were drawn and weary, and her eyes haggard and
blue-ringed.
"Good Lord, Pierre!" he exclaimed as he clutched his friend by the arm.
"Did you see--for a moment I thought----"
He blinked, passed his hand over his eyes, then sought to catch another
glimpse of the beauty in the back seat.
"And what did you for a moment think?" wondered d'Artois, as the car
rolled majestically toward the Mayou bridge. His voice was grave, but
his blue eyes twinkled.
"I thought it was Antoinette," said Farrell, still perplexed. "Or else
I'm seeing things!"
"My friend," said d'Artois reprovingly, as they crossed the street,
"let Antoinette ever hear that you mistook La Dorada for her!" He shook
his head in solemn warning. "Blasphemy, you understand. _Lèse majesté._"
"But doesn't she----" began Farrell, his gray eyes still narrowed with
perplexity.
"Truly! She does just that," admitted d'Artois. "Antoinette has often
been accosted at Biarritz and Santander by admirers of La Dorada.
But on second glance, their error becomes apparent, unless they are
strangers. A similarity of coloring, perhaps a likeness of posture or
mannerism that would deceive one only for a moment, if one knew either
woman well. Had you been able to look again--anyway, La Dorada is the
current playmate of _Monsieur_ the Marquis des Islots. She was in his
car, and on her way to his château where she is spending the season.
Doubtless she is returning from a night of baccarat or roulette at
Biarritz."
"Returning? At this hour?" wondered Farrell.
D'Artois smiled and nodded.
"You do not know La Dorada. She got the name in Madrid, where she was
discovered by a café proprietor and sponsored by a grandee of Spain. La
Dorada, the gilded, the golden."
As they passed along the broad plaza, then to the left and up the slope
of rue Port Neuf, d'Artois held forth at length concerning the colorful
career of La Dorada who at first glance so strikingly resembled
Antoinette Delatour.
At the head of rue Port Neuf they turned to the left, past the old
cathedral whose tall spires tower like silver lance-heads into the
morning light, and ascended the incline to the broad drive that follows
the parapet of the Lachepaillet wall.
* * * * *
Despite the barbarity of the hour, they found that Antoinette had
disposed of her morning chocolate and rolls. She wore a negligée of
jade chiffon whose curled ostrich trimming fluffed up about her ears
and caressed the copper-golden hair that enhanced her resemblance to La
Dorada. Her lips smiled, but her dark blue eyes were somber and haunted
as she greeted Farrell and d'Artois.
"_Hélas!_ It was worse than ever, last night," she replied, with a
despairing gesture, to Farrell's solicitous inquiry. "But be seated,
and I will tell you."
She shifted her feet to make room for Farrell at the foot of the
chaise-longue on which she reclined; then, as d'Artois drew up a chair,
Antoinette continued, "It was terribly clear! Just fancy: my hair was
jet-black, and so were my eyes. And my skin was as dark as an Arab's!
They beat me most unmercifully ... as usual."
She shuddered at the memory of the dream. D'Artois stared at the dainty
feet and their turquoise and silver mules. As Antoinette was about to
resume her remarks, he said abruptly, "In your dream, what have you
been wearing? On your ankles, I mean."
Antoinette closed her eyes for a moment to visualize her dream.
"Heavy golden anklets set with massive uncut stones," she replied.
"Emeralds, I think. But why?"
"Were they _very_ heavy?" persisted d'Artois.
Farrell regarded him curiously, wondering how adornments could be
relevant to the case.
"Terribly so!" assured Antoinette. Then, with a wan smile, "Only, I've
become used to them."
"Look!" commanded d'Artois, indicating the girl's ankles.
"Well I'll be damned!" exclaimed Farrell, and frowned perplexedly. Then
he glanced at his left hand and shifted the heavy signet on his finger.
"Her ankles are marked just as my finger is by this heavy slug of a
ring!"
"_Voilà!_ That further indicates an interchange of bodies during the
night!" declared d'Artois. "As a Syrian dancing-girl you are beaten,
and the welts appear on the body of Antoinette Delatour. And the heavy
anklets of the Syrian girl mark your daytime body just as they leave
prints on her.
