The Quest of the Sacred Slipper

by

Sax Rohmer

CONTENTS

 I. THE PHANTOM SCIMITAR. II. THE GIRL WITH THE VIOLET EYES III. "HASSAN OF ALEPPO" IV. THE OBLONG BOX V. THE OCCUPANT OF THE BOX VI. THE RING OF THE PROPHET VII. FIRST ATTEMPT ON THE SAFE VIII. THE VIOLET EYES AGAIN IX. SECOND ATTEMPT ON THE SAFE X. AT THE BRITISH ANTIQUARIAN MUSEUM XI. THE HOLE IN THE BLIND XII. THE HASHISHIN WATCH XIII. THE WHITE BEAM XIV. A SCREAM IN THE NIGHT XV. A SHRIVELLED HAND XVI. THE DWARF XVII. THE WOMAN WITH THE BASKET XVIII. WHAT CAME THROUGH THE WINDOW XIX. A RAPPING AT MIDNIGHT XX. THE GOLDEN PAVILION XXI. THE BLACK TUBE XXII. THE LIGHT OF EL-MEDINEH XXIII. THE THREE MESSAGES XXIV. I KEEP THE APPOINTMENT XXV. THE WATCHER IN BANK CHAMBERS XXVI. THE STRONG-ROOM XXVII. THE SLIPPER XXVIII. CARNETA XXIX. WE MEET MR. ISAACS XXX. AT THE GATE HOUSE XXXI. THE POOL OF DEATH XXXII. SIX PATCHES XXXIII. HOW WE WERE REENFORCED XXXIV. MY LAST MEETING WITH HASSAN OF ALEPPO

THE QUEST OF THE SACRED SLIPPER

CHAPTER I

THE PHANTOM SCIMITAR

I was not the only passenger aboard the S. S. Mandalay who perceivedthe disturbance and wondered what it might portend and from whenceproceed. A goodly number of passengers were joining the ship atPort Said. I was lounging against the rail, pipe in mouth, lazilywondering, with a large vagueness. 

What a heterogeneous rabble it was!--a brightly coloured rabble, but the colours all were dirty, like the town and the canal. Onlythe sky was clean; the sky and the hard, merciless sunlight whichspared nothing of the uncleanness, and defied one even to thinkof the term dear to tourists, "picturesque. " I was in that kindof mood. All the natives appeared to be pockmarked; all theEuropeans greasy with perspiration. 

But what was the stir about?

I turned to the dark, bespectacled young man who leaned upon therail beside me. From the first I had taken to Mr. Ahmad Ahmadeen. 

"There is some kind of undercurrent of excitement among the natives, "I said, "a sort of subdued Greek chorus is audible. What's it allabout?"

Mr. Ahmadeen smiled. After a gaunt fashion, he was a handsome manand had a pleasant smile. 

"Probably, " he replied, "some local celebrity is joining the ship. "

I stared at him curiously. 

"Any idea who he is?" (The soul of the copyhunter is a restlesssoul. )

A group of men dressed in semi-European fashion--that is, inEuropean fashion save for their turbans, which were green--passedclose to us along the deck. 

Ahmadeen appeared not to have heard the question. 

The disturbance, which could only be defined as a subdued uproar, but could be traced to no particular individual or group, grewmomentarily louder--and died away. It was only when it hadcompletely ceased that one realized how pronounced it hadbeen--how altogether peculiar, secret; like that incomprehensiblemurmuring in a bazaar when, unknown to the insular visitor, areputed saint is present. 

Then it happened; the inexplicable incident which, though I knewit not, heralded the coming of strange things, and the dawn of anew power; which should set up its secret standards in England, which should flood Europe and the civilized world with wonder. 

A shrill scream marked the overture--a scream of fear and of pain, which dropped to a groan, and moaned out into the silence of whichit was the cause. 

"My God! what's that?"

I started forward. There was a general crowding rush, and a darklytanned and bearded man came on board, carrying a brown leather case. Behind him surged those who bore the victim. 

"It's one of the lascars!"

"No--an Egyptian!"

"It was a porter--?"

"What is it--?"

"Someone been stabbed!"

"Where's the doctor?"

"Stand away there, if you please!"

That was a ship's officer; and the voice of authority served toquell the disturbance. Through a lane walled with craning headsthey bore the insensible man. Ahmadeen was at my elbow. 

"A Copt, " he said softly. "Poor devil!" I turned to him. Therewas a queer expression on his lean, clean-shaven, bronze face. 

"Good God!" I said. "His hand has been cut off!"

That was the fact of the matter. And no one knew who wasresponsible for the atrocity. And no one knew what had become ofthe severed hand! I wasted not a moment in linking up the story. The pressman within me acted automatically. 

"The gentleman just come aboard, sir, " said a steward, "is ProfessorDeeping. The poor beggar who was assaulted was carrying some of theProfessor's baggage. " The whole incident struck me as most odd. There was an idea lurking in my mind that something else--somethingmore--lay behind all this. With impatience I awaited the timewhen the injured man, having received medical attention, was conveyedashore, and Professor Deeping reappeared. To the celebratedtraveller and Oriental scholar I introduced myself. 

He was singularly reticent. 

"I was unable to see what took place, Mr. Cavanagh, " he said. "Thepoor fellow was behind me, for I had stepped from the boat ahead ofhim. I had just taken a bag from his hand, but he was carryinganother, heavier one. It is a clean cut, like that of a scimitar. I have seen very similar wounds in the cases of men who havesuffered the old Moslem penalty for theft. "

Nothing further had come to light when the Mandalay left, but Ifound new matter for curiosity in the behaviour of the Moslem partywho had come on board at Port Said. 

In conversation with Mr. Bell, the chief officer, I learned thatthe supposed leader of the party was one, Mr. Azraeel. "Obviously, "said Bell, "not his real name or not all it. I don't supposethey'll show themselves on deck; they've got their own servants withthem, and seem to be people of consequence. "

This conversation was interrupted, but I found my unseen fellowvoyagers peculiarly interesting and pursued inquiries in otherdirections. I saw members of the distinguished travellers'retinue going about their duties, but never obtained a glimpseof Mr. Azraeel nor of any of his green-turbaned companions. 

"Who is Mr. Azraeel?" I asked Ahmadeen. 

"I cannot say, " replied the Egyptian, and abruptly changed thesubject. 

Some curious aroma of mystery floated about the ship. Ahmadeenconveyed to me the idea that he was concealing something. Then, one night, Mr. Bell invited me to step forward with him. 

"Listen, " he said. 

From somewhere in the fo'c'sle proceeded low chanting. 

"Hear it?"

"Yes. What the devil is it?"

"It's the lascars, " said Bell. "They have been behaving in a mostunusual manner ever since the mysterious Mr. Azraeel joined us. Imay be wrong in associating the two things, but I shan't be sorryto see the last of our mysterious passengers. "

The next happening on board the Mandalay which I have to record wasthe attempt to break open the door of Professor Deeping's stateroom. Except when he was actually within, the Professor left his room doorreligiously locked. 

He made light of the affair, but later took me aside and told me acurious story of an apparition which had appeared to him. 

"It was a crescent of light, " he said, "and it glittered throughthe darkness there to the left as I lay in my berth. "

"A reflection from something on the deck?"

Deeping smiled, uneasily. 

"Possibly, " he replied; "but it was very sharply defined. Likethe blade of a scimitar, " he added. 

I stared at him, my curiosity keenly aroused. "Does any explanationsuggest itself to you?" I said. 

"Well, " he confessed, "I have a theory, I will admit; but it israther going back to the Middle Ages. You see, I have lived in theEast a lot; perhaps I have assimilated some of their superstitions. "

He was oddly reticent, as ever. I felt convinced that he waskeeping something back. I could not stifle the impression that theclue to these mysteries lay somewhere around the invisibleMohammedan party. 

"Do you know, " said Bell to me, one morning, "this trip's giving methe creeps. I believe the damned ship's haunted! Three bells in themiddle watch last night, I'll swear I saw some black animal crawlingalong the deck, in the direction of the forward companion-way. "

"Cat?" I suggested. 

"Nothing like it, " said Mr. Bell. "Mr. Cavanagh, it was someuncanny thing! I'm afraid I can't explain quite what I mean, butit was something I wanted to shoot!"

"Where did it go?"

The chief officer shrugged his shoulders. "Just vanished, " he said. "I hope I don't see it again. "

At Tilbury the Mohammedan party went ashore in a body. Among themwere veiled women. They contrived so to surround a central figurethat I entirely failed to get a glimpse of the mysterious Mr. Azraeel. Ahmadeen was standing close by the companion-way, and Ihad a momentary impression that one of the women slipped somethinginto his hand. Certainly, he started; and his dusky face seemed topale. 

Then a deck steward came out of Deeping's stateroom, carrying thebrown bag which the Professor had brought aboard at Port Said. Deeping's voice came:

"Hi, my man! Let me take that bag!"

The bag changed hands. Five minutes later, as I was preparing togo ashore, arose a horrid scream above the berthing clamour. Thosepassengers yet aboard made in the direction from which the screamhad proceeded. 

A steward--the one to whom Professor Deeping had spoken--laywrithing at the foot of the stairs leading to the saloon-deck. Hisright hand had been severed above the wrist!

CHAPTER II

THE GIRL WITH THE VIOLET EYES

During the next day or two my mind constantly reverted to theincidents of the voyage home. I was perfectly convinced that thecurtain had been partially raised upon some fantasy in whichProfessor Deeping figured. 

But I had seen no more of Deeping nor had I heard from him, whenabruptly I found myself plunged again into the very vortex of histroubled affairs. I was half way through a long article, Iremember, upon the mystery of the outrage at the docks. The poorsteward whose hand had been severed lay in a precarious condition, but the police had utterly failed to trace the culprit. 

I had laid down my pen to relight my pipe (the hour was about tenat night) when a faint sound from the direction of the outsidedoor attracted my attention. Something had been thrust throughthe letter-box. 

"A circular, " I thought, when the bell rang loudly, imperatively. 

I went to the door. A square envelope lay upon the mat--acurious envelope, pale amethyst in colour. Picking it up, I foundit to bear my name--written simply--

"Mr. Cavanagh. "

Tearing it open I glanced at the contents. I threw open the door. No one was visible upon the landing, but when I leaned over thebanister a white-clad figure was crossing the hall, below. 

Without hesitation, hatless, I raced down the stairs. As I crossedthe dimly lighted hall and came out into the peaceful twilight ofthe court, my elusive visitor glided under the archway opposite. 

Just where the dark and narrow passage opened on to Fleet StreetI overtook her--a girl closely veiled and wrapped in a long coatof white ermine. 

"Madam, " I said. 

She turned affrightedly. 

"Please do not detain me!" Her accent was puzzling, but pleasing. She glanced apprehensively about her. 

You have seen the moon through a mist?--and known it for what itwas in spite of its veiling? So, now, through the cloudy foldsof the veil, I saw the stranger's eyes, and knew them for the mostbeautiful eyes I had ever seen, had ever dreamt of. 

"But you must explain the meaning of your note!"

"I cannot! I cannot! Please do not ask me!"

She was breathless from her flight and seemed to be trembling. From behind the cloud her eyes shone brilliantly, mysteriously. 

I was sorely puzzled. The whole incident was bizarre--indeed, ithad in it something of the uncanny. Yet I could not detain the girlagainst her will. That she went in apprehension of something, ofsomeone, was evident. 

Past the head of the passage surged the noisy realities of FleetStreet. There were men there in quest of news; men who wouldhave given much for such a story as this in which I was becomingentangled. Yet a story more tantalizingly incomplete could notwell be imagined. 

I knew that I stood upon the margin of an arena wherein strangeadversaries warred to a strange end. But a mist was over all. Here, beside me, was one who could disperse the mist--and wouldnot. Her one anxiety seemed to be to escape. 

