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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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In spite of a grim warning, the detective traces the
malevolent Artifex through the mazes of a new crime.
"I AM broadcasting this warning to Professor Craig Kennedy. Anyone who picks it up will please, deliver it to him at the University."
Kennedy was at work on his new radio compass, a direction-finder capable of being operated by one person alone, a device which by an entirely original principle enabled one to determine not only the direction but also to approximate the distance of a hidden sending station. I had been toying with a new super-regenerative set, catching stray messages on various wave lengths.
"Listen in, Craig!" I exclaimed. "This is some crime--covered up!"
Kennedy adjusted the two-stage amplifier just as the strange message was repeated.
"Some crime—perhaps—but uncovered, not covered up. Wait."
From the loudspeaker came the words: "You may he called in on a case. Don't take it. It will be the last you ever attempt. This is Artifex!"
AS it was repeated. Craig quickly turned to his radio compass
and began tinkering and turning the loop microscopically. "That
is from just about two points east of northeast—and the
distance is about sixteen kilometers—to be exact, 15.500
meters—about nine miles and a half." He gave a hasty glance
at the map. "Somewhere in the vicinity of Pelham."
I glanced over at Kennedy. He was scowling, jaws set like a bulldog. I was silent. I had seen that master of crime at work. Defiance of Artifex was like accepting an invitation to a party at zero hour.
Almost I jumped out of my chair at a gentle, hesitating knocking at the door.
"Artifex isn't calling—yet." Craig smiled grimly. "Please see who it is, Walter."
Nevertheless I opened the door cautiously. It was a girl, a girl with blue eyes of candor that were so beautiful I didn't for a moment see or care what the rest of her face was like.
Her eyes fell on the radio paraphernalia as if it were familiar to her. I thought she drew away from it, too, as if it struck in her an involuntary repugnance. She glanced inquiringly from one to the other of us. Kennedy stepped forward.
"Are you... Professor Kennedy?"
Craig bowed, at the same time keenly observing his now not unexpected visitor.
The nod seemed to satisfy her. But it also seemed to frighten her. Her eyes roved about the room as if seeking a place where some invisible enemy might lurk. She swallowed hard several times as if she were trying to talk but couldn't.
It was not the gaucherie of a person unused to meeting strangers. It was a fear too deep even for speech. Kennedy smiled at her again to help her collect her thoughts.
When a girl possesses besides such eyes a mouth of sweetness and firmness, the coloring of glorious health all set in a frame of dark curls, I confess my observation is more that of an artist than of one of Kennedy's scientists.
"I am Norma Gerard..." she began. "You must have read in the morning papers of the strange death of little Laurel Millan, the secretary to my mother, the Marquise Verna Callahan Gerard?" The very sound of her own words seemed to frighten her. "Mr. Kennedy. I'm afraid for my life... and my mother's life. Will you help me?... I cannot give you anything very definite... but since Laurel's death I feel a sense of impending danger.... I don't know which way to turn. People I thought were my friends... like Fernie Lefèvre... I am afraid to trust. I have no one to whom I can go... but you. Professor Kennedy... a stranger."
Nervously opening and shutting her exquisitely-beaded nag, she hesitated, then glancing down at a beaded Buddha in the bag, she stiffened her shoulders, smiled wanly and continued.
"My mother... she is my adopted mother... of course you know that... the Marquise, well, you know she has always surrounded herself with bizarre people, for years.... It has made her socially prominent.... Just now it is this Hindu Pundit, Durga Nath, and a Russian engineer, Nikolai Strepoff, the inventor of the Strepoff wireless system. By it the Pundit is receiving messages from the spirit world to the Marquise. Then, too, he claims to be able to read the thoughts of people by a sort of radio-telepathy. He has even received what he calls wireless spirit writing over the Strepoff wireless telautograph."
"H'm," reverted Kennedy. "I had read a short item about the strange circumstances of the death of Laurel Millan." His tone was reassuring. "Where is she?"
"The body is at a funeral parlor on Eighth Avenue." Norma shuddered as she said it and nervously raised a white and blue-veined hand to smooth back her straying curls. "Oh! I am so dreadfully frightened about it all!... My mother is interested in this Oriental religion—and the rites—as they are interpreted by some of the people she almost worships—fill me with fear—and, oh, I hate them! They are so different from anything I like: Mr. Kennedy, no one can hear me—are you sure?"
She glanced about at the wireless apparatus as if half expecting some esoteric radio dictagraph. "I am afraid they know more about Laurel Millan's death than is right. I feel sure Laurel knew something... and they killed her. Mr. Kennedy, shall I have to die, too, because I can't be fooled by them all? I don't want to die!" she cried excitedly. "And I don't want anything to happen to my poor deluded mother. Save her... and save me!"
Norma burst into sobs that relieved her overwrought nerves. "Mr. Kennedy... I may not seem very brave to you... but I am not foolish. I know there is real danger to us... to you, if you help me. I must be fair." She was pleading. "I would like to take you out there to my mother's estate... but..."
Kennedy interrupted, reassuring. "No, no, Miss Gerard. You had better go now. We'll get out there... some other way... safer for you. We don't know you... you understand?" He nodded significantly.