"Now what else do you remember, _ma petite_? Your impressions become
more distinct each time, _n'est-ce pas_? Your recollections----"
"Exactly," she assented. "And last night--oh, I know I'm becoming
utterly mad!--the veiled Master was accompanied by a man who walked
through the garden with him."
"And how," wondered d'Artois, "is that more peculiar than the rest of
the dream?"
"The Master's companion," replied Antoinette, "is the Marquis des
Islots! _Mon Dieu_, is the whole city of Bayonne bound for this devil's
garden?"
"What?" D'Artois started and glanced sharply at Antoinette, then at
Farrell. "_Monsieur le Marquis_ has been added to her dream. Do you see
any connection?"
"I don't," confessed Farrell. "After all this madhouse she's been
through, might it not be a fancied recognition? Pure imagination?"
"_Cordieu!_" exclaimed d'Artois. "Would she not sooner imagine that she
saw ibn Saoud, or Saladin? That would be more in keeping. _Diable!_
Her seeing _Monsieur le Marquis_ is so wide of any fancy that I am now
convinced that she is not dreaming."
"Eh, what's that?" demanded Farrell, aghast at the wildness of
d'Artois' implication. "That it wasn't a dream? Good Lord, man----"
The recurrent nightmare had driven Antoinette Delatour to the verge of
distraction, so that d'Artois' contention did not amaze her as much as
it did Farrell.
"_Mon Dieu_," she sighed wearily, and took Farrell's hand. "It's all
become such a terrific confusion ... I don't know who I am. Oh, how my
poor back aches from that beating!"
"Courage, my dear!" reassured d'Artois. "The enemy has slipped." Then,
to Farrell, "_Allons!_ Let us get to work at once. I have several of
those hunches."
"The quicker the better, Pierre," agreed Farrell. And as Antoinette's
slender arms released him, he followed d'Artois down the stairs to the
street.
_3. The Hand of Hassan_
"Your task, my friend," began d'Artois as, back again at his house,
they sat down to plan their campaign against the phantom garden, "will
be to watch at the plaza. You will loaf, and drink an occasional
_apéritif_, and smoke your way into the day. You may see nothing; but
with time and patience your watch will have results. All of Bayonne
passes the plaza, sooner or later."
"But what," wondered Farrell, "am I to look for?"
"People who show signs of hasheesh intoxication, particularly Arabs or
other Orientals," answered d'Artois. "You know the symptoms. You have
seen enough _hasheeshin_ in Egypt and Syria. I need not describe their
manner, or peculiar stare. We are in search of addicts who in addition
are fanatic Moslems. A slender clue at best, but while you pursue that,
something else may happen.
"And I, in the meanwhile, will be doing some private snooping
of my own. This _Monsieur_ the Marquis des Islots is due for an
investigation. That one has an open reputation for dabbling in obscure
arts, and not such a savory reputation either."
"But," protested Farrell, "how do hasheesh addicts come into this?"
"Listen, I will enlighten you," began d'Artois. "We mentioned the
Assassins, the followers of Hassan al Sabbah, the terrible Chief of
the Mountains, _n'est-ce pas_? Those Assassins were of the fanatic
Ismailian sect of Moslems. Those guests of the garden mentioned in
this book"--d'Artois indicated _Siret al Haken_, lying open on the
desk--"actually believed that their master had the power of admitting
them to paradise for brief visits, at the end of which they were
drugged, and dragged forth to awaken once more on earth, and ready for
any infamy that might be demanded as the price of returning to the
garden."
"I have all that," admitted Farrell. "All right, then?"
"The sect of the Ismailians," continued d'Artois, "was more than
religious. It was political. Its members did not content themselves
with theory. And if, as Antoinette's strange dreams indicate, we have a
nest of Ismailians--that is, _hasheeshin_--to contend with, sooner or
later one or more of them will be noted about town.