Suddenly she raised her veil; and I looked fully into the onlyreally violet eyes I had ever beheld. Mentally, I started. Forthe face framed in the snowy fur was the most bewitchingly lovelyimaginable. One rebellious lock of wonderful hair swept acrossthe white brow. It was brown hair, with an incomprehensiblesheen in the high lights that suggested the heart of a blood-redrose. 

"Oh, " she cried, "promise me that you will never breathe a wordto any one about my visit!"

"I promise willingly, " I said; "but can you give me no hint?"

"Honestly, truly, I cannot, dare not, say more! Only promise thatyou will do as I ask!"

Since I could perceive no alternative--

"I will do so, " I replied. 

"Thank you--oh, thank you!" she said; and dropping her veil againshe walked rapidly away from me, whispering, "I rely upon you. Donot fail me. Good-bye!"

Her conspicuous white figure joined the hurrying throngs upon thepavement beyond. My curiosity brooked no restraint. I hurried tothe end of the courtway. She was crossing the road. From theshadows where he had lurked, a man came forward to meet her. Avehicle obstructed the view ere I could confirm my impression; andwhen it had passed, neither my lovely visitor nor her companionwere anywhere in sight. 

But, unless some accident of light and shade had deceived me, theman who had waited was Ahmad Ahmadeen!

It seemed that some astral sluice-gate was raised; a dreadful senseof foreboding for the first time flooded my mind. Whilst the girlhad stood before me it had been different--the mysterious charm ofher personality had swamped all else. But now, the messenger gone, it was the purport of her message which assumed supreme significance. 

Written in odd, square handwriting upon the pale amethyst paper, this was the message--

 Prevail upon Professor Deeping to place what he has in the brown case in the porch of his house to-night. If he fails to do so, no power on earth can save him from the Scimitar of Hassan. 

 A FRIEND. 

CHAPTER III

"HASSAN OF ALEPPO"

Professor Deeping's number was in the telephone directory, therefore, on returning to my room, where there still lingered thefaint perfume of my late visitor's presence, I asked for his number. He proved to be at home. 

"Strange you should ring me up, Cavanagh, " he said; "for I wasabout to ring you up. "

"First, " I replied, "listen to the contents of an anonymous letterwhich I have received. "

(I remembered, and only just in time, my promise to the veiledmessenger. )

"To me, " I added, having read him the note, "it seems to meannothing. I take it that you understand better than I do. "

"I understand very well, Cavanagh!" he replied. "You will recallmy story of the scimitar which flashed before me in the darknessof my stateroom on the Mandalay? Well, I have seen it again! Iam not an imaginative man: I had always believed myself to possessthe scientific mind; but I can no longer doubt that I am the objectof a pursuit which commenced in Mecca! The happenings on thesteamer prepared me for this, in a degree. When the man lost hishand at Port Said I doubted. I had supposed the days of such thingspast. The attempt to break into my stateroom even left me stilluncertain. But the outrage upon the steward at the docks removedall further doubt. I perceived that the contents of a certain brownleather case were the objective of the crimes. "

I listened in growing wonder. 

"It was not necessary in order to further the plan of stealing thebag that the hands were severed, " resumed the Professor. "In fact, as was rendered evident by the case of the steward, this was apenalty visited upon any one who touched it! You are thinking ofmy own immunity?"

"I am!"

"This is attributable to two things. Those who sought to recoverwhat I had in the case feared that my death en route might resultin its being lost to them for ever. They awaited a suitableopportunity. They had designed to take it at Port Said certainly, I think; but the bag was too large to be readily concealed, and, after the outrage, might have led to the discovery of the culprit. In the second place, they are uncertain of my faith. I have longpassed for a true Believer in the East! As a Moslem I visitedMecca--"

"You visited Mecca!"

"I had just returned from the hadj when I joined the Mandalay atPort Said! My death, however, has been determined upon, whetherI be Moslem or Christian!"

"Why?"

"Because, " came the Professor's harsh voice over the telephone, "ofthe contents of the brown leather case! I will not divulge to younow the nature of these contents; to know might endanger you. Butthe case is locked in my safe here, and the key, together with afull statement of the true facts of the matter, is hidden behindthe first edition copy of my book 'Assyrian Mythology, ' in thesmaller bookcase--"

"Why do you tell me all this?" I interrupted. 

He laughed harshly. 

"The identity of my pursuer has just dawned upon me, " he said. "Iknow that my life is in real danger. I would give up what isdemanded of me, but I believe its possession to be my strongestsafeguard. "

Mystery upon mystery! I seemed to be getting no nearer to the heartof this maze. What in heaven's name did it all mean? Suddenly anidea struck me. 

"Is our late fellow passenger, Mr. Ahmadeen, connected with thematter?" I asked. 

"In no way, " replied Deeping earnestly. "Mr. Ahmadeen is, Ibelieve, a person of some consequence in the Moslem world; but Ihave nothing to fear from him. "

"What steps have you taken to protect yourself?"

Again the short laugh reached my ears. 

"I'm afraid long residence in the East has rendered me something ofa fatalist, Cavanagh! Beyond keeping my door locked, I have takenno steps whatever. I fear I am quite accessible!"

A while longer we talked; and with every word the conviction wasmore strongly borne in upon me that some uncanny menace threatenedthe peace, perhaps the life, of Professor Deeping. 

I had hung up the receiver scarce a moment when, acting upon asudden determination, I called up New Scotland Yard, and asked forDetective-Inspector Bristol, whom I knew well. A few words weresufficient keenly to arouse his curiosity, and he announced hisintention of calling upon me immediately. He was in charge of thecase of the severed hand. 

I made no attempt to resume work in the interval preceding hisarrival. I had not long to wait, however, ere Bristol was ringingmy bell; and I hurried to the door, only too glad to confide in oneso well equipped to analyze my doubts and fears. For Bristol is noordinary policeman, but a trained observer, who, when I first madehis acquaintance, completely upset my ideas upon the mentallimitations of the official detective force. 

In appearance Bristol suggests an Anglo-Indian officer, and at thetime of which I write he had recently returned from Jamaica and hisface was as bronzed as a sailor's. One would never take Bristolfor a detective. As he seated himself in the armchair, withoutpreamble I plunged into my story. He listened gravely. 

"What sort of house is Professor Deeping's?" he asked suddenly. 

"I have no idea, " I replied, "beyond the fact that it is somewherein Dulwich. "

"May I use your telephone?"

"Certainly. "

Very quickly Bristol got into communication with the superintendentof P Division. A brief delay, and the man came to the telephonewhose beat included the road wherein Professor Deeping's house wassituated. 

"Why!" said Bristol, hanging up the receiver after making a numberof inquiries, "it's a sort of rambling cottage in extensive grounds. There's only one servant, a manservant, and he sleeps in a detachedlodge. If the Professor is really in danger of attack he could notwell have chosen a more likely residence for the purpose!"

"What shall you do? What do you make of it all?"

"As I see the case, " he said slowly, "it stands something like this:Professor Deeping has... "

The telephone bell began to ring. 

I took up the receiver. 

"Hullo! Hullo. "

"Cavanagh!--is that Cavanagh?"

"Yes! yes! who is that?"

"Deeping! I have rung up the police, and they are sending someone. But I wish... "

His voice trailed off. The sound of a confused and singular uproarcame to me. 

"Hullo!" I cried. "Hullo!"

A shriek--a deathful, horrifying cry--and a distant babbling aloneanswered me. There was a crash. Clearly, Deeping had dropped thereceiver. I suppose my face blanched. 

"What is it?" asked Bristol anxiously. 

"God knows what it is!" I said. "Deeping has met with somemishap--"

When, over the wires--

"Hassan of Aleppo!" came a dying whisper. "Hassan ... OfAleppo... "

CHAPTER IV

THE OBLONG BOX

"You had better wait for us, " said Bristol to the taxi-man. 

"Very good, sir. But I shan't be able to take you further back thanthe Brixton Garage. You can get another cab there, though. "

A clock chimed out--an old-world chime in keeping with theloneliness, the curiously remote loneliness, of the locality. Lessthan five miles from St. Paul's are spots whereto, with thepersistence of Damascus attar, clings the aroma of former days. This iron gateway fronting the old chapel was such a spot. 

Just within stood a plain-clothes man, who saluted my companionrespectfully. 

"Professor Deeping, " I began. 

The man, with a simple gesture, conveyed the dreadful news. 

"Dead! dead!" I cried incredulously. 

He glanced at Bristol. 

"The most mysterious case I have ever had anything to do with, sir, " he said. 

The power of speech seemed to desert me. It was unthinkable thatDeeping, with whom I had been speaking less than an hour ago, should now be no more; that some malign agency should thusmurderously have thrust him into the great borderland. 

In that kind of silence which seems to be peopled with whisperingspirits we strode forward along the elm avenue. It was very darkwhere the moon failed to penetrate. The house, low and rambling, came into view, its facade bathed in silver light. Two of thevisible windows were illuminated. A sort of loggia ran along oneside. 

On our left, as we made for this, lay a black ocean of shrubbery. It intruded, raggedly, upon the weed-grown path, for neglect wasthe keynote of the place. 

We entered the cottage, crossed the tiny lobby, and came to thestudy. A man, evidently Deeping's servant, was sitting in a chairby the door, his head sunken in his hands. He looked up, haggard-faced. 

"My God! my God!" he groaned. "He was locked in, gentlemen! Hewas locked in; and yet something murdered him!"

"What do you mean?" said Bristol. "Where were you?"

"I was away on an errand, sir. When I returned, the police wereknocking the door down. He was locked in!"

We passed him, entering the study. 

It was a museum-like room, lighted by a lamp on the litteredtable. At first glance it looked as though some wild thing hadrun amok there. The disorder was indescribable. 

"Touched nothing, of course?" asked Bristol sharply of the officeron duty. 

"Nothing, sir. It's just as we found it when we forced the door. "

"Why did you force the door?"

"He rung us up at the station and said that something or somebodyhad got into the house. It was evident the poor gentleman's nervehad broken down, sir. He said he was locked in his study. Whenwe arrived it was all in darkness--but we thought we heard soundsin here. "

"What sort of sounds?"

"Something crawling about!"

Bristol turned. 

"Key is in the lock on the inside of the door, " he said. "Is thatwhere you found it?"

"Yes, sir!"

He looked across to where the brass knob of a safe gleamed dully. 

"Safe locked?"

"Yes, sir. "

Professor Deeping lay half under the table, a spectacle so ghastlythat I shall not attempt to describe it. 

"Merciful heavens!" whispered Bristol. "He's nearly decapitated!"

I clutched dizzily at the mantelpiece. It was all so utterly, incredibly horrible. How had Deeping met his death? The windowsboth were latched and the door had been locked from within!

"You searched for the murderer, of course?" asked Bristol. 

"You can see, sir, " replied the officer, "that there isn't a spotin the room where a man could hide! And there was nobodyin here when we forced the door!"

"Why!" cried my companion suddenly. "The Professor has a chiselin his hand!"

"Yes. I think he must have been trying to prise open that boxyonder when he was attacked. "

Bristol and I looked, together, at an oblong box which lay uponthe floor near the murdered man. It was a kind of smallpacking case, addressed to Professor Deeping, and evidently hadnot been opened. 

"When did this arrive?" asked Bristol. Lester, the Professor'sman, who had entered the room, replied shakily--

"It came by carrier, sir, just before I went out. "

"Was he expecting it?"

"I don't think so. "

Inspector Bristol and the officer dragged the box fully into thelight. It was some three feet long by one foot square, and solidlyconstructed. 

"It is perfectly evident, " remarked Bristol, "that the murdererstayed to search for--"

"The key of the safe!"

"Exactly. If the men really heard sounds here, it would appear thatthe assassin was still searching at that time. "

"I assure you, " the officer interrupted, "that there was no livingthing in the room when we entered. "

Bristol and I looked at one another in horrified wonder. 

"It's incomprehensible!" he said. 

