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Page 75
CHAPTER XXXI
THE POOL OF DEATH
Not a sound broke the stillness of the Gate House. It was the most
eerily silent place in which I had ever found myself. Out into the
corridor we went, noiselessly. It was stripped, uncarpeted.
Three doors we passed, two upon the left and one upon the right.
We tried them all. All were unfastened, and the rooms into which
they opened bare and deserted. Then we came upon a short, descending
stair, at its foot a massive oaken door.
Carneta glided down, noiseless as a ghost, and to one of the
blackened panels applied an ingenious little instrument which she
carried in her knapsack. It was not unlike a stethoscope; and as I
watched her listening, by means of this arrangement, for any sound
beyond the oaken door, I reflected how almost every advance made by
science places a new tool in the hand of the criminal.
No word had been spoken since we had discovered this door; none had
been necessary. For we both knew that the place beyond was that
from which proceeded the mysterious red light.
I directed the ray of the electric torch upon Carneta, as she stood
there listening, and against that sombre oaken background her face
and profile stood out with startling beauty. She seemed half
perplexed and half fearful. Then she abruptly removed the apparatus,
and, stooping to the knapsack, replaced it and took out a bunch of
wire keys, signing to me to hand her the lamp.
As I crept down the steps I saw her pause, glancing back over her
shoulder toward the door. The expression upon her face induced
me to direct the light in the same direction.
Why neither of us had observed the fact before I cannot conjecture;
but a key was in the lock!
Perhaps the traffic of the night afforded no more dramatic moment
than this. The house which we were come prepared burglariously
to enter was thrown open, it would seem, to us, inviting our
inspection!
Looking back upon that moment, it seems almost incredible that the
sight of a key in a lock should have so thrilled me. But at the
time I perceived something sinister in this failure of the Lord of
the Hashishin to close his doors to intruders. That Carneta shared
my doubts and fears was to be read in her face; but her training
had been peculiar, I learned, and such as establishes a surprising
resoluteness of character.
Quite noiselessly she turned the key, and holding a dainty pocket
revolver in her hand, pushed the door open slowly!
An odour, sickly sweet and vaguely familiar, was borne to my
nostrils. Carneta became outlined in dim, reddish light. Bending
forward slightly, she entered the room, and I, with muscles tensed
nervously, advanced and stood beside her.
I perceived that this was a cellar; indeed, I doubt not that in
some past age it had served as a dungeon. From the stone roof hung
the first evidence of Eastern occupation which the Gate House had
yielded; in the form of an Oriental lantern, or fanoos, of
rose-coloured waxed paper upon a copper frame. Its vague light
revealed the interior of the hideous place upon whose threshold we
stood.
Straight before us, deep set in the stone wall, was the tiny square
window, iron-barred without, and glazed with red glass, the light
from which had so deeply mystified us. Within a niche in the wall,
a little to the left of the window, rested an object which, at that
moment, claimed our undivided attention the sight of which so
wrought upon us that temporarily all else was forgotten.
It was the red slipper of the Prophet!
"My God!" whispered Carneta--"my God!"--and clutched at me,
swaying dizzily.
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