"As for Antoinette, it is quite possible that she is, without being
aware of it, _clairvoyante_. And thus _Monsieur le Marquis_ will bear
investigation. Do you therefore stand watch as I directed, while I
pursue some private snooping. _À bientôt!_"
Whereat d'Artois turned to his desk, leaving Farrell to go to the plaza
and seek a table under the striped awning of the café.
* * * * *
Farrell was none too optimistic, but upon his arrival at Café du
Théâtre he assumed an indolence that in any place but southern France
would have seemed a pose. But in Bayonne the enjoyment of placid
idleness is an ancient art: and thus it was eminently suitable for him
to sit and watch the smoke spiralling from the cigarette that smoldered
between his fingers.
All of the Bayonnais, and all visitors, eventually pass the plaza:
Portuguese and Spanish and Italian sailors, Arabs from Algiers and
Morocco, Basques from the hills; English tourists on their way to the
arcades of rue Port Neuf, where they found the only _épiceries_ in
Bayonne where they could buy Scotch whisky; peasants, loafers, soldiers
on leave; quietly dressed and unpainted girls who had left behind them,
in their rooms beyond the Nive, all the gauds and garniture of their
profession. Costly imported cars flashed by, to cross Pont Mayou and
Pont de Saint Esprit; ox-carts lumbered past, the drivers, arrayed in
dingy smocks, trudging along and reviling their placid beasts. Bayonne
marched by in review; and Farrell watched the parade.
But despite his apparent idleness, Farrell's gray eyes were occupied
with more than wisps of smoke, and the tall glass of _anis del oso_
that sat on the marble-topped table before him. Without in the least
shifting his slightly bowed head, he was peering between his drooping
eye-lashes at the passers-by, and at the boulevardiers who like himself
sat sipping the meridional _apéritif_.
He was particularly interested in the trio that sat two tables to
his right, where they could command a view of rue Port Neuf as well
as the street that led to the Mayou bridge. They were swarthy and
aquiline-featured. Two were Syrian Arabs; but the third, despite his
dark skin and foreign air, was no Semite, but an Aryan: a Kurd from
Kurdistan, one of those fierce mountaineers who in their native land
are the terror of Turk and Persian alike. Yet the trio had kinship in
at least one feature: the dilated pupils and the staring glassiness of
their eyes.
As Farrell raised his glass and sniffed the odor of the cloudy drink,
he smelled trouble as well as _anis del oso_. D'Artois' somber hints
were having substantial realization. Farrell's first reaction was
to loosen the pistol in his shoulder holster. The peculiar stare of
their eyes convinced Farrell that he had picked up the trail of that
which d'Artois felt would lead to the source of the bedevilment of
Antoinette's nights.
Farrell continued his apparent enjoyment of idleness. His broad
shoulders slumped. He languidly passed his fingers through his sandy
hair; but for all his efforts to maintain his poise, his long, lean
frame was tense, and chills raced up and down his spine, despite the
warmth of the day.
He summoned the waiter and called for brandy.
Then he noted that an exotic, imported car was coming to a smooth
halt at the curbing. A footman in livery opened the door and stood at
attention as a woman emerged from the rich upholstery and silver and
cut glass of the town car that bore the crest of the Marquis des Islots.
Farrell recognized the woman as La Dorada. He wondered, as he saw her
step to the curbing, why a carpet had not been unrolled to keep her
feet from the contamination of the paving. The scarcely perceptible
breeze wafted a breath of perfume whose cost rumor had for once fallen
short of exaggerating.
La Dorada was passing the table of the trio from Asia. The one facing
the Mayou bridge made a gesture. His lips moved. At that distance,
Farrell could not hear what he said. La Dorada apparently paid no
attention to the murmur. She was accustomed to whispered admiration.
Farrell ignored the warning of his intuition: it was too unbelievable
and outrageous.
Then it happened. The Kurd, who faced Farrell, leaped cat-like to his
feet. A knife flashed in his hand. La Dorada started at Farrell's
warning cry, and added her own note of dismay as she saw his hand with
an incredibly swift gesture seek his armpit.
"Smack-smack-smack!" roared the heavy automatic.
The Kurd pitched backward to the paving, groaning and clutching his
stomach.