"See if the key is in the place mentioned by the Professor, Mr. Cavanagh, whilst I break the box. "

I went to a great, open bookcase, which the frantic searcher seemedto have overlooked. Removing the bulky "Assyrian Mythology, " there, behind the volume, lay an envelope, containing a key, and a shortletter. Not caring to approach more closely to the table and tothat which lay beneath it, I was peering at the small writing, inthe semi-gloom by the bookcase, when Bristol cried--

"This box is unopenable by ordinary means! I shall have to smashit!"

At his words, I joined him where he knelt on the floor. Mysteriously, the chest had defied all his efforts. 

"There's a pick-axe in the garden, " volunteered Lester. "Shall Ibring it?"

"Yes. "

The man ran off. 

"I see the key is safe, " said Bristol. "Possibly the letter maythrow some light upon all this. "

"Let us hope so, " I replied. "You might read it. "

He took the letter from my hand, stepped up to the table, and bythe light of the lamp read as follows--

My Dear Cavanagh, --

It has now become apparent to me that my life is in imminent danger. You know of the inexplicable outrages which marked my homewardjourney, and if this letter come to your hand it will be becausethese have culminated in my death. 

The idea of a pursuing scimitar is not new to me. This phenomenon, which I have now witnessed three times, is fairly easy ofexplanation, but its significance is singular. It is said to beone of the devices whereby the Hashishin warn those whom they havemarked down for destruction, and is called, in the East, "TheScimitar of Hassan. "

The Hashishin were the members of a Moslem secret society, foundedin 1090 by one Hassan of Khorassan. There is a persistent traditionin parts of the Orient that this sect still flourishes in Assyria, under the rule of a certain Hassan of Aleppo, the Sheikh-al-jebal, or supreme lord of the Hashishin. My careful inquiries, however, at the time that I was preparing matter for my "Assyrian Mythology, "failed to discover any trace of such a person or such a group. 

I accordingly assumed Hassan to be a myth--a first cousin to theginn. I was wrong. He exists. And by my supremely rash act Ihave incurred his vengeance, for Hassan of Aleppo is theself-appointed guardian of the traditions and relics of Mohammed. And I have Stolen one of the holy slippers of the Prophet!

He, with some of his servants, has followed me from Mecca toEngland. My precautions have enabled me to retain the relic, butyou have seen what fate befell all those others who even touchedthe receptacle containing it. 

If I fall a victim to the Hashishin, I am uncertain how you, as myconfidant, will fare. Therefore I have locked the slipper in mysafe and to you entrust the key. I append particulars of the lockcombination; but I warn you--do not open the safe. If theirwrath be visited upon you, your possession of the key may prove asafeguard. 

Take the copy of "Assyrian Mythology. " You will find in it allthat I learned respecting the Hashishin. If I am doomed to beassassinated, it may aid you; if not in avenging me, in savingothers from my fate. I fear I shall never see you again. Acloud of horror settles upon me like a pall. Do not touch theslipper, nor the case containing it. 

 EDWARD DEEPING. 

"It is almost incredible!" I said hoarsely. 

Bristol returned the letter to me without a word, and turning toLester, who had reentered carrying a heavy pick-axe, he attackedthe oblong box with savage energy. 

Through the house of death the sound of the blows echoed and rangwith a sort of sacrilegious mockery. The box fell to pieces. 

"My God! look, sir!"

Lester was the trembling speaker. 

The box, I have said, was but three feet long by one foot square, and had clearly defied poor Deeping's efforts to open it. But acrescent-shaped knife, wet with blood, lay within!

CHAPTER V

THE OCCUPANT OF THE BOX

Dimly to my ears came the ceaseless murmur of London. The night nowwas far advanced, and not a sound disturbed the silence of the courtbelow my windows. 

Professor Deeping's "Assyrian Mythology" lay open before me, besideit my notebook. A coal dropped from the fire, and I half started upout of my chair. My nerves were all awry, and I had more than myhorrible memories of the murdered man to thank for it. Let meexplain what I mean. 

When, after assisting, or endeavouring to assist, Bristol at hiselaborate inquiries, I had at last returned to my chambers, I hadbecome the victim of a singular delusion--though one common enoughin the case of persons whose nerves are overwrought. I had thoughtmyself followed. 

During the latter part of my journey I found myself constantlylooking from the little window at the rear of the cab. I had animpression that some vehicle was tracking us. Then, when Idischarged the man and walked up the narrow passage to the court, it was fear of a skulking form that dodged from shadow to shadowwhich obsessed me. 

Finally, as I entered the hall and mounted the darkened stair, fromthe first landing I glanced down into the black well beneath. Blazing yellow eyes, I thought, looked up at me!

I will confess that I leapt up the remaining flight of stairs to mydoor, and, safely within, found myself trembling as if with a palsy. 

When I sat down to write (for sleep was an impossible proposition)I placed my revolver upon the table beside me. I cannot say why. It afforded me some sense of protection, I suppose. My conclusions, thus far, amounted to the following--

The apparition of the phantom scimitar was due to the presence ofsomeone who, by means of the moonlight, or of artificial light, cast a reflection of such a weapon as that found in the oblong chestupon the wall of a darkened apartment--as, Deeping's stateroom onthe Mandalay, his study, etc. 

A group of highly efficient assassins, evidently Moslem fanatics, who might or might not be of the ancient order of the Hashishin, had pursued the stolen slipper to England. They had severed anyhand, other than that of a Believer, which had touched the casecontaining it. (The Coptic porter was a Christian. )

Uncertain, possibly, of Deeping's faith, or fearful of endangeringthe success of their efforts by an outrage upon him en route, theyhad refrained from this until his arrival at his house. He hadbeen warned of his impending end by Ahmad Ahmadeen. 

Who was Ahmadeen? And who was his beautiful associate? I foundmyself unable, at present, to answer either of those questions. Inorder to gain access to Professor Deeping, who so carefully secludedhimself, a box had been sent to him by ordinary carrier. (As I satat my table, Scotland Yard was busy endeavouring to trace thesender. ) Respecting this box we had made an extraordinary discovery. 

It was of the kind used by Eastern conjurors for what is generallyknown as "the Box Trick. " That is to say, it could only be opened(short of smashing it) from the inside! You will remember what wefound within it? Consider this with the new fact, above, and towhat conclusion do you come?

Something (it is not possible to speak of someone in connection withso small a box) had been concealed inside, and had killed ProfessorDeeping whilst he was actually engaged in endeavouring to force itopen. This inconceivable creature had then searched the study forthe slipper--or for the key of the safe. Interrupted and trappedby the arrival of the police, the creature had returned to the box, re-closed it, and had actually been there when the study wassearched!

For a creature so small as the murderous thing in the box to slipout during the confusion, and at some time prior to Bristol'sarrival, was no difficult matter. The inspector and I were certainthat these were the facts. 

But what was this creature?

I turned to the chapter in "Assyrian Mythology"--"The Traditionof the Hashishin. "

The legends which the late Professor Deeping had collected relativeto this sect of religious murderers were truly extraordinary. Ofthe cult's extinction at the time of writing he was clearly certain, but he referred to the popular belief, or Moslem legend, that, sinceHassan of Khorassan, there had always been a Sheikh-al-jebal, andthat a dreadful being known as Hassan of Aleppo was the presentholder of the title. 

He referred to the fact that De Sacy has shown the word Assassinto be derived from Hashishin, and quoted El-Idrisi to the sameend. The Hashishin performed their murderous feats under theinfluence of hashish, or Indian hemp; and during the state ofecstasy so induced, according to Deeping, they acquired powersalmost superhuman. I read how they could scale sheer precipices, pass fearlessly along narrow ledges which would scarce affordfoothold for a rat, cast themselves from great heights unscathed, and track one marked for death in such a manner as to remain unseennot only by the victim but by others about him. At this point ofmy studies I started, in a sudden nervous panic, and laid my handupon my revolver. 

I thought of the eyes which had seemed to look up from the blackwell of the staircase--I thought of the horrible end of this manwhose book lay upon the table ... And I thought I heard a faintsound outside my study door!

The key of Deeping's safe, and his letter to me, lay close by myhand. I slipped them into a drawer and locked it. With everynerve, it seemed, strung up almost to snapping point, I mechanicallypursued my reading. 

"At the time of the Crusades, " wrote Deeping, "there was a storycurrent of this awful Order which I propose to recount. It is oneof the most persistent dealing with the Hashishin, and is relatedto-day of the apparently mythical Hassan of Aleppo. I am disposedto believe that at one time it had a solid foundation, for asimilar practice was common in Ancient Egypt and is mentioned byGeorg Ebers. "

My door began very slowly to open!

Merciful God! What was coming into the room!

So very slowly, so gently, nay, all but imperceptibly, did it move, that had my nerves been less keenly attuned I doubt not I shouldhave remained unaware of the happening. Frozen with horror, I satand watched. Yet my mental condition was a singular one. 

My direct gaze never quitted the door, but in some strange fashionI saw the words of the next paragraph upon the page before me!

"As making peculiarly efficient assassins, when under the influenceof the drug, and as being capable of concealing themselves wherea normal man could not fail to be detected--"

(At this moment I remembered that my bathroom window was open, andthat the waste-pipe passed down the exterior wall. )

"--the Sheikh-al-jebal took young boys of a certain desert tribe, and for eight hours of every day, until their puberty, confined themin a wooden frame--"

What looked like a reed was slowly inserted through the openingbetween door and doorpost! It was brought gradually around... Until it pointed directly toward me!

I seemed to put forth a mighty mental effort, shaking off the icyhand of fear which held me inactive in my chair. A saving instinctwarned me--and I ducked my head. 

Something whirred past me and struck the wall behind. 

Revolver in hand, I leapt across the room, dashed the door open, and fired blindly--again--and again--and again--down thepassage. 

And in the brief gleams I saw it!

I cannot call it man, but I saw the thing which, I doubt not, hadkilled poor Deeping with the crescent-knife and had propelled apoison-dart at me. 

It was a tiny dwarf! Neither within nor without a freak exhibitionhad I seen so small a human being! A kind of supernatural dreadgripped me by the throat at sight of it. As it turned with animalactivity and bounded into my bathroom, I caught a three-quarterview of the creature's swollen, incredible head--which was nearlyas large as that of a normal man!

Never while my mind serves me can I forget that yellow, grinningface and those canine fangs--the tigerish, blazing eyes--set inthe great, misshapen head upon the tiny, agile body. 

Wildly, I fired again. I hurled myself forward and dashed intothe room. 

Like nothing so much as a cat, the gleaming body (the dwarf wasbut scantily clothed) streaked through the open window!

Certain death, I thought, must be his lot upon the stones of thecourt far below. I ran and looked down, shaking in every limb, my mind filled with a loathing terror unlike anything I had everknown. 

Brilliant moonlight flooded the pavement beneath; for twenty yardsto left and right every stone was visible. 

The court was empty!

Human, homely London moved and wrought intimately about me; butthere, at sight of the empty court below, a great loneliness sweptdown like a mantle--a clammy mantle of the fabric of dread. Istood remote from my fellows, in an evil world peopled with thecreatures of Hassan of Aleppo. 

Moved by some instinct, as that of a frightened child, I droppedto my knees and buried my face in trembling hands. 

CHAPTER VI

THE RING OF THE PROPHET

"There is no doubt, " said Mr. Rawson, "that great personal dangerattaches to any contact with this relic. It is the first time Ihave been concerned with anything of the kind. "

Mr. Bristol, of Scotland Yard, standing stiffly military by thewindow, looked across at the gray-haired solicitor. We were allsilent for a few moments. 