"Then... you will help me?"
She smiled gratefully through frightened tears as Kennedy pressed her hand at the door.
"DOESN'T that coincidence beat all?" I remarked the moment Norma Gerard was gone.
"Not a coincidence. Don't you see? The moment anything quite extraordinary occurs the first thing they think of is to come to us. It's a coincidence to that extent, I grant. But when a case begins to break, things happen fast, and of course the lines cross. That's the experience of all crime hunters."
I was thinking of Artifex. "Craig, that was awful... to let that girl go alone. Think what that threat means—to her!"
"Yes, but it was made to us. I did that purposely. If there is any danger—yet, it is to us."
"Will you take it up?"
"Against Artifex? If it's the last thing I ever do!"
IT was about noon when Kennedy and I walked down Eighth Avenue
toward the funeral chapel.
Two girls in the costumes of Geisha girls, on either side of the street, were toddling uptown slowly. About their necks were slung light wicker baskets and from the baskets they were distributing little glass flaconettes of some perfume of the orient, little advertising samples.
A girl with a Pekingese just ahead of us took one of the little glass bottles, opened it and poured it on her handkerchief.
As she did so the strong perfume of the sample was very pleasing. I caught her eye and she smiled, lust as the Geisha girl on our side of the street handed a sample to Kennedy and another to me, then continued distributing them to passersby behind us.
I started to draw the cork when Kennedy suddenly seized the little glass tube from my hand. Quickly he crushed it in his own handkerchief, then leaned down and, averting his face slightly, held it under the nose of the Peke. To my astonishment the little dog rolled over almost instantly, gasping.
I turned to look toward the Geisha girls. Both had disappeared in taxicabs, lost in the traffic.
"Cyanogen—for one thing." muttered Kennedy, straightening and dropping his own flaconette in his pocket. "If the Peke doesn't recover, I'll be glad to pay—"
This girl was also gone!
As for myself, I was almost afraid to breathe. It seemed to me that Artifex was literally in the air. But to Kennedy it was like a challenge....
A FEW minutes later, within the funeral parlor, we were
conducted to a sort of private morgue or reception room.
As we entered I noticed, just outside, across some palms, a very distinguished-looking foreigner. Everything aroused my suspicion now. I caught Kennedy's sleeve. "Craig... see that fellow over there?"
He turned. But the man was gone!
It is heartbreaking to look on youth struck down mysteriously, coldly, cruelly.
Gently Kennedy raised the eyelids of Laurel Millan.... I shivered. That poor frail little body lying there so still had the whole secret locked in those horror-struck eyes!
They had left the body dressed as she was found in her apartment. Her beautiful hair had tumbled down and was hanging in long curls about her face and shoulders. The white of the death pallor and of the gown she wore only enhanced her ethereal loveliness ami blonde beauty.
"Those eyes!" repeated Kennedy. "What did she see?"
"Poor little thing!" I exclaimed. "She seems like something to be petted and humored—not to be murdered!"
"Yes, Walter, but there is determination in that face... personality, persistence... too much, probably, for Artifex!"
KENNEDY softly closed his eyes, unconsciously betraying the
tenderness of a strong mind. It seemed as if he were trying to
save Laurel the misery of looking again at something awful.
A moment later his more minute observation disclosed a mark, an almost invisible puncture on her breast, two or three inches above the heart. He continued his investigation, fortunately in time before the embalming. As he did so I walked a few paces away.
Beside me I heard a voice of recognition and inquiry and turned to meet Lawrence Kerry, the lawyer, nephew of the old Marquise. I knew Kerry was attorney for the Callahan transcontinental railroad interests, having interviewed him, and that his own holdings and his Aunt's, combined, would have meant control of the system.
Kerry seemed greatly worried over the scandal as I talked with him. But there was evidently a deeper worry hack of it. I felt that Kerry himself scented something sinister in the death of little Laurel Millan. What was it?
"I've been anxious about the Callahan properties," Kerry confided a moment later when I introduced him to Craig, "and I've been cultivating the acquaintance of Laurel.... I've been trying to influence her to tell me tho truth.... And I think she was about to tell... when... she died."
The uncanny events had aroused in me the wildest suspicions—suspicion now of even Kerry himself. Had he been trying to put over something? I had heard of the pretty adopted daughter, Norma Gerard, even before her visit, and also of Fernie Lefèvre, her companion. And I had heard of the vagaries of the Marquise.
"Just now, I suppose you know," wandered Kerry thoughtfully, "the Marquise has taken up Hindu thought in a serious way. Oriental religions give Mrs. Gerard a new thrill: I don't think she ever got a kick out of our own. And this new fad has the added piquancy of a sort of scientific mysticism, so to speak.... This Pundit, Durga Nath, has been poisoning Norma's mind against me... hinting at my friendship for Laurel... and others.... I would have married Norma and reunited the great Callahan railroad interests... but Norma has politely thrown me over."
I wondered. Had little Laurel Millan known the truth—who Artifex was?
"It all means a great deal more than the death of poor little Laurel, I'm afraid." remarked Kennedy. "Where is the Pundit?"