But even as Farrell drew and fired, the Syrian whose back had been
turned to Farrell leaped from his place. And the knife he held found
its mark, full in the breast of La Dorada.
The pistol spoke, but too late. Even as the impact of the heavy slug
bowled the Syrian over in a heap, his blade sank home.
La Dorada screamed, reeled, and collapsed, clutching the dagger whose
hilt projected beyond the blood-splashed fur collar of her coat.
As he leaped forward, pistol in hand, Farrell knew that she would be
beyond assistance. A shot at the survivor of the trio was impossible,
and pursuit was futile. Waiters, patrons of the café, and passers-by
clustered about the dying beauty. In the confusion Farrell heard the
clash of gears and caught a glimpse of a car tearing madly down toward
the road leading to Maracq.
La Dorada moaned, and shuddered.
"Hassan----" she articulated with an effort. Then she coughed, and
gasped. A red foam flecked her red lips.
* * * * *
The arrival of a pair of gendarmes, and, a few minutes later, a passing
doctor, scattered the dense cluster of frantically gesticulating
citizens.
"_Monsieur_," said one of the gendarmes, who had seen Farrell holster
his automatic, "be pleased to accompany us. Purely as a matter of form,
you understand. It is plainly evident that that one----"
He indicated the second of the assassins that Farrell's pistol fire
had bowled over.
Farrell shrugged. It would be awkward for a stranger in town to be
dragged into the formalities of a police investigation; and doubly
annoying in view of his having a serious problem of his own to handle.
"Very well, _monsieur_," agreed Farrell with a wry grimace.
Then he saw d'Artois emerge from the fringe of the crowd that still
persisted, at a distance of several paces. He whispered in the ear of
the gendarme--only a few words, but they sufficed.
The gendarme turned from d'Artois to Farrell.
"Your pardon, _monsieur_. You may call on us at your leisure. It was
routine, you comprehend."
Farrell in his turn bowed, and followed d'Artois to his car, eager to
be clear of the plaza. And as they drove past the parkway that lies
between the road to Maracq and the wall of Lachepaillet, Farrell gave
his companion an account of the assassination.
"_Sacré nom d'un nom!_" swore d'Artois at the conclusion of the
narrative. "That is the technique of the Fifth Order of the Ismailians.
They worked in threes, so that if the first and second were cut down,
the third would nevertheless slay the victim.
"They hunted Saladin seven hundred years ago. They slew Nizam ul Mulk.
The Sultan of Cairo, Baibars the Panther, barely escaped them. They
terrorized the Near East until Tamerlane in his wrath took by assault
their almost impregnable castle of Alamut, tore it down stone by stone,
and put to the sword 12,000 Ismailians. But the order persisted, though
its power has been broken for these past five centuries, thanks to the
savage efficiency of Tamerlane.
"And I am thoroughly convinced," continued d'Artois, "that you
witnessed a recrudescence of that plague which ate at the heart of
the Moslem world for several centuries. They seem to be branching
out again. Even as during the Crusades they assassinated Conrad of
Montferrat, so are they again carrying secret war against the infidel."
"But why," demanded Farrell, "did they strike La Dorada in the public
square? They could have killed her stealthily. Even though they could
not foresee that I would shoot two of them down in their tracks, the
other spectators or the police might have killed or captured them."
"You miss the point," declared d'Artois, "which is pardonable, since
even your extensive travels in the Orient would not of necessity bring
you into contact with the Ismailians. They killed her in public as an
example to instill terror in others. It is a matter of history that
Ismailian assassins were often ordered to slay a dignitary and to make
no attempt at escape. In one case the slayer struck, then sat down and
began eating his travel rations of bread and dates, calmly awaiting
the guard that would drag him to the executioner and impalement on a
sharpened stake. The besotted _hasheeshin_ faced a horrible doom for
the sake of re-entrance to the paradise with which their master duped
them. The utter fearlessness and indifference to death and torture
aroused more terror than the assassinations they perpetrated.