"My late client's wishes, " continued Mr. Rawson, "are explicit. His last instructions, evidently written but a short time prior tohis death, advise me that the holy slipper of the Prophet iscontained in the locked safe at his house in Dulwich. He wasclearly of opinion that you, Mr. Cavanagh, would incur risk--greatrisk--from your possession of the key. Since attempts have beenmade upon you, murderous attempts, the late Professor Deeping, myunfortunate client, evidently was not in error. "

"Mysterious outrages, " said Bristol, "have marked the progress ofthe stolen slipper from Mecca almost to London. "

"I understand, " interrupted the solicitor, "that a fanatic knownas Hassan of Aleppo seeks to restore the relic to its formerresting-place. "

"That is so. "

"Exactly; and it accounts for the Professor's wish that the safeshould not be touched by any one but a Believer--and for hisinstructions that its removal to the Antiquarian Museum and theplacing of the slipper within that institution be undertaken by aMoslem or Moslems. "

Bristol frowned. 

"Any one who has touched the receptacle containing the thing, " hesaid, "has either been mutilated or murdered. I want to apprehendthe authors of those outrages, but I fail to see why the slippershould be put on exhibition. Other crimes are sure to follow. "

"I can only pursue my instructions, " said Mr. Rawson dryly. "Theyare, that the work be done in such a manner as to expose allconcerned to a minimum of risk from these mysterious people; thatif possible a Moslem be employed for the purpose; and that Mr. Cavanagh, here, shall always hold the key or keys to the case inthe museum containing the slipper. Will you undertake to look forsome--Eastern workmen, Mr. Bristol? In the course of yourinquiries you may possibly come across such a person. "

"I can try, " replied Bristol. "Meanwhile, I take it, the safe mustremain at Dulwich?"

"Certainly. It should be guarded. "

"We are guarding it and shall guard it, " Bristol assured him. "Ionly hope we catch someone trying to get at it!"

Shortly afterward Bristol and I left the office, and, his dutiestaking him to Scotland Yard, I returned to my chambers to surveythe position in which I now found myself. Indeed, it was a strangeone enough, showing how great things have small beginnings; for, as a result of a steamer acquaintance I found myself involved in adark business worthy of the Middle Ages. That Professor Deepingshould have stolen one of the holy slippers of Mohammed was noaffair of mine, and that an awful being known as Hassan of Alepposhould have pursued it did not properly enter into my concerns; yetnow, with a group of Eastern fanatics at large in England, I wasbecome, in a sense, the custodian of the relic. Moreover, Iperceived that I had been chosen that I might safeguard myself. What I knew of the matter might imperil me, but whilst I held thekey to the reliquary, and held it fast, I might hope to remainimmune though I must expect to be subjected to attempts. It wouldbe my affair to come to terms. 

Contemplating these things I sat, in a world of dark dreams, unconscious of the comings and goings in the court below, unconscious of the hum which told of busy Fleet Street so near tome. The weather, as is its uncomfortable habit in England, hadsuddenly grown tropically hot, plunging London into the vapours ofan African spring, and the sun was streaming through my open windowfully upon the table. 

I mopped my clammy forehead, glancing with distaste at the pile ofwork which lay before me. Then my eyes turned to an open quartobook. It was the late Professor Deeping's "Assyrian Mythology, "and embodied the result of his researches into the history of theHashishin, the religious murderers of whose existence he had beenso skeptical. To the Chief of the Order, the terrible Sheikh Hassanof Aleppo, he referred as a "fabled being"; yet it was at the handsof this "fabled being" that he had met his end! How incredible itall seemed. But I knew full well how worthy of credence it was. 

Then upon my gloomy musings a sound intruded--the ringing of my doorbell. I rose from my chair with a weary sigh, went to the door, and opened it. An aged Oriental stood without. He was tall andstraight, had a snow-white beard and clear-cut, handsome features. He wore well-cut European garments and a green turban. As I stoodstaring he saluted me gravely. 

"Mr. Cavanagh?" he asked, speaking in faultless English. 

"I am he. "

"I learn that the services of a Moslem workman are required. "

"Quite correct, sir; but you should apply at the offices of Messrs. Rawson & Rawson, Chancery Lane. "

The old man bowed, smiling. 

"Many thanks; I understood so much. But, my position being apeculiar one, I wished to speak with you--as a friend of the lateProfessor. "

I hesitated. The old man looked harmless enough, but there was anair of mystery about the matter which put me on my guard. 

"You will pardon me, " I said, "but the work is scarcely of a kind--"

He raised his thin hand. 

"I am not undertaking it myself. I wished to explain to you theconditions under which I could arrange to furnish suitable porters. "

His patient explanation disposed me to believe that he was merelysome kind of small contractor, and in any event I had nothing tofear from this frail old man. 

"Step in, sir, " I said, repenting of my brusquerie--and stoodaside for him. 

He entered, with that Oriental meekness in which there issomething majestic. I placed a chair for him in the study, andreseated myself at the table. The old man, who from the first hadkept his eyes lowered deferentially, turned to me with a gentlegesture, as if to apologize for opening the conversation. 

"From the papers, Mr. Cavanagh, " he began, "I have learned of thecircumstances attending the death of Professor Deeping. Yourpapers"--he smiled, and I thought I had never seen a smile ofsuch sweetness--"your papers know all! Now I understand why aMoslem is required, and I understand what is required of him. Butremembering that the object of his labours would be to place aholy relic on exhibition for the amusement of unbelievers, can youreasonably expect to obtain the services of one?"

His point of view was fair enough. 

"Perhaps not, " I replied. "For my own part I should wish to seethe slipper back in Mecca, or wherever it came from. But ProfessorDeeping--"

"Professor Deeping was a thorn in the flesh of the Faithful!"

My visitor's voice was gravely reproachful. 

"Nevertheless his wishes must be considered, " I said, "and themethods adopted by those who seek to recover the relic are suchas to alienate all sympathy. "

"You speak of the Hashishin?" asked the old man. "Mr. Cavanagh, inyour own faith you have had those who spilled the blood of infidelsas freely!"

"My good sir, the existence of such an organization cannot betolerated today! This survival of the dark ages must be stampedout. However just a cause may be, secret murder is not permissible, as you, a man of culture, a Believer, and"--I glanced at hisunusual turban--"a descendant of the Prophet, must admit. "

"I can admit nothing against the Guardian of the Tradition, Mr. Cavanagh! The Prophet taught that we should smite the Infidel. Iask you--have you the courage of your convictions?"

"Perhaps; I trust so. "

"Then assist me to rid England of what you have called a survivalof the dark ages. I will furnish porters to remove and carry thesafe, if you will deliver to me the key!"

I sprang to my feet. 

"That is madness!" I cried. "In the first place I should becompromising with my conscience, and in the second place I shouldbe defenceless against those who might--"

"I have with me a written promise from one highly placed--one towhose will Hassan of Aleppo bows!"

My mind greatly disturbed, I watched the venerable speaker. I haddetermined now that he was some religious leader of Islam inEngland, who had been deputed to approach me; and, let me add, Iwas sorely tempted to accede to his proposal, for nothing would begained by any one if the slipper remained for ever at the museum, whereas by conniving at its recovery by those who, after all, wereits rightful owners I should be ridding England of a weird andundesirable visitant. 

I think I should have agreed, when I remembered that the Hashishinhad murdered Professor Deeping and had mutilated others whollyinnocent of offence. I looked across at the old man. He had drawnhimself up to his great height, and for the first time fullyraising the lids, had fixed upon me the piercing gaze of a pair ofeagle eyes. I started, for the aspect of this majestic figure wasentirely different from that of the old stranger who had stoodsuppliant before me a moment ago. 

"It is impossible, " I said. "I can come to no terms with thosewho shield murderers. "

He regarded me fixedly, but did not move. 

"Es-selam 'aleykum!" I added ("Peace be on you!") closing theinterview in the Eastern manner. 

The old man lowered his eyes, and saluted me with graceful gravity. 

"Wa-'aleykum!" he said ("And on you!"). I conducted him to thedoor and closed it upon his exit. In his last salute I had noticedthe flashing of a ring which he wore upon his left hand, and he wasgone scarce ten seconds ere my heart began to beat furiously. Isnatched up "Assyrian Mythology" and with trembling fingers turnedto a certain page. 

There I read--

Each Sheikh of the Assassins is said to be invested with the "Ringof the Prophet. " It bears a green stone, shaped in the form of ascimitar or crescent. 

My dreadful suspicion was confirmed. I knew who my visitor hadbeen. 

"God in heaven!" I whispered. "It was Hassan of Aleppo!"

CHAPTER VII

FIRST ATTEMPT ON THE SAFE

On the following morning I was awakened by the arrival of Bristol. I hastened to admit him. 

"Your visitor of yesterday, " he began, "has wasted no time!"

"What has happened?"

He tugged irritably at his moustache. "I don't know!" he replied. "Of course it was no surprise to find that there isn't a Mohammedanwho'll lay his little finger on Professor Deeping's safe! There'sno doubt in my mind that every lascar at the docks knows Hassan ofAleppo to be in England. Some other arrangement will have to bearrived at, if the thing is ever to be taken to the AntiquarianMuseum. Meanwhile we stand to lose it. Last night--"

He accepted a cigarette, and lighted it carefully. 

"Last night, " he resumed, "a member of P Division was on pointduty outside the late Professor's house, and two C. I. D. Men wereactually in the room where the safe is. Result--someone has putin at least an hour's work on the lock, but it proved too tough ajob!"

I stared at him amazedly. 

"Someone has been at the lock!" I cried. "But that is impossible, with two men in the room--unless--"

"They were both knocked on the head!"

"Both! But by whom! My God! They are not--"

"Oh, no! It was done artistically. They both came round aboutfour o'clock this morning. "

"And who attacked them?"

"They had no idea. Neither of them saw a thing!"

My amazement grew by leaps and bounds. "But, Bristol, one of themmust have seen the other succumb!"

"Both did! Their statements tally exactly!"

"I quite fail to follow you. "

"That's not surprising. Listen: When I got on the scene about fiveo'clock, Marden and West, the two C. I. D. Men, had quite recoveredtheir senses, though they were badly shaken, and one had a crackedskull. The constable was conscious again, too. "

"What! Was he attacked?"

"In exactly the same way! I'll give you Marden's story, as he gaveit to me a few minutes after the surgeon had done with him. He saidthat they were sitting in the study, smoking, and with both windowswide open. It was a fearfully hot night. "

"Did they have lights?"

"No. West sat in an armchair near the writing-table; Marden sat bythe window next to the door. I had arranged that every hour one ofthem should go out to the gate and take the constable's report. Itwas just after Marden had been out at one o'clock that it happened. 

"They were sitting as I tell you when Marden thought he heard acurious sort of noise from the gate. West appeared to have heardnothing; but I have no doubt that it was the sound of the constable'sfall. West's pipe had gone out, and he struck a match to relightit. As he did so, Marden saw him drop the match, clench both fists, and with eyes glaring in the moonlight and his teeth coming togetherwith a snap, drop from his chair. 

"Marden says that he was half up from his seat when something struckhim on the back of the head with fearful force. He rememberednothing more until he awoke, with the dawn creeping into the room, and heard West groaning somewhere beside him. They both had badlydamaged skulls with great bruises behind the ear. It is instructiveto note that their wounds corresponded almost to a fraction of aninch. They had been stunned by someone who thoroughly understoodhis business, and with some heavy, blunt weapon. A few minuteslater came the man to relieve the constable; and the constable wasfound to have been treated in exactly the same way!"

"But if Marden's account is true--"

"West, as he lost consciousness, saw Marden go in exactly the sameway. "

"Marden was seated by the open window, but I cannot conjecture howany one can have got at West, who sat by the table!"

"The case of Marden is little less than remarkable; he was somedistance from the window. No one could possibly have reached himfrom outside. "

"And the constable?"

"The constable can give us no clue. He was suddenly struck down, as the others were. I examined the safe, of course, but didn'ttouch it, according to instructions. Someone had been at work onthe lock, but it had defied their efforts. I'm fully expectingthough that they'll be back to-night, with different tools!"

"The place is watched during the day, of course?"

"Of course. But it's unlikely that anything will be attempted indaylight. Tonight I am going down myself. "

"Could you arrange that I join you?"