"Up at Rye."
I thought of the warning broadcasted from Pelham a few miles away.
"I would like to see him."
Kerry brightened. "Kennedy," he exclaimed, "won't you come out there—as my friend?"
I SMOTHERED my fear of further attack as we drove out, and in point of fact nothing happened.
As we approached the great Callahan estate at Rye, a show-place of some ten or twelve acres on a point of land jutting out into the Sound, Kerry informed us that it had been renamed "Nirvana."
East is not Westchester, but the twain seemed to have met in the Marquise Gerard's "Temple of the Occult," as she liked to call her place at "Nirvana." I saw wind-wheels and water-wheels, each with a prayer, silk flags flapping in the breeze, each with the same prayer, Om Man I Padme Hum. All the wheels were turning and the flags fluttering. On a rock were cut in the same words, "The jewel is in the lotos."
The house itself was magnificent, after the manner of a huge French château. Kerry conducted us directly to a wide Hindu drawing-room, with carved columns and a beautiful mosaic floor.
The beauty of this room was architectural. There was a rich simplicity of draperies and furnishings. There were hand-wrought metal sconces and beautifully-made swinging lamps and incense burners. At the far end was a raised and beautifully-carved teakwood dais on which to worship.
The oriental spirit crept upon one unawares. A wonderfully caned ivory statue of Buddha was irresistible; Buddha with the inscrutable eyes. Even I felt an impulse to bend the knee on the dais. It seemed in that subdued light that if I did not show the proper respect those arms might unfold and crush me.
Pillows of silks and gauzes from the orient, rare embroideries on the divan, pipes and stands, carved ivories and ornaments of jade spread over all this luxury of simplicity the glamor of the East.
Not far from the statue there was a group of three. "My aunt, the Pundit and his servant, Singh," whispered Kerry. "I'll present you, Kennedy, as Mr. Harrington of the Psychical Research Society."
The Marquise Verna Gerard had inherited the greater part of the railroad interests of her father, the pioneer trans-continental promoter, Aloysius Callahan. She was now a rather stout lady of late middle age with an inability to forget her early days in San Francisco and Paris.
"Mr. Harrington, Aunt Verna."
I fancied a half-cynical smile on the face of the Pundit. I felt convinced that he had recognized Kennedy instantly.
To me Verna Gerard looked like a woman who was fond of slipping toward the easy things of life. She was trying to slide into heaven on a road greased with an easy-going oriental religion. And the Pundit, I wagered, was not greasing the road for love of the Marquise or of a heavenly reward.
"I am so glad you have come," smiling good-naturedly to us and offering us a fat, pudgy hand—"that is, if you come to us in the spirit willing to be convinced, not antagonistic."
Kennedy made a most impressive bow and assumed a deep seriousness as we listened to the Marquise.
The Pundit was before a huge drawing—the Wheel of Life—with all its hells and heavens. Just behind him cringed Singh, his "chela," a half-caste.
"The Pundit, Durga Nath—and his pupil, Singh," pursued Kerry.
I caught the hypnotic eyes of the Pundit; sleek, slim, dark, oily, the Pundit from a land where shadow is substance and substance is shadow.
"I am always delighted to meet those who seek to learn the way, Mr. Curry," he smoothed. Still, the Pundit pronounced Kerry's name with an accent as if he would gladly have eaten him.
"We hope to get another message, Mr. Harrington, from my poor little secretary. Miss Millan," injected the Marquise. "You may have read of Laurel's cruel death. I feel terribly over it and I have begged the Pundit to try to find from Laurel some clue to lead us to her slayer, if there was one."
"The Marquise is right," pursued the Pundit evenly. "If there are no disturbing or distracting elements the dead girl may be strong enough to get over a message of enough significance to avenge her." At this very un-Buddhistic sentiment the Pundit leveled his eyes in a searching glance toward Kennedy and from him to Kerry. I could not help wondering if the Pundit knew more about the relations of Laurel Millan and Kerry than Kerry would care for us to know.
"Be careful, Aunt Verna," spoke that gentleman, "how you try to get evidence. I would rather depend on our own police than follow evidence that may be even celestial."
The Pundit glowered, turned his back on Kerry and was soon engaged in a conversation that engrossed the entire attention of the Marquise.
A SECOND group I had seen, apart. Among them I recognized
Norma Gerard. With a start I saw the man I had seen at the
funeral parlor. I knew him instantly. He must be Nikolai
Strepoff, the handsome young Russian engineer.
Scraps of their conversation told me that it was about a lawn party to dedicate to society a new Temple of the Occult and was not to be delayed by the death of little Laurel Millan.
I guessed that the third in this group was slender Fernie Lefèvre, the social butterfly in the bizarre circle of the Marquise Verna. At a distance she seemed very Parisian. We followed Kerry.
Fernie Lefèvre's beauty literally smote me. It was artificial but overwhelming. Titian hair made a halo around a face of startling beauty. Small features, delicately moulded, small, daintily shaped limbs showing through a gown that would have done creditable duty in India's climate, eyes enticing, entreating, seductive, she was passion personified.