"So much for the _fedawi_, or Devoted Ones, Ismailians of the Fifth
Order. The first four orders were the Grand Master, the Grand Priors,
and simple priors, or initiates; and then a grade known as _rafiqs_,
or associates. These upper grades were intelligent persons who after
sufficient study in the free-thinking, heretical doctrines of the
Ismailians would be eligible for the highest offices in the Order.
"The Ismailians became a state within a state; they undermined Persia
and Syria, and for several centuries exacted tribute from sultans
and emirs, with summary vengeance as the penalty of non-payment,
very much," concluded d'Artois, with a malicious grin, "like those
racketeers they have in your United States. That should make it clear!"
"But how," wondered Farrell, "does Antoinette fit into all this?"
"The companions and initiates of the Ismailians," replied d'Artois,
"were adepts in alchemy, magic, conjuring, and occult arts. They used
Islam as a mask for all manner of forbidden heresies and as bait to
attract the pious oafs and religious fanatics who did the actual
slaying and--how does one say it, _à l'Américain_?--and took the rap!
"Maymun the Persian founded the order. A free-thinker, heretic, and
magician, he fled from the wrath of the Khalif Mansur, with his son
Abdallah, to whom he imparted all his vast knowledge of medicine,
conjuring, and occultism. And Abdallah built up on this start by
promising the return of the vanished Seventh Imam, who had never
died, but who was waiting for the day to return and rule all Islam.
They still wait for the return of Ismail, the Seventh Imam. And in
the meanwhile, behold the deviltry with which they amuse themselves,
bewitching Antoinette, slaying La Dorada--_le bon Dieu_ can only say
what will come next."
They drew up at d'Artois' house as he concluded his refreshing of
Farrell's memory on the origin of the menace that had taken root in
Bayonne.
"How about my watching the plaza?" wondered Farrell as Raoul admitted
them.
"You have watched enough," declared d'Artois. "In fact, you have made
yourself so painfully conspicuous that from now on I will have to
watch you more closely than Mademoiselle Antoinette, or you will be
found full of daggers yourself."
"Nuts, Pierre!" protested Farrell. "I've been away from home before,
and I'm used to being hunted."
"Nevertheless, be on your guard," cautioned the old man.
_4. Shirkuh Makes Magic_
That evening, after dinner, d'Artois' man, Raoul, entered the study
with a large envelope that had just been delivered by a messenger.
D'Artois glanced at the large waxen seal that secured the flap.
"The crest of _Monsieur le Marquis_," he observed. Then, with a wink
and a grin at Farrell, he continued, "Like Satan in the first lines
of the Book of Job, I wandered up and down the world, and in it,
particularly at Biarritz, and somewhat about the estate of our good
Marquis. But need I assure you that if my presence was noted, it was
also amply accounted for? _Mais oui_, of a verity!"
He slit the envelope and withdrew an engraved invitation.
"Hmmm ... _Monsieur le Marquis_ requests the honor of my presence at a
_soirée_ at his château. The Thaumaturgical Order of Thoth is meeting
in open conclave."
"Wait a minute," interrupted Farrell. "There's something fishy about
this. La Dorada, his sweetheart, is murdered around noon. And now
he sends you an invitation to--what was it?--some kind of juggler's
convention. Anyway, it's utterly out of keeping. Not only inhumanly
callous, but damned poor form; no matter what his private morals may
be, a man of his station would have better manners!"
"Granted," acquiesced d'Artois. "But consider: this thaumaturgical
society may be depending upon the meeting-place designated, and can
not postpone it for the sake of one man's grief. That there is such
an order has been for some time an open secret. Then, he himself may
be absent from the conclave, even though it assembled in his name. Or
again," continued d'Artois, "it is even possible that Monsieur the
Marquis does not know of La Dorada's death."
"Absurd!" objected Farrell. "In a town this small----"
"Wait!" interrupted d'Artois. "Remember Antoinette's dream: the Marquis
walked through the garden with the veiled Master. He may still be in
that garden, not to emerge until the hour of the _soirée_."
"By the rod, that's possible," agreed Farrell. "Since La Dorada was
presumably killed by the Ismailians, the Marquis may be in their hands,
dead, or a prisoner."