"I could, but you can see the danger for yourself?"

"It is extraordinarily mysterious. "

"Mr. Cavanagh, it's uncanny!" said Bristol. "I can understand thatone of these Hashishin could easily have got up behind the man onduty out in the open. I know, and so do you, that they're pastmasters of that kind of thing; but unless they possess the power torender themselves invisible, it's not evident how they can have gotbehind West whilst he sat at the table, with Marden actuallywatching him!"

"We must lay a trap for them to-night. "

"Rely upon me to do so. My only fear is that they may anticipate itand change their tactics. Hassan of Aleppo apparently knows as muchof our plans as we do ourselves. "

Inspector Bristol, though a man of considerable culture, clearly wasinfected with a species of supernatural dread. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE VIOLET EYES AGAIN

At four o'clock in the afternoon I had heard nothing further fromBristol, but I did not doubt that he would advise me of hisarrangements in good time. I sought by hard work to forget for atime the extraordinary business of the stolen slipper; but itpersistently intruded upon my mind. Particularly, my thoughtsturned to the night of Professor Deeping's murder, and to thebewitchingly pretty woman who had warned me of the impending tragedy. She had bound me to secrecy--a secrecy which had proved irksome, for it had since appeared to me that she must have been anaccomplice of Hassan of Aleppo. At the time I had been at a lossto define her peculiar accent, now it seemed evidently enough tohave been Oriental. 

I threw down my pen in despair, for work was impossible, wentdownstairs, and walked out under the arch into Fleet Street. Quitemechanically I turned to the left, and, still engaged with idleconjectures, strolled along westward. 

Passing the entrance to one of the big hotels, I was abruptlyrecalled to the realities--by a woman's voice. 

"Wait for me here, " came musically to my ears. 

I stopped, and turned. A woman who had just quitted a taxi-cab wasentering the hotel. The day was hot and thunderously oppressive, and this woman with the musical voice wore a delicate costume offlimsiest white. A few steps upward she paused and glanced back. I had a view of a Greek profile, and for one magnetic instant lookedinto eyes of the deepest and most wonderful violet. 

Then, shaking off inaction, I ran up the steps and overtook thelady in white as a porter swung open the door to admit her. Weentered together. 

"Madame, " I said in a low tone, "I must detain you for a moment. There is something I have to ask. "

She turned, exhibiting the most perfect composure, lowered herlashes and raised them again, the gaze of the violet eyes sweepingme from head to foot with a sort of frigid scorn. 

"I fear you have made a mistake, sir. We have never met before!"

Her voice betrayed no trace of any foreign accent!

"But, " I began--and paused. 

I felt myself flush; for this encounter in the foyer of an hotel, with many curious onlookers, was like to prove embarrassing if mybeautiful acquaintance persisted in her attitude. I fully realizedwhat construction would be put upon my presence there, and foresawthat forcible and ignominious ejection must be my lot if I failedto establish my right to address her. 

She turned away, and crossed in the direction of the staircase. A sunbeam sought out a lock of hair that strayed across her brow, and kissed it to a sudden glow like that which lurks in the heartof a blush rose. 

That wonderful sheen, which I had never met with elsewhere innature, but which no artifice could lend, served to remove my lastfrail doubt which had survived the evidence of the violet eyes. Ihad been deceived by no strange resemblance; this was indeed thewoman who had been the harbinger of Professor Deeping's death. Inthree strides I was beside her again. Curious glances were setupon me, and I saw a servant evidently contemplating approach; butI ignored all save my own fixed purpose. 

"You must listen to what I have to say!" I whispered. "If youdecline, I shall have no alternative but to call in the detectivewho holds a warrant for your arrest!"

She stood quite still, watching me coolly. "I suppose you wouldwish to avoid a scene?" I added. 

"You have already made me the object of much undesirable attention, "she replied scornfully. "I do not need your assurance that youwould disgrace me utterly! You are talking nonsense, as you mustbe aware--unless you are insane. But if your object be to forceyour acquaintance upon me, your methods are novel, and, under thecircumstances, effective. Come, sir, you may talk to me--forthree minutes!"

The musical voice had lost nothing of its imperiousness, but forone instant the lips parted, affording a fleeting glimpse of pearlbeyond the coral. 

Her sudden change of front was bewildering. Now, she entered thelift and I followed her. As we ascended side by side I found itimpossible to believe that this dainty white figure was that of anassociate of the Hashishin, that of a creature of the terribleHassan of Aleppo. Yet that she was the same girl who, a few daysafter my return from the East, had shown herself conversant withthe plans of the murderous fanatics was beyond doubt. Her accenton that occasion clearly had been assumed, with what object I couldnot imagine. Then, as we quitted the lift and entered a cosylounge, my companion seated herself upon a Chesterfield, signing tome to sit beside her. 

As I did so she lay back smiling, and regarding me from beneath herblack lashes. Thus, half veiled, her great violet eyes were mostwonderful. 

"Now, sir, " she said softly, "explain yourself. "

"Then you persist in pretending that we have not met before?"

"There is no occasion for pretence, " she replied lightly; and Ifound myself comparing her voice with her figure, her figure withher face, and vainly endeavouring to compute her age. Frankly, she was bewildering--this lovely girl who seemed so wholly a womanof the world. 

"This fencing is useless. "

"It is quite useless! Come, I know New York, London, and I knowParis, Vienna, Budapest. Therefore I know mankind! You thought Iwas pretty, I suppose? I may be; others have thought so. And youthought you would like to make my acquaintance without troublingabout the usual formalities? You adopted a singularly brutalmethod of achieving your object, but I love such insolence in a man. Therefore I forgave you. What have you to say to me?"

I perceive that I had to deal with a bold adventuress, with aconsummate actress, who, finding herself in a dangerous situation, had adopted this daring line of defence, and now by her personalcharm sought to lure me from my purpose. 

But with the scimitar of Hassan of Aleppo stretched over me, withthe dangers of the night before me, I was in no mood for a veiledduel of words, for an interchange of glances in thrust and parry, however delightful such warfare might have been with so pretty anadversary. 

For a long time I looked sternly into her eyes; but their violetmystery defied, whilst her red-lipped smile taunted me. 

"Unfortunately, " I said, with slow emphasis, "you are protected bymy promise, made on the occasion of our previous meeting. Butmurder has been done, so that honour scarcely demands that I respectmy promise further--"

She raised her eyebrows slightly. 

"Surely that depends upon the quality of the honour!" she said. 

"I believe you to be a member of a murderous organization, andunless you can convince me that I am wrong, I shall act accordingly. "

At that she leaned toward me, laying her hand on my arm. 

"Please do not be so cruel, " she whispered, "as to drag me into amatter with which truly I have no concern. Believe me, you areutterly mistaken. Wait one moment, and I will prove it. "

She rose, and before I could make move to detain her, quitted theroom; but the door scarcely had closed ere I was afoot. Thecorridor beyond was empty. I ran on. The lift had just descended. A dark man whom I recognized stood near the closed gate. 

"Quick!" I said, "I am Cavanagh of the Report! Did you see a ladyenter the lift?"

"I did, Mr. Cavanagh, " answered the hotel detective; for this was he. 

In such a giant inn as this I knew full well that one could come andgo almost with impunity, though one had no right to the hospitalityof the establishment; and it was with a premonition respecting whathis answer would be, that I asked the man--

"Is she staying here?"

"She is not. I have never seen her before!"

The girl with the violet eyes had escaped, taking all her secretswith her!

CHAPTER IX

SECOND ATTEMPT ON THE SAFE

"You see, " said Bristol, "the Hashishin must know that the safewon't remain here unopened much longer. They will thereforeprobably make another attempt to-night. "

"It seems likely, " I replied; and was silent. Outside the openwindows whispered the shrubbery, as a soft breeze stole through thebushes. Beyond, the moon made play in the dim avenue. From theold chapel hard by the sweet-toned bell proclaimed midnight. Ourvigil was begun. In this room it was that Professor Deeping hadmet death at the hands of the murderous Easterns; here it was thatMarden and West had mysteriously been struck down the night before. 

To-night was every whit as hot, and Bristol and I had the windowswidely opened. My companion was seated where the detective, Marden, had sat, in a chair near the westerly window, and I lay back inthe armchair that had been occupied by West. 

I may repeat here that the house of the late Professor Deeping wasmore properly a cottage, surrounded by a fairly large piece ofground, for the most part run wild. The room used as a study wason the ground floor, and had windows on the west and on the south. Those on the west (French windows) opened on a loggia; those on thesouth opened right into the dense tangle of a neglected shrubbery. The place possessed an oppressive atmosphere of loneliness, forwhich in some measure its history may have been responsible. 

The silence, seemingly intensified by each whisper that sped throughthe elms and crept about the shrubbery, grew to such a stillnessthat I told myself I had experienced nothing like it since crossingwith a caravan I had slept in the desert. Yet noisy, whirlingLondon was within gunshot of us; and this, though hard enough tobelieve, was a reflection oddly comforting. Only one train ofthought was possible, and this I pursued at random. 

By what means were Marden and West struck down? In thus exposingourselves, in order that we might trap the author or authors of theoutrage, did we act wisely?

"Bristol, " I said suddenly, "it was someone who came through theopen window. "

"No one, " he replied, "came through the windows. West sawabsolutely nothing. But if any one comes that way to-night, wehave him!"

"West may have seen nothing; but how else could any one enter?"

Bristol offered no reply; and I plunged again into a maze ofspeculation. 

Powerful mantraps were set in such a way that any one or anything, ignorant of their positions, coming up to the windows mustunavoidably be snared. These had been placed in position withmuch secrecy after dusk, and the man on duty at the gate stoodwith his back to the wall. No one could approach him except fromthe front. My thoughts took a new turn. 

Was the girl with the violet eyes an ally of the Hashishin? Thusfar, although she so palpably had tricked me, I had found myselfunable to speak of her to Bristol; for the idea had entered my mindthat she might have learned of the plan to murder Deeping withoutdirectly being implicated. Now came yet another explanation. Thepublicity given to that sensational case might have interested somethird party in the fate of the stolen slipper! Could it be thatothers, in no way connected with the dreadful Hassan of Aleppo, were in quest of the slipper?

Scotland Yard had taken care to ensure that the general public bekept in ignorance of the existence of such an organization as theHashishin, but I must assume that this hypothetical third partywere well aware that they had Hassan, as well as the authorities, to count with. Granting the existence of such a party, my beautifulacquaintance might be classified as one of its members. I spokeagain. 

"Bristol, " I said, "has it occurred to you that there may be others, as well as Hassan of Aleppo, seeking to gain possession of thesacred slipper?"

"It has not, " he replied. "In the strictest sense of the expression, they would be out for trouble! What gave you the idea?"

"I hardly know, " I returned evasively, for even now I was loath tobetray the mysterious girl with the wonderful eyes. 

The chapel bell sounding the half-hour, Bristol rose with a sighthat might have been one of relief, and went out to take the reportof the man on duty at the gate. As his footsteps died away alongthe elm avenue, it came to me how, in the darkness about, menacelurked; and I felt myself succumbing to the greatest dreadexperienced by man--the dread of the unknown. 

All that I knew of the weird group of fanatics--survivals of a dimand evil past--who must now be watching this cottage as bloodlustfuldevotees watch a shrine violated, burst upon my mind. I peopled thestill blackness with lurking assassins, armed with the murderousknowledge of by-gone centuries, armed with invisible weapons whichstruck down from afar, supernaturally. 

I glanced toward the corner of the room where the safe stood, reliquary of a worthless thing for which much blood had been spilled. 

Then sounded footsteps along the avenue, and my fear whispered thatthey were not those of Bristol but of one who had murdered him, andwho came guilefully, to murder me!

I snatched the revolver from my pocket and crossed the darkened room. Just to the right of one of the French windows I stood looking outacross the loggia to the end of the avenue. The night was a brightone, and the room was flooded with a reflected mystic light, butoutside the moon paved the avenue with pearl, and through the treesI saw a figure approaching. 

