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Page 69
"Dexter had suffered mutilation, he knew that the Hashishin sought
his life for his previous attempts upon the relic of the Prophet,
and yet he dared to venture again into the very lions' den?"
"He did, Mr. Cavanagh, two days ago. And--"
"Yes?" I urged, as gently as I could, for she was shaking pitifully.
"He never came back!"
The words were spoken almost in a whisper. She clenched her hands
and leapt from the chair, fighting down her grief and with such a
stark horror in her beautiful eyes that from my very soul I longed
to be able to help her.
"Mr. Cavanagh" (she had courage, this bewildering accomplice of a
cracksman), "I know the house he went to! I cannot hope to make you
understand what I have suffered since then. A thousand times I have
been on the point of going to the police, confessing all I knew, and
leading them to that house! O God! if only he is alive, this shall
be his last crooked deal--and mine! I dared not go to the police,
for his sake! I waited, and watched, and hoped, through two such
nights and days . . . then I ventured. I should have gone mad if I
had not come here. I knew you had good cause to hate, to detest me,
but I remembered that you had a great grievance against Hassan. Not
as great, O heaven! not as great as mine, but yet a great one. I
remembered, too, that you were the kind of man--a woman can come
to . . . "
She sank back into the chair, and with her fingers twining and
untwining, sat looking dully before her.
"In brief," I said, "what do you propose?"
"I propose that we endeavour to obtain admittance to the house of
Hassan of Aleppo--secretly, of course, and all I ask of you in
return for revealing the secret of its situation is--"
"That I let Dexter go free?"
Almost inaudibly she whispered: "If he lives!"
Surely no stranger proposition ever had been submitted to a
law-abiding citizen. I was asked to connive in the escape of a
notorious criminal, and at one and the same time to embark upon an
expedition patently burglarious! As though this were not enough,
I was invited to beard Hassan of Aleppo, the most dreadful being I
had ever encountered East or West, in his mysterious stronghold!
I wondered what my friend, Inspector Bristol, would have thought of
the project; I wondered if I should ever live to see Hassan meet his
just deserts as a result of this enterprise, which I was forced to
admit a foolhardy one. But a man who has selected the career of a
war correspondent from amongst those which Fleet Street offers, is
the victim of a certain craving for fresh experiences; I suppose,
has in his character something of an adventurous turn.
For a while I stood staring from the window, then faced about and
looked into the violet eyes of my visitor.
"I agree, Carneta!" I said.
CHAPTER XXIX
WE MEET MR. ISAACS
Quitting the wayside station, and walking down a short lane, we came
out upon Watling Street, white and dusty beneath the afternoon sun.
We were less than an hour's train journey from London but found
ourselves amid the Kentish hop gardens, amid a rural peace unbroken.
My companion carried a camera case slung across her shoulder, but
its contents were less innocent than one might have supposed. In
fact, it contained a neat set of those instruments of the burglar's
art with whose use she appeared to be quite familiar.
"There is an inn," she said, "about a mile ahead, where we can
obtain some vital information. He last wrote to me from there."
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