"Now, as to this invitation," continued d'Artois, "it may be a device
to exact vengeance for your excellent pistol practise. Their espionage
would inform them that you, my friend and guest, would surely accompany
me to the _soirée_.
"But mark you this: they can scarcely know that your Antoinette could
tell you of seeing the Marquis in the garden. That, you comprehend, is
the information that ties the scattered ends together, and makes their
otherwise subtle trap seem obvious to us.
"My friend, do we go and defy them, or shall we stay at home?"
Farrell laughed.
"Pierre, you're comical at times! We'll go, and be damned to them and
their trap. We can shoot our way out of any handful of knife-artists
they throw at us, what?"
"Ha! Is it that you are informing me?" scoffed d'Artois with a fierce
gleam in his steel-blue eyes. "_Voilà_--have your choice of my
arsenal," he said, gesturing at his collection of pistols, ranging
from flintlocks and cap-and-ball antiques to heavy Colt revolvers and
automatics. "And perhaps, since we shall be outnumbered, we might slip
into those shirts of Persian chain-mail. They are not much heavier than
a sweater, and so exquisitely forged as to be proof against knives and
any but the heaviest pistols. _Parbleu_, we will attend that conclave!"
After arraying themselves as d'Artois had suggested, they dressed for a
formal evening affair.
"Thaumaturgy ... thaumaturgy ..." muttered Farrell as they stepped into
the Renault and d'Artois took the wheel. "Wonder, or miracle workers,
what?"
"Precisely," agreed d'Artois. "Jugglery, sleight of hand, trickery, but
withal, an underlying substratum of fact that can not be dismissed.
I myself have seen unbelievable things done by the adepts of Tibet.
A corpse, _par exemple_, animated and made to dance by some devilish
magic. The fact of my having been admitted to their inner circles in
Tibet has in time leaked out; and it is to this that they would expect
us to attribute my receiving tonight's invitation."
* * * * *
The château of the Marquis was out in the hills beyond the Mousserole
Gate. It was perched on a knoll that commanded the surrounding country.
Several cars were parked in a level space near the entrance.
"It seems," observed Farrell, "that there are other guests, although
that may or may not mean anything."
D'Artois presented his invitation to the butler.
"_Monsieur le Chevalier_ Pierre d'Artois," he intoned in impressive
but oddly accented French. Then he glanced at Farrell.
D'Artois interposed and instructed the butler, who then announced
Farrell.
They advanced through the vestibule and thence into the salon, a
vast, high-ceiled chamber illuminated by a pulsing bluish glow. The
walls were hung with black arras embroidered in silver to depict with
unsavory realism the grotesque imagery of Asian mysteries. At the
far end of the salon was a dais flanked by tall tripod-censers whose
pungent, resinous fumes made the air thick.
The assembled guests were in formal evening dress. There were Spaniards
with black mustaches, and Frenchmen with spade-shaped beards; and here
and there Farrell saw lean, hawk-faced Arabs, and several distinctly
Mongolian faces.
"More guests than the number of cars would indicate," muttered Farrell,
nudging d'Artois. "This is all very flossy, but I smell trouble."
"And no Marquis," added d'Artois with a quick glance about the salon.
Then he advanced to meet the man who seemed to be acting as host. After
the exchange of a few words, d'Artois presented Farrell.
In the course of the conventional courtesies, Farrell appraised the
master of the show. He was lean as a beast of prey, and as sleek.
His moves and gestures had a cat-like grace, and his speech had the
indefinable blur of accent that marks one who speaks many languages
with equal ease.
"And thus I have the honor," concluded the host, "of offering in the
name of _Monsieur le Marquis_ his regrets and the hospitality of his
house."
He paused for a moment, regarding them with his intent, deep-set eyes;
then with a gesture toward a row of chairs arranged before the dais,
"Be pleased to seat yourselves, _messieurs_."
Farrell watched the broad shoulders and tall figure pass among the
guests like a cat stalking through a jungle.