Was it Bristol? It had his build, it had his gait; but my fearsremained. Then the figure crossed the patch of shrubbery and steppedon to the loggia. 

"Mr. Cavanagh!"

I laughed dryly at my own cowardice, but my heart was still beatingabnormally. 

"Here I am, Bristol, in a ghastly funk!"

"I don't wonder! They may be on us any time now. All's well atthe gate, but Morris says he heard, or thought he heard somethingat the side of the chapel opposite, a while ago. "

"Wind in the bushes?"

"It may have been; but he says there was no breeze at the time. "

We resumed our seats. 

"Bristol, " I said, "now that the danger grows imminent, doesn't itseem to you foolhardy for us thus to expose ourselves?"

"Perhaps it is, " he agreed; "but how otherwise are we likely tolearn what happened to Marden and West?"

"The enemy may adopt different measures to-night. "

"I think not. Our dispositions are the same, and I credit them withcunning enough to know it. At the same time I credit ourselves withhaving kept the existence of the steel traps completely secret. Theywill assume (so I've reasoned) that we intend to rely entirely uponour superior vigilance, therefore they will try the same game as lastnight. "

Silence fell. 

The moon rays, creeping around from the right of the avenue, crossingthe shrubbery and encroaching upon the low wall of the loggia, nowflooded its floor. Against the silvern light, Bristol appeared tome in black silhouette. The breeze, too, seemed now to blow from aslightly different direction. It came through the windows on myright, beyond which lay the unkempt bushes which extended on thatside to the wall of the grounds. 

So we sat, until the moonlight poured fully in upon Bristol's back. So we sat when the clock chimed the hour of one. 

Bristol arose and once more went out to the gate. He had arrangedto visit Morris's post every half-hour. Again I experienced thenervous dread that he would be attacked in the avenue; but again hereturned unscathed. 

"All's well, " he said. 

But from his tones I knew that he had not forgotten that it was atthis hour Marden and West had suffered mysterious attack. 

Neither of us, I think, was disposed to talk. We both wereunwilling to break the silence, wherein, with all our ears, welistened for the slightest disturbance. 

And now my attention turned anew to the course of the slowly creepingmoon rays. In my mind an idea was struggling for definition. Therewas something significant in the lunar lighting of the room. Why, Iasked myself, had the attack been made at one o'clock? Did the timesignify anything? If so, what? I looked toward Bristol. 

His figure, the chair upon which he sat, were sharply outlined bythe cold light. The wall behind me, and to my left, was illuminatedbrilliantly; but no light fell directly upon me. 

The idea was taking shape. From the loggia and the avenue Bristol, I reasoned, must be clearly visible. From the shrubbery on thesouth, through the other windows could I be seen? Yes, silhouettedagainst the moonlight!

A faint sound, quite indescribable, came to my ears from somewhereoutside-beyond. 

"My God!" whispered Bristol. "Did you hear it?"

"Yes! What?"

"It must have been Morris!--"

Bristol was half standing, one hand upon the arm of the chair, theother concealed, but grasping his revolver as I well knew. I, too, had my revolver in my hand, and as I twisted in my seat, preparatoryto rising, in sheer nervousness I dropped the weapon upon thecarpet. 

With an exclamation of dismay, I stooped quickly to recover it. 

As I did so something whistled past my ear, so closely as almost totouch it--and struck with a dull thud upon the wall beyond!

"Bristol!" I whispered. 

But as I raised my eyes to him he seemed to crumple up, and fellloosely forward into the patch of moonlight spread upon the floor!"God in heaven!" I said aloud. 

In a cold sweat of fear I crouched there, for it had become evidentto me that, as I bent, I was entirely in shadow. 

There was a rustling in the bushes on the left; but before I couldturn in that direction, my attention was claimed elsewhere. Overinto the loggia leapt an almost naked brown figure!

It was that of a small but strongly built man, who carried a short, exceedingly thick bamboo rod in his hand. My fear was too great toadmit of my accurately observing anything at that time, but Inoticed that some kind of leather thong or loop was attached to theend of the squat cane. 

The panic fear of the supernatural was strongly upon me, and I wasunable to realize that this Eastern apparition was a creature offlesh and blood. With my nerves strung up to snapping point, Icrouched watching him. He entered the room, bending over the bodyof Bristol. 

A hot breath fanned my cheek!

At that my overwrought nerves betrayed me. I uttered a stifled cry, looking upward ... And into a pair of gleaming eyes which lookeddown into mine!

A second brown man (who must have entered by one of the windowsoverlooking the shrubbery) was bending over me!

Scarce knowing what I did, I raised my revolver and blazed straightinto the dimly-seen face. Down upon me silently dropped a nakedbody, and something warm came flowing over my hand. But, knowing myfoes to be of flesh and blood, feeling myself at handgrips now witha palpable enemy, I threw off the body, leapt up and fired, thoughblindly, at the flying shape that flashed across the loggia--andwas lost in the shadow pools under the elms. 

Upon the din of my shooting fell silence like a cloak. A moment Ilistened, tense, still; then I turned to the table and lighted thelamp. 

In its light I saw Bristol lying like a dead man. Close beside himwas a big and heavy lump of clay. It had been shaped as a ball, but now it was flattened out curiously. Bending over my unfortunatecompanion and learning that, though unconscious, he lived, I learnt, too, how the Hashishin contrived to strike men insensible withoutapproaching them; I learnt that the one whom I had shot, who lay inhis blood almost on the spot where Professor Deeping once had lain, was an expert slinger. 

The contrivance which he carried, as did the other who had escaped, was a sling, of the ancient Persian type. In place of stones, heavylumps of clay were used, which operated much the same as a sand-bag, whilst enabling the operator to work from a considerable distance. 

Hidden, over by the ancient chapel it might be, one of this eviltwain had struck down Morris, the constable; from the shelter of thetrees, from many yards away, they had shot their singular missilesthrough the open windows at Bristol and myself. Bristol hadsuccumbed, and now, with a redness showing through his close-cuthair immediately behind the right ear, lay wholly unconscious at myfeet. 

It had been a divine accident which had caused me to drop myrevolver, and, stooping to recover it, unknowingly to frustrate thedesign of the second slinger upon myself. The light of the lampfell upon the face of the dead Hashishin. He lay forward upon hishands, crouching almost, but with his face, his dreadful, featureless face, twisted up at me from under his left shoulder. 

God knows he deserved his end; but that mutilated face is oftengrinning, bloodily, in my dreams. 

And then as I stood, between that horrid exultation which is bornof killing and the panic which threatened me out of the darkness, I saw something advancing ... Slowly ... Slowly ... From theelmen shades toward the loggia. 

It was a shape--it was a shadow. Silent it came--on--and on. Where the dusk lay deepest it paused, undefined; for I could giveit no name of man or spirit. But a horror seemed to proceed fromit as light from a lamp. 

I groped about the table near to me, never taking my eyes fromthat sinister form outside. As my fingers closed upon thetelephone, distant voices and the sound of running footsteps(of those who had heard the shots) came welcome to my ears. 

The form stirred, seeming to raise phantom arms in execration, anda stray moonbeam pierced the darkness shrouding it. For a fleetinginstant something flashed venomously. 

The sounds grew nearer. I could tell that the newcomers had foundMorris lying at the gate. Yet still I stood, frozen with uncannyfear, and watching--watching the spot to which that stray beam hadpierced; the spot where I had seen the moon gleam upon the ring ofthe Prophet!

CHAPTER X

AT THE BRITISH ANTIQUARIAN MUSEUM

A little group of interested spectators stood at the head of thesquare glass case in the centre of the lofty apartment in theBritish Antiquarian Museum known as the Burton Room (by reason ofthe fact that a fine painting of Sir Richard Burton faces you asyou enter). A few other people looked on curiously from the lowerend of the case. It contained but one exhibit--a dirty anddilapidated markoob--or slipper of morocco leather that had oncebeen red. 

"Our latest acquisition, gentlemen, " said Mr. Mostyn, the curator, speaking in a low tone to the distinguished Oriental scholarsaround him. "It has been left to the Institution by the lateProfessor Deeping. He describes it in a document furnished by hissolicitor as one of the slippers worn by the Prophet Mohammed, butgives us no further particulars. I myself cannot quite place therelic. "

"Nor I, " interrupted one of the group. "It is not mentioned byany of the Arabian historians to my knowledge--that is, if itcomes from Mecca, as I understand it does. "

"I cannot possibly assert that it comes from Mecca, Dr. Nicholson, "Mostyn replied. "The Professor may have taken it from Al-Madinah--perhapsfrom the mysterious inner passage of the baldaquin wherethe treasures of the place lie. But I can assure you that whatlittle we do know of its history is sufficiently unsavoury. "

I fancied that the curator's tired cultured voice faltered as hespoke; and now, without apparent reason, he moved a step to theright and glanced oddly along the room. I followed the directionof his glance, and saw a tall man in conventional morning dress, irreproachable in every detail, whose head was instantly bent uponhis catalogue. But before his eyes fell I knew that their longalmond shape, as well as the peculiar burnt pallor of hiscountenance, were undoubtedly those of an Oriental. 

"There have been mysterious outrages committed, I believe, uponmany of those who have come in contact with the slipper?" asked oneof the savants. 

"Exactly. Professor Deeping was undoubtedly among the victims. His instructions were explicit that the relic should be brought hereby a Moslem, but for a long time we failed to discover any Moslemwho would undertake the task; and, as you are aware, while theslipper remained at the Professor's house attempts were made tosteal it. "

He ceased uneasily, and glanced at the tall Eastern figure. It hadedged a little nearer; the head was still bowed and the fine yellowwaxen fingers of the hand from which he had removed his glovefumbled with the catalogue's leaves. It may well have been thatin those days I read menace in every eye, yet I felt assured thatthe yellow visitor was eavesdropping--was malignantly attentive tothe conversation. 

The curator spoke lower than ever now; no one beyond the circlecould possibly hear him as he proceeded--

"We discovered an Alexandrian Greek who, for personal reasons, notunconnected with matrimony, had turned Moslem! He carried theslipper here, strongly escorted, and placed it where you now see it. No other hand has touched it. " (The speaker's voice was raised everso slightly. ) "You will note that there is a rail around the case, to prevent visitors from touching even the glass. "

"Ah, " said Dr. Nicholson quizzically, "And has anything untowardhappened to our Graeco-Moslem friend?"

"Perhaps Inspector Bristol can tell, " replied the curator. 

The straight, military figure of the well-known Scotland Yard manwas conspicuous among the group of distinguished--and mostlyround-shouldered--scholars. 

"Sorry, gentlemen, " he said, smiling, "but Mr. Acepulos has vanishedfrom his tobacco shop in Soho. I am not apprehensive that he hadbeen kidnapped or anything of that kind. I think rather that thedate of his disappearance tallies with that on which he cashed hischeque for service rendered! His present wife is getting mostunbeautifully fat, too. "

"What precautions, " someone asked, "are being taken to guard theslipper?"

"Well, " Mostyn answered, "though we have only the bare word of thelate Professor Deeping that the slipper was actually worn byMohammed, it has certainly an enormous value according to Moslemideas. There can be no doubt that a group of fanatics known asHashishin are in London engaged in an extraordinary endeavour torecover it. "

Mostyn's voice sank to an impressive whisper. My gaze sought againthe tall Eastern visitor and was held fascinated by the baffledstraining in those velvet eyes. But the lids fell as I looked; andthe effect was that of a fire suddenly extinguished. I determinedto draw Bristol's attention to the man. 