Fernie must have her own divan. Violet and orchid and mauve shades enhanced her startling beauty. When we entered she was stretched out lull length on the violet pillows with all the lithe beauty of a tigress. One leg was thrown over the other in an insolent, alert pose. As I was introduced she straightened out, raised her hand compelling me to bend over her and through half-closed eyes gave me a dreamy smile that made me startle awkwardly. The air was redolent with her favorite perfume.
"Miss Lefèvre—Mr. Harrington," hastened Kerry.
Fernie opened her eyes wider and sought to hold Craig by their suggestive appeal She forgot, too, to let his hand go, animatedly discussing the lawn fête. Kennedy must have felt the warmth of her little hand and its unnecessary pressure.
With an amused smile he turned as Kerry presented him to Norma. Disengaging his hand, he bowed. The suppression of a flash of recognition brought a flush to Norma's face. She was beautiful, becomingly-gowned in a yellow dress. It seemed as if each were intensifying the striking contrast in their two beauties.
Norma consciously reacted at the covert huntress in Fernie and Fernie rather enjoyed the conflict. Bantering with Kerry, she seemed to exaggerate the causes of Norma's reaction. Fernie knew how to shoot, and her arrows reached their mark.
At once I caught the fact that Fernie would have liked to vamp Kerry. Also, introduced to Strepoff attentively near Norma, I saw that the striking young Russian engineer was seeking to monopolize Norma's heart. To me, while I sensed the conflict of the women, I saw the conflict of the men.
A MOMENT and Strepoff was again in the interrupted
conversation about costuming for the lawn fête. From a remark of
Norma's I gathered that the elaborately-correct costumes had been
obtained from the little oriental curio shop of Kashi on Madison
Avenue, and Strepoff's manner rather than his words seemed to
imply that no one could be correctly costumed elsewhere.
The Marquise and the Pundit were not long in joining us, and with the ardor of a propagandist the Marquise raced from the current matter of costumes to inviting us to be guests at the fête. With a proper degree of hesitation Kennedy accepted the coveted offer.
It was Kerry's legal instinct that led the conversation around again to the matter of the poor little Millan girl, the subject uppermost in all minds, and Kennedy in his psychic role was not slow to take advantage of it.
"The Marquise said a moment ago that you expected another message from Miss Millan in the spirit plane," remarked Kennedy, looking questioningly from her to the Pundit. "Do I understand by that that yon have established communication with her already? It is a matter on which I would be eager to report to the society."
Durga Nath could hardly avoid the inquiry nor did he seem to desire to do so. "Already." he replied, "we have had messages from the borderland from Miss Millan, using Monsieur's Hertzian waves, messages a little confused, as of a mind from a lower plane suddenly transported to a higher and striving to orientate itself."
"Then is it your belief that Miss Millan had progressed upward in the cycle during her life in this plane?"
"I cannot say, yet. It may be that she has shaken the shackles of evil from this our lower plane. Karma is a cyclic occurrence; good or evil of a life affect the next existence. Evil, as Gautama taught, is to gratify the senses, the desire for personal immortality, the desire for prosperity."
The Pundit was evasive to the point of hypocrisy, I felt. How deep were those beautiful thoughts?
"One must walk the Aryan Path, the Eight-fold Way—right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right rapture. Only when the first personal pronoun has vanished from one's private thoughts comes Nirvana, serenity of soul, not extinction, but extinction of selfish desire—'Whosoever would save his life, shall lose it.'"
As the Marquise, aided by Singh, fell into an exposition of the philosophy, I was suddenly wakened to the fact that back of it all were the Pundit and his Non-Cooperation Society, a fanatical worship of Mahatma Gandhi, a subtle Hindu propaganda in America.
It was really due to Kerry's legal questioning that the talk was carried about on that tack. "Then," remarked Kerry after another dictum of the Pundit, "all Doing is Evil?"
"To abstain from action is well, Mr. Curry," retorted the Pundit, still shading Kerry's name, "except to acquire merit!"
Kerry said nothing. He turned as a prosecutor will when he has led a witness into a morass. I saw, but was at a loss to interpret yet the ill-concealed animosity between the Pundit and Strepoff on one side and Kerry on the other. Under cover of these unctuous thoughts did the Pundit seek to marry the Marquise? Was he equally concerned in alienating Norma from Kerry?
My speculations were interrupted by the little butterfly vamp, Fernie. She moved lithely in her sheer garments toward Kerry.
"You are going as a rajah tonight, Larry—and I shall be a nautch girl," she thrilled. "Remember the story of the Rajah of Rajput and the nautch girl and the love flowers she wore?"
Fernie executed a swaying step close to him and drew taut over her head a long mauve scarf that had been about her shoulders, the ends waving gracefully. A most seductive, erotic perfume surrounded her like a cloud. Fernie knew that she was the essence of love.
"In some past life, who knows," she paraphrased, "but you were a king in a Hindu court and I was your Christian slave?"
I watched Kerry closely to catch any sign of a struggle in himself.
"I'm afraid. Fernie," he remarked coldly and deliberately, "afraid of the first rule of the Pundit's evil—to gratify the senses—and the last step in that Aryan Path—right rapture!"
