Part 11 (1/2)

”Impossible to procure one, Professor,” cried Mostyn, his eyes sparkling with an almost boyish interest. ”Mr. Cavanagh here holds the keys of the case, under the will of the late Professor Deeping.

They are of foreign workmans.h.i.+p and more than a little complicated.”

The eyes of the savants were turned now in my direction.

”I suppose you have them in a place of safety?” said Dr. Nicholson.

”They are at my bankers,” I replied.

”Then I venture to predict,” said the celebrated Orientalist, ”that the slipper of the Prophet will rest here undisturbed.”

He linked his arm into that of a brother scholar and the little group straggled away, Mostyn accompanying them to the main entrance.

But I saw Inspector Bristol scratching his chin; he looked very much as if he doubted the accuracy of the doctor's prediction. He had already had some experience of the implacable devotion of the Moslem group to this treasure of the Faithful.

”The real danger begins,” I suggested to him, ”when the general public is admitted--after to-day, is it not?”

”Yes. All to-day's people are specially invited, or are using special invitation cards,” he replied. ”The people who received them often give their tickets away to those who will be likely really to appreciate the opportunity.”

I looked around for the tall Oriental. He seemed to have vanished, and for some reason I hesitated to speak of him to Bristol; for my gaze fell upon an excessively thin, keen-faced man whose curiously wide-open eyes met mine smilingly, whose gray suit spoke Stein-Bloch, whose felt was a Boss raw-edge unmistakably of a kind that only Philadelphia can produce. At the height of the season such visitors are not rare, but this one had an odd personality, and moreover his keen gaze was raking the place from ceiling to floor.

Where had I met him before? To the best of my recollection I had never set eyes upon the man prior to that moment; and since he was so palpably an American I had no reason for a.s.suming him to be a.s.sociated with the Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+n. But I remembered--indeed, I could never forget--how, in the recent past, I had met with an apparent a.s.sociate of the Moslems as evidently European as this curiously alert visitor was American. Moreover ... there was something tauntingly familiar, yet elusive, about that gaunt face.

Was it not upon the eve of the death of Professor Deeping that the girl with the violet eyes had first intruded her fascinating personality into my tangled affairs? Patently, she had then been seeking the holy slipper, and by craft had endeavoured to bend me to her will. Then had I not encountered her again, meeting the glance of her unforgettable violet eyes outside a Strand hotel?

The encounter had presaged a further attempt upon the slipper!

Certainly she acted on behalf of someone interested in it; and since neither Bristol nor I could conceive of any one seeking to possess the bloodstained thing except the mysterious leader of the Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+n--Ha.s.san of Aleppo--as a creature of that awful fanatic being I had written her down.

Why, then, if the mysterious Eastern employed a European girl, should he not also employ an American man? It might well be that the relic, in entering the doors of the impregnable Antiquarian Museum, had pa.s.sed where the diabolical arts of the Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+n had no power to reach it--where the beauty of Western women and the craft of Eastern man were equally useless weapons. Perhaps Ha.s.san's campaign was entering upon a new phase.

Was it a s.h.i.+rking of plain duty on my part that wish--that ever-present hope--that the murderous company of fanatics who had pursued the stolen slipper from its ancient resting-place to London, should succeed in recovering it? I leave you to judge.

The crescent of Islam fades to-day and grows pale, but there are yet fierce Believers, al.u.s.t for the blood of the infidel. In such as these a faith dies the death of an adder, and is more venomous in its death-throes than in the full pulse of life. The ghastly indiscretion of Professor Deeping, in rifling a Moslem Sacristy, had led to the mutilation of many who, unwittingly, had touched the looted relic, had brought about his own end, had established a league of fantastic a.s.sa.s.sins in the heart of the metropolis.

Only once had I seen the venerable Ha.s.san of Aleppo--a stately, gentle old man; but I knew that the velvet eyes could blaze into a pa.s.sionate fury that seemed to scorch whom it fell upon. I knew that the saintly Ha.s.san was Sheikh of the Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+n. And familiarity with that dreadful organization had by no means bred contempt. I was the holder of the key, and my fear of the fanatics grew like a magic mango, darkened the sunlight of each day, and filled the night with indefinable dread.

You, who have not read poor Deeping's ”a.s.syrian Mythology”, cannot picture a creature with a huge, distorted head, and a tiny, dwarfed body--a thing inhuman, yet human--a man stunted and malformed by the cruel arts of brother men--a thing obnoxious to life, with but one pa.s.sion, the pa.s.sion to kill. You cannot conceive of the years of agony spent by that creature strapped to a wooden frame--in order to prevent his growth! You cannot conceive of his fierce hatred of all humanity, inflamed to madness by the Eastern drug, has.h.i.+sh, and directed against the enemies of Islam--the holders of the slipper--by the wonderful power of Ha.s.san of Aleppo.

But I had not only read of such beings, I had encountered one!

And he was but one of the many instruments of the Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+n. Perhaps the girl with the violet eyes was another. What else to be dreaded Ha.s.san might hold in store for us I could not conjecture.

Do you wonder that I feared? Do you wonder that I hoped (I confess it), hoped that the slipper might be recovered without further bloodshed?

CHAPTER XI

THE HOLE IN THE BLIND

I stepped over to the door, where a constable stood on duty.