"Accordingly, " Mostyn continued, "we have placed it in this room, from which I fancy it would puzzle the most accomplished thief toremove it. "

The party, myself included, stared about the place, as he went onto explain--

"We have four large windows here; as you see. The Burton Roomoccupies the end of a wing; there is only one door; it communicateswith the next room, which in turn opens into the main building byanother door on the landing. We are on the first floor; these twoeast windows afford a view of the lawn before the main entrance;those two west ones face Orpington Square; all are heavily barredas you see. During the day there is a man always on duty in thesetwo rooms. At night that communicating door is locked. Short oferecting a ladder in full view either of the Square or of GreatOrchard Street, filing through four iron bars and breaking thewindow and the case, I fail to see how anybody can get at theslipper here. "

"If a duplicate key to the safe--" another voice struck in; I knewit afterward for that of Professor Rhys-Jenkyns. 

"Impossible to procure one, Professor, " cried Mostyn, his eyessparkling with an almost boyish interest. "Mr. Cavanagh here holdsthe keys of the case, under the will of the late Professor Deeping. They are of foreign workmanship 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, "thatthe slipper of the Prophet will rest here undisturbed. "

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

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

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

"Yes. All to-day's people are specially invited, or are usingspecial invitation cards, " he replied. "The people who receivedthem often give their tickets away to those who will be likelyreally 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 mygaze fell upon an excessively thin, keen-faced man whose curiouslywide-open eyes met mine smilingly, whose gray suit spoke Stein-Bloch, whose felt was a Boss raw-edge unmistakably of a kind that onlyPhiladelphia can produce. At the height of the season such visitorsare not rare, but this one had an odd personality, and moreover hiskeen gaze was raking the place from ceiling to floor. 

Where had I met him before? To the best of my recollection I hadnever set eyes upon the man prior to that moment; and since he wasso palpably an American I had no reason for assuming him to beassociated with the Hashishin. But I remembered--indeed, I couldnever forget--how, in the recent past, I had met with an apparentassociate of the Moslems as evidently European as this curiouslyalert visitor was American. Moreover ... There was somethingtauntingly familiar, yet elusive, about that gaunt face. 

Was it not upon the eve of the death of Professor Deeping that thegirl with the violet eyes had first intruded her fascinatingpersonality into my tangled affairs? Patently, she had then beenseeking the holy slipper, and by craft had endeavoured to bend meto her will. Then had I not encountered her again, meeting theglance 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 sinceneither Bristol nor I could conceive of any one seeking to possessthe bloodstained thing except the mysterious leader of theHashishin--Hassan of Aleppo--as a creature of that awful fanaticbeing 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 thatthe relic, in entering the doors of the impregnable AntiquarianMuseum, had passed where the diabolical arts of the Hashishin hadno power to reach it--where the beauty of Western women and thecraft of Eastern man were equally useless weapons. Perhaps Hassan'scampaign was entering upon a new phase. 

Was it a shirking of plain duty on my part that wish--thatever-present hope--that the murderous company of fanatics who hadpursued 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 yetfierce Believers, alust for the blood of the infidel. In such asthese a faith dies the death of an adder, and is more venomous inits death-throes than in the full pulse of life. The ghastlyindiscretion of Professor Deeping, in rifling a Moslem Sacristy, hadled to the mutilation of many who, unwittingly, had touched thelooted relic, had brought about his own end, had established a leagueof fantastic assassins in the heart of the metropolis. 

Only once had I seen the venerable Hassan of Aleppo--a stately, gentle old man; but I knew that the velvet eyes could blaze into apassionate fury that seemed to scorch whom it fell upon. I knewthat the saintly Hassan was Sheikh of the Hashishin. Andfamiliarity with that dreadful organization had by no means bredcontempt. I was the holder of the key, and my fear of the fanaticsgrew like a magic mango, darkened the sunlight of each day, andfilled the night with indefinable dread. 

You, who have not read poor Deeping's "Assyrian Mythology", cannotpicture a creature with a huge, distorted head, and a tiny, dwarfedbody--a thing inhuman, yet human--a man stunted and malformed bythe cruel arts of brother men--a thing obnoxious to life, with butone passion, the passion to kill. You cannot conceive of the yearsof agony spent by that creature strapped to a wooden frame--inorder to prevent his growth! You cannot conceive of his fiercehatred of all humanity, inflamed to madness by the Eastern drug, hashish, and directed against the enemies of Islam--the holders ofthe slipper--by the wonderful power of Hassan 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 Hashishin. Perhapsthe girl with the violet eyes was another. What else to be dreadedHassan might hold in store for us I could not conjecture. 

Do you wonder that I feared? Do you wonder that I hoped (I confessit), hoped that the slipper might be recovered without furtherbloodshed?

CHAPTER XI

THE HOLE IN THE BLIND

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

"You observed a tall Eastern gentleman in the room a while ago, officer?"

"I did, sir. "

"How long is he gone?"

The man started and began to peer about anxiously. 

"That's a funny thing, sir, " he said. "I was keeping my eyesspecially upon him. I noticed him hovering around while Mr. Mostyn was speaking; but although I could have sworn he hadn'tpassed out, he's gone!"

"You didn't notice his departure, then?"

"I'm sorry to say I didn't, sir. "

The man clearly was perplexed, but I found small matter for wonderin the episode. I had more than suspected the stranger to be a spyof Hassan's, and members of that strange company were elusive aswill-o'-the-wisps. 

Bristol, at the far end of the room, was signalling to me. Iwalked back and joined him. 

"Come over here, " he said, in a low voice, "and pretend to examinethese things. "

He glanced significantly to his left. Following the glance, myeyes fell upon the lean American; he was peering into the receptaclewhich held the holy slipper. 

Bristol led me across the room, and we both faced the wall and bentover a glass case. Some yellow newspaper cuttings describing itscontents hung above it, and these we pretended to read. 

"Did you notice that man I glanced at?"

"Yes. "

"Well, that's Earl Dexter, the first crook in America! Ssh! Onlygoes in on very big things. We had word at the Yard he was in town;but we can't touch him--we can only keep our eyes on him. Heusually travels openly and in his own name, but this time he seemsto have slipped over quietly. He always dresses the same and hasjust given me 'good day!' They call him The Stetson Man. We heardthis morning that he had booked two first-class sailings in theOceanic, leaving for New York three weeks hence. Now, Mr. Cavanagh, what is his game?"

"It has occurred to me before, Bristol, " I replied, "and you mayremember that I mentioned the idea to you, that there might be athird party interested in the slipper. Why shouldn't Earl Dexterbe that third party?"

"Because he isn't a fool, " rapped Bristol shortly. "Earl Dexterisn't a man to gather up trouble for himself. More likely if hisvisit has anything really to do with the slipper he's retained byHassan and Company. Museum-breaking may be a bit out of the lineof Hashishin!"

This latter suggestion dovetailed with my own ideas, and oddlyenough there was something positively wholesome in the notion ofthe straightforward crookedness of a mere swell cracksman. 

Then happened a singular thing, and one that effectually concludedour whispered colloquy. From the top end of the room, beyond thecase containing the slipper, one of the yellow blinds came downwith a run. 

Bristol turned in a flash. It was not a remarkable accident, andmight portend no more than a loose cord; but when, having walkedrapidly up the room, we stood before the lowered blind, itappeared that this was no accident at all. 

Some four feet from the bottom of the blind (or five feet from thefloor) a piece of linen a foot square had been neatly slashed out!

I glanced around the room. Several fashionably dressed visitorswere looking idly in our direction, but I could fasten upon no oneof them as a likely perpetrator. 

Bristol stared at me in perplexity. 

"Who on earth did it, " he muttered, "and what the blazes for?"

CHAPTER XII

THE HASHISHIN WATCH

"The American gentleman has just gone out, sir, " said the sergeantat the door. 

I nodded grimly and raced down the steps. Despite my half-formeddesire that the slipper should be recovered by those to whomproperly it belonged, I experienced at times a curious interest inits welfare. I cannot explain this. Across the hall in front ofme I saw Earl Dexter passing out of the Museum. I followed himthrough into Kingsway and thence to Fleet Street. He saunteredeasily along, a nonchalant gray figure. I had begun to think thathe was bound for his hotel and that I was wasting my time when heturned sharply into quiet Salisbury Square; it was almost deserted. 

My heart leapt into my mouth with a presentiment of what was comingas I saw an elegant and beautifully dressed woman sauntering alongin front of us on the far side. 

Was it that I detected something familiar in her carriage, in thepoise of her head--something that reminded me of formerunforgettable encounters; encounters which without exception hadpresaged attempts upon the slipper of the Prophet? Or was it thatI recollected how Dexter had booked two passages to America? Icannot say, but I felt my heart leap; I knew beyond any possibilityof doubt that this meeting in Salisbury Square marked the openingof a new chapter in the history of the slipper. 

Dexter slipped his arm within that of the girl in front of him andthey paced slowly forward in earnest conversation. I suppose myaction was very amateurish and very poor detective work; butregardless of discovery I crossed the road and passed close bythe pair. 

I am certain that Dexter was speaking as I came up, but, well outof earshot, his voice was suddenly arrested. His companion turnedand looked at me. 

I was prepared for it, yet was thrilled electrically by theflashing glance of the violet eyes--for it was she--the beautifulharbinger of calamities!

My brain was in a whirl; complication piled itself upon complication;yet in the heart of all this bewilderment I thought I could detectthe key of the labyrinth, but at the time my ideas were in disorder, for the violet eyes were not lowered but fixed upon me in cold scorn. 

I knew myself helpless, and bending my head with consciousembarrassment I passed on hurriedly. 

I had work to do in plenty, but I could not apply my mind to it;and now, although the obvious and sensible thing was to go aboutmy business, I wandered on aimlessly, my brain employed with ahundred idle conjectures and the query, "Where have I seen TheStetson Man?" seeming to beat, like a tattoo, in my brain. Therewas something magnetic about the accursed slipper, for withoutknowing by what route I had arrived there, I found myself in GreatOrchard Street and close under the walls of the British AntiquarianMuseum. Then I was effectually aroused from my reverie. 

Two men, both tall, stood in the shadow of a doorway on the Oppositeside of the street, staring intently up at the Museum windows. Itwas a tropically hot afternoon and they stood in deepest shadow. Noone else was in Orchard Street--that odd little backwater--at thetime, and they stood gazing upward intently and gave me not even apassing glance. 

But I knew one for the Oriental visitor of the morning, and despitebroad noonday and the hum of busy London about me, my blood seemedto turn to water. I stood rooted to the spot, held there by a mostsurprising horror. 

For the gray-bearded figure of the other watcher was one I couldnever forget; its benignity was associated with the most horriblehours of my life, with deeds so dreadful that recollection to thisday sometimes breaks my sleep, arousing me in the still watches, bathed in a cold sweat of fear. 

It was Hassan of Aleppo!

If he saw me, if either of them saw me, I cannot say. What I shouldhave done, what I might have done it is useless to speak of here--forI did nothing. Inert, thralled by the presence of that eerie, dreadful being, I watched them leave the shadow of the doorway andpace slowly on with their dignified Eastern gait. 

Then, knowing how I had failed in my plain duty to my fellow-men--how, finding a serpent in my path, I had hesitated to crush it, had weakly succumbed to its uncanny fascination--I made my wayround to the door of the Museum. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE WHITE BEAM

That night the deviltry began. Mr. Mostyn found himself whollyunable to sleep. Many relics have curious histories, and theexperienced archaeologist becomes callous to that uncanniness whichseems to attach to some gruesome curios. But the slipper of theProphet was different. No mere ghostly menace threatened itsholders; an avenging scimitar followed those who came in contactwith it; gruesome tragedies, mutilations, murders, had marked itsprogress throughout. 

The night was still--as still as a London night can be; for thereis always a vague murmuring in the metropolis as though thesleeping city breathed gently and sometimes stirred in its sleep. 

Then, distinct amid these usual nocturnal noises, rose another, unaccountable sound, a muffled crash followed by a musical tinkling. 