"Shirkuh of the clan of Shadi," muttered Farrell. "Ought to be an
honest fighting-man, but----"
"'But' is correct," interrupted d'Artois. "There is nothing honest
about that playmate of Satan. Mark my words, we shall see more of that
gentleman, if we live long enough."
As they seated themselves there was a clang of bronze, and the faint,
muffled wailing of pipes and the whine of single-stringed _kemenjahs_
from an alcove behind the arras. As the guests took seats, an attendant
passed up and down the rows of chairs, offering small glasses of wine,
and triangular pastries iced in curious designs.
"On your life, don't eat it!" muttered d'Artois as he palmed a
confection he had selected from the tray. "Drugged, there is no telling
what may happen to your good sense. This is all damnably familiar."
Another peal of bronze; then, as Shirkuh sprang effortlessly to the
dais, the music dimmed to a sighing whisper, a sinister murmuring from
outer darkness.
Six lean, brown men, nude save for loin-cloths that glowed like golden
flames in the spectral bluish light, emerged from an entrance concealed
by the silver-embroidered arras, and filed across the hall toward the
dais. Following them came four others, likewise arrayed, but blacker
than any negroes Farrell had ever seen. They bore a litter on which lay
a form whose gracious feminine curves were not entirely concealed by
the silken, metallically glistening shroud.
"Good Lord!" muttered Farrell. "A woman!"
The brown-skinned sextet ascended the dais. The blacks followed with
their burden. As they halted, two others emerged from the back-drapes
of the dais, bringing with them wrought bronze trestles on which the
litter was placed.
* * * * *
Shirkuh took his post behind the litter as the sextet of adepts from
High Asia seated themselves cross-legged in front of it.
"Fellow thaumaturges," he began, "I, the least of your servants, beg
leave to present a feat that has never been accomplished save in
far-off Lhasa."
He paused, smiled, and stroked his mustache. Then he gestured toward
the shrouded form on the litter. An attendant gathered the silken folds
and drew them aside.
Farrell barely suppressed a gasp of horrified amazement.
The woman on the bier was La Dorada. Her copper-golden hair flamed
like living fire in the bluish-purple, pulsing light of the room. The
hands, folded across her breast, sparkled with jewels. She had no other
adornment or dress. La Dorada, the Golden, dead not over ten hours,
and stripped of all but her exquisite beauty, lay exposed to the gaze
of that assemblage of devil-mongers. For one terrible instant Farrell
had thought that Antoinette lay on that bier; then he remembered her
resemblance to the dead actress, and assured himself that Antoinette
was and must be in her apartment on rue Lachepaillet, awaiting another
night of fantastic dreams of an assassin's paradise, and the lashing of
an invisible scourge.
"_Monsieur le Marquis_," continued Shirkuh with a smile that flashed
satanic mockery, "is unable to be with us. But I trust that that which
I offer will be worthy of your presence."
"Lord!" muttered Farrell. "I don't know the Marquis, but exhibiting her
dead body here in his house--I've half a notion to start the show right
here!"
D'Artois' fingers closed about Farrell's right wrist.
"_Imbécile!_ This infamy is none of your business. Tend to your own
sheep."
Shirkuh nodded and made a gesture. The faint, whimpering music became
louder. Among the plucked strings of _sitar_ and _oudh_ Farrell could
distinguish the notes of a wind instrument that was a mockery of a
woman's voice. The drums muttered and purred in complex rhythm.
The adepts were swaying from their hips, and making statuesque passes
and gestures that resembled an animation of the figures of Egyptian
sculpture. Their glassily staring eyes shifted in regular cadence to
follow their darting finger tips. They were as revivified corpses that
had not yet gained full control of their bodies.
Then they lifted their voices in a chant like the wailing of ghouls
imprisoned in a looted tomb; dead brazen faces chanting to the dead.
And Shirkuh, arms extended, made antiphonal responses in a voice that
surged and thundered like a distant surf.
The notes of that diabolical wind instrument behind the arras became
more and more like the voice of a woman: a mellow sweetness against a
background of sepulchral wailing and the solemn intonation of Shirkuh.