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Page 52
"No," I replied wearily. "Poor Professor Deeping thought that he
acted in my interests and that my possession of the keys would
constitute a safeguard. He was wrong. It has plunged me into the
very vortex of this ghastly affair."
"It is maddening," said Bristol, "to know that Hassan and Company
are snugly located somewhere under our very noses, and that all
Scotland Yard can find no trace of them. Then to think that Hassan
of Aleppo, apparently by means of some mystical light, has knowledge
of the whereabouts of the slipper and consequently of the
whereabouts of Earl Dexter (another badly wanted man) is extremely
discouraging! I feel like an amateur; I'm ashamed of myself!"
Bristol departed in a condition of irritable uncertainty.
My head in my hands, I sat for long after his departure, with the
phantom characters of the ghoulish drama dancing through my
brain. The distorted yellow dwarfs seemed to gibe apish before me.
Severed hands clenched and unclenched themselves in my face, and
gleaming knives flashed across the mental picture. Predominant over
all was the stately figure of Hassan of Aleppo, that benignant,
remorseless being, that terrible guardian of the holy relic who
directed the murderous operations. Earl Dexter, The Stetson Man,
with his tightly bandaged arm, his gaunt, clean-shaven face and
daredevil smile, figured, too, in my feverish daydream; nor was
that other character missing, the girl with the violet eyes whose
beautiful presence I had come to dread; for like a sybil announcing
destruction her appearances in the drama had almost invariably
presaged fresh tragedies. I recalled my previous meetings with
this woman of mystery. I recalled my many surmises regarding her
real identity and association with the case. I wondered why in the
not very distant past I had promised to keep silent respecting her;
I wondered why up to that present moment, knowing beyond doubt that
her activities were inimical to my interests, were criminal, I had
observed that foolish pledge.
And now my door-bell was ringing--as intuitively I had anticipated.
So certain was I of the identity of my visitor that as I walked
along the passage I was endeavouring to make up my mind how I should
act, how I should receive her.
I opened the door; and there, wearing European garments but a green
turban . . . stood Hassan of Aleppo!
When I say that amazement robbed me of the power to speak, to move,
almost to think, I doubt not you will credit me. Indeed, I felt
that modern London was crumbling about me and that I was become
involved in the fantastic mazes of one of those Oriental intrigues
such as figure in the Romance of Abu Zeyd, or with which most
European readers have been rendered familiar by the glowing pages
of "The Thousand and One Nights."
"Effendim," said my visitor, "do not hesitate to act as I direct!"
In his gloved hand he carried what appeared to be an ebony cane.
He raised and pointed it directly at me. I perceived that it was,
in fact, a hollow tube.
"Death is in my hand," he continued; "enter slowly and I will
follow you."
Still the sense of unreality held me thralled and my brain refused
me service. Like an hypnotic subject I walked back to my study,
followed by my terrible visitor, who reclosed the door behind him.
He sat facing me across my littered table with the mysterious tube
held loosely in his grasp.
How infinitely more terrifying are perils unknown than those known
and appreciated! Had a European armed with a pistol attempted a
similar act of coercion, I cannot doubt that I should have put up
some sort of fight; had he sat before me now as Hassan of Aleppo
sat, with a comprehensible weapon thus laid upon his knees, I
should have taken my chance, should have attacked him with the lamp,
with a chair, with anything that came to my hand.
But before this awful, mysterious being who was turning my life
into channels unsuspected, before that black tube with its unknown
potentialities, I sat in a kind of passive panic which I cannot
attempt to describe, which I had never experienced before and have
never known since.
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