Kennedy contrived a diplomatic departure, and as we came out of earshot remarked in an undertone, "After that from Kerry—watch Fernie!"
AN hour later, back in the city again, Kennedy's first concern seemed to be to secure correct costumes so that we would not be marked guests at the rather exclusive lawn fête to which we had been invited. We sought out the wonder shop of Kashi near the Grand Central on Madison Avenue.
Kashi himself was a little wizened Jap, and in his shop was displayed the most marvelous Oriental collection in the city, everything, even the most recondite masks of the devil dance, prayer wheels, priceless jades and ambers, yellow ivories from Japan, the most valuable and matchless Buddhas.
Kashi was invaluable in picking out costumes. Kennedy seemed to know what he wanted, however—the dress of a fakir with a monkey. I accepted Kashi's suggestion of accompanying him as a mendicant with a begging bowl.
IN the back of the shop we encountered a visitor, a short
physically-powerful dark man of decided Tartar cast of features.
The place was so small and intimate that the excessively polite
Kashi could not well avoid introducing us.
"This is Mr. Leonid Malinsky," he purred, "a close friend of Mr. Strepoff—Strepoff of Moscow—organizer of the new Universal Internationale of Labor in all lands."
Malinsky of the Third Internationale was a quiet little man with a smile that was as a shield to the real self underneath. He seemed absolutely at home in Kashi's shop, and from his manner and some literature on a table beside him, I gathered that he was seeking to enlist Kashi as a Japanese socialist.
There was no concealment about Malinsky, and yet there was an air more baffling than about the Pundit. Strepoff or even Kashi. Kennedy made several ineffectual attempts to lead the conversation into channels of Sovietism and again into non-cooperationism, but in each case Malinsky betrayed nothing more than a scholarly reticence. My impression was that he might have said much if he would.
"Many of you Americans, many of the newspaper writers." he volunteered at last chancing the subject at a mention of the Marquise Gerard, "make all sorts of fun of Durga Nath and the Marquise. They forget that at least the Pundit and his disciple have a religion that is Eurasian—more closely Aryan than the religion of Babylon and the Semites which the critics profess."
I followed him keenly. His was the incisive, iconoclastic reasoning of many remarkable Bolshevist brains. "Strange... the one great Aryan religion is almost confined to Mongolians! Aryans themselves are under the Semitic religions of Judea and Babylonia.... Christendom as well as Islam. Curiously, both Christianity and Buddhism have the ritual and formulae tinged by Hamitic Egypt."
It was like mental setting-up exercises to talk with this man, even though one went through only what exercises he chose. Our costumes were ready too soon.
"Craig," I exclaimed as we left the shop. "Durga Nath is without a doubt in America to raise money for the Hindu peaceful revolution. Is he, with real oriental guile, using Russian Bolshevism to further his purpose? Or is Strepoff engineering a union of Bolshevist Russia with the Hindu revolution?"
"I have been studying Strepoff," evaded Kennedy sententiously. "Strepoff is what I would call a type, a psychopathic sensualist, a varietist among women, a dealer in hearts, a man of a multitude of loves, unless I am mistaken. In other words, Walter, just now I'm more interested in personalities than in politics. Every time I think of him I think of Heine's lines. 'Love's madness? Love is itself a madness!'"
"And the Pundit," I pursued, "is he a Hindu Pecksniff?"
"We are east of Suez—where the best is like the worst."
LATER, in the laboratory, where we had gone to dress for the
fête. Kennedy imparted an astounding discovery after a short time
of intensive study at his microscope and precipitins.
"You see. Walter, I drew off just a bit of fluid from above her breast.... The little secretary died of snake venom—the poison of Naia—the cobra."
"But the snake-bite shows twin punctures of the fangs. There was only one that I saw."
"Did you ever think of a hypodermic—and synthetic snake venom?"
I considered for a moment with whom we had to deal—Artifex.
AS he prepared for the lawn fête Craig was very careful. He spent a great deal of time adjusting the turban of his outfit. In fact, he seemed very particular about it.
The monkey, a very intelligent little fellow, was clad in an old-fashioned soldier suit, with a knapsack. This also Kennedy was very careful about, as well as the cord attached to a little harness about the simian waist and shoulders.
We set out at last and Kennedy stowed away his wireless compass in the back of the car.
It was just becoming dark when we arrived at Nirvana. A part of the lawn bordering a grove had been made into a huge open-air tea garden. Under the twinkling lights over the lawn and winking among the trees was a brilliant gathering.
Everywhere were nautch girls. The Marquise herself was gorgeously attired as a maharanee. Norma made a ravishing native princess. Fernie was in her element as leader of the nautch dancers. Strepoff I saw as an ancient priest or lama. Hut the social lion of the occasion was the Pundit.
Eyes roving about, I saw that we were within a few feet of Kerry in the shadow. Kerry had come as a rajah, rather nervous and a bit sour. He was seated upon a queer-looking boulder in a lonesome corner of the tea garden. As a rajah he was not a success. He showed that this masquerading was disgusting to a practical, normal business attorney, who was more interested in the market, stocks and timely bonds than in maharanees, sandals and tinkling bells.
