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Page 33
Mostyn sprang up in bed, drew on a dressing-gown, and took from the
small safe at his bed-head the Museum keys and a loaded revolver.
A somewhat dishevelled figure, pale and wild-eyed, he made his way
through the private door and into the ghostly precincts of the
Museum. He did not hesitate, but ascended the stairs and unlocked
the door of the Assyrian gallery.
Along its ghostly aisles he passed, and before the door which gave
admittance to the Burton Room paused, fumbling a moment for the
key.
Inside the room something was moving!
Mostyn was keenly alarmed; he knew that he must enter at once or
never. He inserted the key in the lock, swung open the heavy door,
stepped through and closed it behind him. He was a man of
tremendous moral courage, for now,--alone in the apartment which
harboured the uncanny relic, alone in the discharge of his duty,
he stood with his back to the door trembling slightly, but with
the idea of retreat finding no place in his mind.
One side of the room lay in blackest darkness; through the
furthermost window of the other a faint yellowed luminance (the
moonlight through the blind) spread upon the polished parquet
flooring. But that which held the curator spell-bound--that which
momentarily quickened into life the latent superstition, common to
all mankind, was a beam of cold light which poured its effulgence
fully upon the case containing the Prophet's slipper! Where the
other exhibits lay either in utter darkness or semi-darkness this
one it seemed was supernaturally picked out by this lunar
searchlight!
It was ghostly-unnerving; but, the first dread of it passed, Mostyn
recalled how during the day a hole inexplicably had been cut in
that blind; he recalled that it had not been mended, but that the
damaged blind had merely been rolled up again.
And as a dawning perception of the truth came to him, as falteringly
he advanced a step toward the mystic beam, he saw that one side of
the case had been shattered--he saw the broken glass upon the floor;
and in the dense shadow behind and under the beam of light, vaguely
he saw a dull red object.
It moved--it seemed to live! It moved away from the case and in
the direction of the eastern windows.
"My God!" whispered Mostyn; "it's the Prophet's slipper!"
And wildly, blindly, he fired down the room. Later he knew that he
had fired in panic, for nothing human was or could be in the place;
yet his shot was not without effect. In the instant of its flash,
something struck sharply against the dimly seen blind of one of the
east windows; he heard the crash of broken glass.
He leapt to the switch and flooded the room with light. A fear of
what it might hold possessed him, and he turned instantly.
Hard by the fragments of broken glass upon the floor and midway
between the case and the first easterly window lay the slipper. A
bell was ringing somewhere. His shot probably had aroused the
attention of the policeman. Someone was clamouring upon the door
of the Museum, too. Mostyn raced forward and raised the blind
--that toward which the slipper had seemed to move.
The lower pane of the window was smashed. Blood was trickling down
upon the floor from the jagged edges of the glass.
"Hullo there! Open the door! Open the door!"
Bells were going all over the place now; sounds of running footsteps
came from below; but Mostyn stood staring at the broken window and
at the solid iron bars which protected it without, which were intact,
substantial--which showed him that nothing human could possibly
have entered.
Yet the case was shattered, the holy slipper lay close beside him
upon the floor, and from the broken window-pane blood was falling
--drip-drip-drip . . .
That was the story as I heard it half an hour later. For Inspector
Bristol, apprised of the happening, was promptly on the scene; and
knowing how keen was my interest in the matter, he rang me up
immediately. I arrived soon after Bristol and found a perplexed
group surrounding the uncanny slipper of the Prophet. No one had
dared to touch it; the dread vengeance of Hassan of Aleppo would
visit any unbeliever who ventured to lay hand upon the holy, bloody
thing. Well we knew it, and as though it had been a venomous
scorpion we, a company of up-to-date, prosaic men of affairs, stood
around that dilapidated markoob, and kept a respectful distance.
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