"Oh. Lord!" I heard him shuffle his feet and stretch. "If it wasn't for all this bally rot of India, I might hare a chance to fix things up with her." Then he stood up, surveying his legs and embroidered satin coat scornfully. "Why do nutty people always want to make everybody around them nutty, too?"
"Having a good time talking to yourself?" There was a wicked little laugh from Fernie as she suddenly postured out of a clump of shrubbery with a swirl of white draperies that would have caused an anchorite to follow such a will-o'-the-wisp. "Well... I suppose it's an offense if even a naughty little nautch girl flits between you and the... the princess... now that Laurel doesn't bother you.... Ta-ta!"
She was gone before he could frame a reply. Kennedy had been right.
Craig filtered through the throng after her. At last we came upon the Marquise, the Pundit and Strepoff under a cluster of lights. In her hand the Marquise was holding a sheet of paper on which was a peculiar scrawl in large flowing letters.
"Mr. Harrington," she received us, "this is some of the automatic writing over the Strepoff wireless telautograph. It is a message from Laurel Millan in spirit land."
Kennedy bent over and puzzled out the sweeping scrawl:
One sworn to uphold the Law removed me from his path.
It was ambiguous, cryptic.
"You are convinced of the ability of mind, of spirit to affect a radio set, if sufficiently delicate?" asked Kennedy.
"Prepared according to my discovery," defended Strepoff. "For instance, Dr. Crile's numberless experiments prove conclusively that the life-force—what Bergson calls the vital urge, the élan vitale—the thing which is found in living organisms and is not found in dead organisms—produces the various activities known as life and is merely an electric current. The brain is simply a complicated generator of electric current, an agglomeration of tiny electric batteries, the brain cells, very much like the ordinary wet batteries that furnish current to ring doorbells. That is the only function of these cells. The human body is composed of twenty-six trillion cells!"
He seized a pencil and wrote: "26,000,000,000,000."
"Brain and spinal cord alone contain upward of two billion cells." Again he made the figures: "2,000,000,000."
"Is it such an impossible thought that in this combination of cells—of matter—of electrons—of force—something survives—and can affect other combinations of electrons?"
Fernie, who had floated across our ken, bent over and also read the writing.
"Laurel was familiar with your stocks and bonds?"
The Marquise nodded.
"Who, then, might have sought information—might have sought to get control of the Callahan railroad interests?"
"Little Laurel was a faithful secretary."
"I think Norma in her car—once saw her over in Pelham with someone."
There was a feline purr in the words and I knew they referred to some tiff Norma had had with Kerry over the matter of his acquaintance with Laurel. "Sworn to uphold the Law... from his Path." She purred the words over.
I saw the serpent's tongue, the veiled accusation of Kerry. Was it Fernie's revenge—because Kerry had been cold and deliberate at her advances? But, I paused, what on the other hand did I know? Might there not be some truth in it, after all? Norma's own face was a study, though she kept silent. The open face of the Marquise displayed a rather violent antagonism toward Kerry.
"It may be—it will be—if it is true," smoothed the Pundit sanctimoniously, "that we shall get more of it over the spirit wireless tonight when we dedicate the Temple."
"Yes... why was he in Pelham... with Laurel? You saw them. What were they there for?"
Norma hesitated, then flared. "That is unfair, mother. Laurel is dead—and you don't even let Larry speak in his own defense."
The Marquise seemed more intolerantly angry than ever. "I don't see why you should rise to his defense," she snapped. "Didn't you get angry enough at Larry for neglecting you?"
Fernie gave a spiteful laugh of satisfaction at what she had started, then, blowing a feline kiss to Norma, danced away.
IT WAS time for the nautch dance. Kerry had been watching his
opportunity on the outskirts of the crowd babbling of their
society and of the new religion. He started to make his way
toward Norma. But other vigilant eyes were open. The Pundit
carried off the prize. With the Marquise and the Pundit Norma was
borne over toward a nook where were some empty seats. Even before
they arrived Strepoff appeared and bowed low over Norma's hand.
Kerry bit his lip. He was effectually stymied.
It was not long before the romantic Strepoff succeeded in detaching Norma and himself from the others. As for the Marquise, she was never far from the lion. Almost she fawned on him. "The mast romantic and charming of philosophers," she had often called him.
Strepoff led Norma up a rose-entwined pergola. Norma was animated, but, knowing what I did of her, I felt sure that she was trying to have a good time the hardest she had ever tried and without much success. I could imagine her, as she caught sight of Kerry's doleful face far off, saying to herself, "Something's wrong with everybody!"
I had eyes for nothing but the nautch dance in its sinuous posturing sensuousness, when I felt Kennedy plucking at my sleeve. I tore myself away from the enticing living moving picture.
The tea garden and the grove with their alternating deep shadows and sparkling lights were ideal for just what Kennedy purposed. From where we stood in a carefully-selected shadow we could see the Pundit and the Eurasian. Singh.
"A little mysterious but not mystical plotting," whispered Craig.
I thought the Pundit now a little too intimate and animated for the placid demeanor exhibited in the public eye.
A MOMENT later, as a group of guests interrupted them, the two drew back from the tea garden. We followed, and it was soon evident that they were headed for the new Temple of the Occult, a rather pretentious stone edifice which the Marquise had caused to be built at some expense. It was to be dedicated after the dance.
Before the door swung shut on them, I caught a glimpse of a great Buddha inside, a bronze figure more than life-size squatting on a dais before which in the dim light incense burned.
Kennedy surveyed the temple appraisingly. Before us was a sheer wall. But high overhead at one end, to produce a light effect from the rising sun on the statue, were some little windows. Kennedy patted the monkey—and pointed overhead. Obediently the intelligent little beast climbed at the end of his twisted rope.
As he climbed, I could see Kennedy was very busy with his turban. I could not see very distinctly in the shadows, but it seemed as if he drew down over his ears what might be the headpiece of a telephone operator. Then he attached the twisted rope to the turban.
The monkey climbed and perched silently in the window. Kennedy beckoned me closer and loosened one of the discs so that it rested on my ear while the other rested on his own.
"How can a man follow the Way or play the game when he is eternally pursued by women?" came a far-off voice.
This must have been from Singh. I did not stop to ask questions, but merely listened. The Pundit was speaking.
"Once I am married to the Marquise... that shall cease!"
There was a moment's silence.
"In that monkey's knapsack," whispered Kennedy, "is the transmitter of a dictagraph. I wanted a turban to hide the receiver."
As we listened in on the conversation of the Pundit and Singh, I fancied I began to get what was under the surface.
It was one final effort to fasten the murder of little Laurel Millan on Kerry!
More astounding, as Singh told it, I gathered that dope parties had been a part of the cult: that Fernie had been in some of them; that Norma had refused to be drawn in. It seemed that the night before Laurel had been inveigled into one.
"I shudder at the thought of little Laurel in the clutches of Singh!" I muttered.
"Sh!" from Craig.
Singh was talking, She had seemed to be under the influence of the opium. But she was not. She had been playing a game. She had overheard something.
"And so!" exclaimed Craig. "She was removed by a needle and cobra venom!"
But by whom?
ALONE though they thought themselves, the Pundit and his chela
were still careful. Neither incriminated the other, nor did they
cast suspicion on anyone else.
"If Norma doesn't become more reasonable she will have no need of a séance to talk to Laurel," malignantly sneered Singh. "They can enjoy themselves in heaven—together!"
All we had learned was that Laurel Millan, faithful to the interests of the Marquise, had stopped at nothing to learn the truth. Therefore, someone had removed her. Who was it?...
We could now hear voices wafted in the night air through the grove. The dance was over and the Marquise was leading her guests to the great event, the dedication of the Temple. Kennedy quickly pulled in the twisted wire which had served in place of a cord to hold his living dictagraph.
All were now approaching the Temple, eager to view that mysteriously-mystic shrine. Light chatter in smart lingo did not seem, however, to accord with Gautama Buddha.
"And they really expect to get spirit messages from the little Millan girl?"
"Yes... even expect to learn who killed her."
"How intriguing!"
It was a curious combination in the Temple of the Occult—Buddha and Western spiritism, the occult and that modern mystery, the wireless.
So eager were all now to unravel the riddle of Laurel's strange death that everything else was secondary.
While Kennedy was engaged outside, I crept in to observe the necromantic actions of the Pundit.
In the semi-darkness I saw fluctuating luminous vapors exuding, as it were, from the Pundit's body. They seemed to condense into some sort of visually substantial form.
"The ectoplasm!" I heard an erudite flapper whisper.
A spirit message had begun to falter from the radio. Quietly and quickly I rejoined Kennedy outside.
He had brought up from his car the delicate little loop that constituted his radio compass. Swiftly, carefully he adjusted it. Then he looked at the distance dial, did a hasty mental calculation.
"Pelham—again!"
"K K K K K K K"
The letter, repeated faintly, over and over, came from the radio set. Kennedy leaped from the shadows where his radio compass had been placed.
"That is a direct accusation of Kerry!"
He strode into the temple, his fakir's garments trailing in the wind, his right hand raised, palm outward.
"Stop!"
A gasp swept the tense and credulous audience. Quickly Kennedy raised the monkey so all could see, then opened the knapsack.
"There's nothing occult about this," he remarked impressively, turning the knapsack toward them. "You can all see—it is an ordinary dictagraph—that has caught thousands of criminals!"
Kennedy pointed his hand upward at the little windows about to explain, but the little monkey saved his words. He leaped across the floor and swung up to the windows, sat there chattering and grinning, without even the need of an order. Without a word, Kennedy faced full toward Singh.
"The dictagraph told me more than your spirit wireless will ever tell—of how little Laurel made you think she was stupefied by opium when she was not: how she was struck down for learning what she should not, struck down by a needle and synthetic snake venom, as I found in my own laboratory, struck down at the hands of the master!"
"But... Durga Nath... is not the master!"
"Then—who?"
There was silence, fear on Singh's face. Kennedy did not press for an answer, immediately.
"Let me do a little reconstruction of events, of motives. What was to be gained in all of this scheming? Just this: With the lawyer Kerry in the power of Fernie Lefèvre, with the Marquise under the spell of the Pundit, with Norma fascinated by Strepoff—why—the railroad interests—of course!"
It was as if a great sunlight arc had flooded the Temple. If there was anything of which the Marquise was jealous in guarding, it was the Callahan stocks.
"The truth is that someone—one who calls himself Artifex—not Lawrence Kerry—wanted this railroad fortune! Kerry is cleared of suspicion. This is only part of a plan of this Artifex!"
A shot startled us, reverberating from the outside through the weirdly acoustic Temple. All was in turmoil. We crowded out.
There, beside Kennedy's radio compass, lay Singh, dead.
HAD it been suicide? Kennedy knelt beside him, searched him.
In his pocket he found a little packet of poisoned thorns.
"He had been delegated to kill me! When he failed... Artifex... or his agent... removed him!"
The Marquise was trembling. At last her eyes were opened. "Where's... Norma?"
"Gone!"
"And Fernie, too!"
"Then Norma is in danger!" It was Kerry, livid with emotion. "Her beauty—her body—her life!"
Verna Gerard turned to Kennedy, imploring, instinctive. "Norma knew something... from Laurel. Like a fool, I brought it up, on that hint from Fernie. Can it be that it is that knowledge that is taking Norma into danger?" I thought of the coincidence of Pelham—of the hidden wireless station. "Find her!" implored the Marquise.
How could we get there? Norma had known something. But the Marquise did not. Nor did we.
"There is just one thing you can do." Kennedy faced her severely. "This Pundit has been exposed. He is not Artifex. Who, then, is? Strepoff? He is gone! Compel this Pundit to continue to receive these spirit messages, as if nothing had happened. Under no circumstances allow him to touch anything that may be part of a sending set. There must be some among you who know wireless since it became a fad. Yes? I call on you to aid the Marquise!"
Kennedy saw instantly that he might count on the temper of this sensation-loving crowd. A moment later he picked up his radio compass.
"Walter—the car. Take the shore road to Pelham. Come on, Kerry. I may need you."
NEVER have I experienced anything more weird than this radio chase in the night, stopping and setting up the direction-finder, making a hasty computation, getting a new angle, then down another road; again the set-up and a correction, ever closer.
Could Kennedy save Norma? I felt a sickening fear of something impending—for her.
At last we stopped before a darkened house. We had gone just a few feet past it. Kennedy was setting up his compass.
"I think it is what the last set-up indicated," he muttered. "If it is, this loop will point us—back—to it."
Suddenly, from the darkened house, there rose a burst of flame. The white figure of a woman, running to the rear, caught my eye. Without waiting I leaped after her. As I looked back I saw Kennedy and Kerry headed toward the blast.
The woman sped like a frightened doe. Draperies flying. I could see her. Rut I doubt if I could have caught her in her terrified flight had it not been for a thick hedge of buckthorn.
It was Fernie, hysterical, as I crushed all sentiment and gripped her little wrists.
"I found them... Nikolai and Norma.... I set it off... the thing Malinsky prepared if it was ever raided,... Nikolai... a prisoner with her... in the burning room full of radio apparatus! Nikolai... a game... but no more... not for all the damned Callahan railroads!"
Rushing her along beside me toward the burning house I came upon Kerry, with Norma, clinging in his arms. Almost Fernie tore herself from my grip. I felt that she would have torn her eyes out.
"No... you were the real victim, Larry." Norma clung closer to Kerry. "I knew why you were with Laurel.... They didn't poison my mind, really.... I fought for you... even ran the risk of losing my foster mother.... It was your mind they were poisoning... about me!"
"Where's... Kennedy?" I asked huskily.
An instant Norma looked at Kerry. All her love and heroism were mounting. She leaned over and kissed him.
"Yes... Larry... go... get him... he is our best friend!"
Kerry, head down, shouldered his way a foot ahead of me into the smother.
In the doorway we stumbled on Craig, eyes bulging, face distorted, mouth set, dragging out the half-conscious Strepoff.
Fernie flung herself on him, tearing to loosen his collar and neck-band, crying and kissing him, chafing his hands, smoothing his forehead, passionately.
Norma seized Kennedy, frantic to mother him.
"Fernie... the adventuress..." she whispered between orders to Kerry to help, "is... really... Madame Strepoff.... I just found... jealous... of me!"
Gasping, choking, Kennedy tried to smile at her, then turned as he felt my hand on his.
"Dead men—prisoners!" he muttered. "What a game Artifex plays!"
Relentlessly, doggedly, Craig
Kennedy—who long since took his assured place among
the great detectives of romance—pursues the malevolent
Shadow that has set its goal at no less an object than the sheer
destruction of society. The mark of Artifex, most sinister and cunning of
criminals, is seen, now here, now there—remorselessly at
his foul task of tearing down the structure of civilization....
His methods are fabulous—or would seem so in any age but
this, with its "Death Rays" and poison gas and strange
development of mysterious psychic powers.
In the September Smart Set, the track of Artifex's malice leads to the most despicable of all crimes—kidnapping. This will be the Fourth of Smart Set's Craig Kennedy series. Don't miss "The Toxin of Hate."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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