Mostyn sprang up in bed, drew on a dressing-gown, and took from thesmall safe at his bed-head the Museum keys and a loaded revolver. A somewhat dishevelled figure, pale and wild-eyed, he made his waythrough the private door and into the ghostly precincts of theMuseum. He did not hesitate, but ascended the stairs and unlockedthe door of the Assyrian gallery. 

Along its ghostly aisles he passed, and before the door which gaveadmittance to the Burton Room paused, fumbling a moment for thekey. 

Inside the room something was moving!

Mostyn was keenly alarmed; he knew that he must enter at once ornever. He inserted the key in the lock, swung open the heavy door, stepped through and closed it behind him. He was a man oftremendous moral courage, for now, --alone in the apartment whichharboured the uncanny relic, alone in the discharge of his duty, he stood with his back to the door trembling slightly, but withthe idea of retreat finding no place in his mind. 

One side of the room lay in blackest darkness; through thefurthermost window of the other a faint yellowed luminance (themoonlight through the blind) spread upon the polished parquetflooring. But that which held the curator spell-bound--that whichmomentarily quickened into life the latent superstition, common toall mankind, was a beam of cold light which poured its effulgencefully upon the case containing the Prophet's slipper! Where theother exhibits lay either in utter darkness or semi-darkness thisone it seemed was supernaturally picked out by this lunarsearchlight!

It was ghostly-unnerving; but, the first dread of it passed, Mostynrecalled how during the day a hole inexplicably had been cut inthat blind; he recalled that it had not been mended, but that thedamaged blind had merely been rolled up again. 

And as a dawning perception of the truth came to him, as falteringlyhe advanced a step toward the mystic beam, he saw that one side ofthe case had been shattered--he saw the broken glass upon the floor;and in the dense shadow behind and under the beam of light, vaguelyhe saw a dull red object. 

It moved--it seemed to live! It moved away from the case and inthe 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 hehad 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 theeast windows; he heard the crash of broken glass. 

He leapt to the switch and flooded the room with light. A fear ofwhat it might hold possessed him, and he turned instantly. 

Hard by the fragments of broken glass upon the floor and midwaybetween the case and the first easterly window lay the slipper. Abell was ringing somewhere. His shot probably had aroused theattention of the policeman. Someone was clamouring upon the doorof the Museum, too. Mostyn raced forward and raised the blind--thattoward which the slipper had seemed to move. 

The lower pane of the window was smashed. Blood was trickling downupon 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 footstepscame from below; but Mostyn stood staring at the broken window andat the solid iron bars which protected it without, which were intact, substantial--which showed him that nothing human could possiblyhave entered. 

Yet the case was shattered, the holy slipper lay close beside himupon the floor, and from the broken window-pane blood wasfalling--drip-drip-drip... 

That was the story as I heard it half an hour later. For InspectorBristol, apprised of the happening, was promptly on the scene; andknowing how keen was my interest in the matter, he rang me upimmediately. I arrived soon after Bristol and found a perplexedgroup surrounding the uncanny slipper of the Prophet. No one haddared to touch it; the dread vengeance of Hassan of Aleppo wouldvisit any unbeliever who ventured to lay hand upon the holy, bloodything. Well we knew it, and as though it had been a venomousscorpion we, a company of up-to-date, prosaic men of affairs, stoodaround that dilapidated markoob, and kept a respectful distance. 

Mostyn, an odd figure in pyjamas and dressing-gown, turned his pale, intellectual face to me as I entered. 

"It will have to be put back ... Secretly, " he said. 

His voice was very unsteady. Bristol nodded grimly and glanced atthe two constables, who, with a plain-clothes man unknown to me, made up that midnight company. 

"I'll do it, sir, " said one of the constables suddenly. 

"One moment"--Mostyn raised his hand!

In the ensuing silence I could hear the heavy breathing of thosearound me. We were all looking at the slipper, I think. 

"Do you understand, fully, " the curator continued, "the risk yourun?"

"I think so, sir, " answered the constable; "but I'm prepared tochance it. "

"The hands, " resumed Mostyn slowly, "of those who hitherto haveventured to touch it have been"--he hesitated--"cut off. "

"Your career in the Force would be finished if it happened to you, my lad, " said Bristol shortly. 

"I suppose they'd look after me, " said the man, with grim humour. 

"They would if you met with--an accident, in the discharge of yourduty, " replied the inspector; "but I haven't ordered you to do it, and I'm not going to. "

"All right, sir, " said the man, with a sort of studied truculence, "I'll take my chance. "

I tried to stop him; Mostyn, too, stepped forward, and Bristolswore frankly. But it was all of no avail. 

A sort of chill seemed to claim my very soul when I saw theconstable stoop, unconcernedly pick up the slipper, and replace itin the broken case. 

It was out of a silence cathedral-like, awesome, that he spoke. 

"All you want is a new pane of glass, sir, " he said--"and thething's done. "

I anticipate in mentioning it here; but since Constable Hugheshas no further place in these records I may perhaps be excused fordismissing him at this point. 

He was picked up outside the section house on the following eveningwith his right hand severed just above the wrist. 

CHAPTER XIV

A SCREAM IN THE NIGHT

The day that followed was one of the hottest which we experiencedduring the heat wave. It was a day crowded with happenings. TheBurton Room was closed to the public, whilst a glazier worked uponthe broken east window and a new blind was fitted to the west. Behind the workmen, guarded by a watchful commissionaire, yawnedthe shattered case containing the slipper. 

I wondered if the visitors to the other rooms of the Museum realized, as I realized, that despite the blazing sunlight of tropicalLondon, the shadow of Hassan of Aleppo lay starkly on that hauntedbuilding?

At about eleven o'clock, as I hurried along the Strand, I almostcollided with the girl of the violet eyes! She turned and ran likethe wind down Arundel Street, whilst I stood at the corner staringafter her in blank amazement, as did other passers-by; for a mancannot with dignity race headlong after a pretty woman down apublic thoroughfare!

My mystification grew hourly deeper; and Bristol wallowed inperplexities. 

"It's the most horrible and confusing case, " he said to me whenI joined him at the Museum, "that the Yard has ever had to handle. It bristles with outrages and murders. God knows where it willall end. I've had London scoured for a clue to the whereaboutsof Hassan and Company and drawn absolutely blank! Then there'sEarl Dexter. Where does he come in? For once in a way he'sliving in hiding. I can't find his headquarters. I've beenthinking--"

He drew me aside into the small gallery which runs parallel withthe Assyrian Room. 

"Dexter has booked two passages in the Oceanic. Who is hiscompanion?"

I wondered, I had wondered more than once, if his companion weremy beautiful violet-eyed acquaintance. A scruple--perhaps anabsurd scruple--hitherto had kept me silent respecting her, butnow I determined to take Bristol fully into my confidence. Aconviction was growing upon me that she and Earl Dexter togetherrepresented that third party whose existence we had long suspected. Whether they operated separately or on behalf of the Moslems (ofwhich arrangement I could not conceive) remained to be seen. Iwas about to voice my doubts and suspicions when Bristol went onhurriedly--

"I have thoroughly examined the Burton Room, and considering thatthe windows are thirty feet from the ground, that there is no signof a ladder having stood upon the lawn, and that the iron bars arequite intact, it doesn't look humanly possible for any one to havebeen in the room last night prior to Mostyn's arrival!"

"One of the dwarfs--"

"Not even one of the dwarfs, " said Bristol, "could have passedbetween those iron bars!"

"But there was blood on the window!"

"I know there was, and human blood. It's been examined!"

He stared at me fixedly. The thing was unspeakably uncanny. 

"To-night, " he went on, "I am remaining in here"--nodding towardthe Assyrian Room--"and I have so arranged it that no mortal beingcan possibly know I am here. Mostyn is staying, and you can stay, too, if you care to. Owing to Professor Deeping's will you arebadly involved in the beastly business, and I have no doubt you arekeen to see it through. "

"I am, " I admitted, "and the end I look for and hope for is therecovery of the slipper by its murderous owners!"

"I am with you, " said Bristol. "It's just a point of honour; butI should be glad to make them a present of it. We're ostentatiouslyplacing a constable on duty in the hallway to-night--largely as ablind. It will appear that we're taking no other additionalprecautions. "

He hurried off to make arrangements for my joining him in his watch, and thus again I lost my opportunity of confiding in him regardingthe mysterious girl. 

I half anticipated, though I cannot imagine why, that Earl Dexterwould put in an appearance, during the day. He did not do so, however, for Bristol had put a constable on the door who was wellacquainted with the appearance of The Stetson Man. The inspector, in the course of his investigations, had come upon what might havebeen a clue, but what was at best a confusing one. Close by thewall of the curator's house and lying on the gravel path he hadfound a part of a gold cuff link. It was of American manufacture. 

Upon such slender evidence we could not justly assume that itpointed to the presence of Dexter on the night of the attemptedrobbery, but it served to complicate a matter already sufficientlyinvolved. 

In pursuance of Bristol's plan, I concealed myself that eveningjust before the closing of the Museum doors, in a recess behind aheavy piece of Babylonian sculpture. Bristol was similarlyconcealed in another part of the room, and Mostyn joined us later. 

The Museum was closed; and so far as evidence went the authoritieshad relied again upon the bolts and bars hitherto consideredimpregnable, and upon the constable in the hall. The broken windowwas mended, the cut blind replaced, and within, in its shatteredcase, reposed the slipper of the Prophet. 

All the blinds being lowered, the Assyrian Room was a place ofgloom, yellowed on the western side by the moonlight through theblind. The door communicating with the Burton Room was closedbut not fastened. 

"They operated last night, " Bristol whispered to me, "at the exacttime when the moonlight shone through the hole in the westerlyblind on to the case. If they come to-night, and I am quiteexpecting them, they will have to dispense with that assistance;but they know by experience where to reach the case. "

"Despite our precautions, " I said, "they will almost certainlyknow that a watch is being kept. "

"They may or they may not, " replied Bristol. "Either way I'mdisposed to think there will be another attempt. Their mysteriousmethod is so rapid that they can afford to take chances. "

This was not my first night vigil since I had become in a sense thecustodian of the relic, but it was quite the most dreary. Amid thetomb-like objects about us we seemed two puny mortals toying withstupendous things. We could not smoke and must converse only inwhispers; and so the night wore on until I began to think that ourwatch would be dully uneventful. 

"Our big chance, " whispered Mostyn, "is in the fact that any daymay change the conditions. They can't afford to wait. "

He ceased abruptly, grasping my arm. From somewhere, somewhereoutside the building, we all three had heard a soft whistle. Amoment of tense listening followed. 

"If only we could have had the place surrounded, " whispered Bristol--"butit was impossible, of course. "

A faint grating noise echoed through the lofty Burton Room. Bristolslipped past me in the semi-gloom, and gently opened thecommunicating door a few inches. 

A-tiptoe, I joined him, and craning across his shoulder saw a strangeand wonderful thing. 

The newly glazed east window again was shattered with a boomingcrash! The yellow blind was thrust aside. A long something reachedout toward the broken case. There was a sort of fumbling sound, andparalyzed with the wonder of it--for the window, remember, wasthirty feet from the ground--I stood frozen to my post. 

Not so Bristol. As the weird tentacle (or more exactly it remindedme of a gigantic crab's claw) touched the case, the Inspector leaptforward. A white beam from his electric torch cut through to thebroken cabinet. 

The thing was withdrawn ... And with it went the slipper of theProphet. 

"Raise the blinds!" cried Bristol. "Mr. Cavanagh! Mr. Mostyn!We must not let them give us the slip!"

I got up the blind of the nearer window as Bristol raised the other. Not a living thing was in sight from either!

Mostyn was beside me, his hand resting on my shoulder. I noted howhe trembled. Bristol turned and looked back at us. The light fromhis pocket torch flashed upon the curator's face; and I have neverseen such an expression of horrified amazement as that which itwore. Faintly, I could hear the constable racing up the steps fromthe hall. 

Ideas of the supernatural came to us all, I know; when, with ascuffling sound not unlike that of a rat in a ceiling, something movedabove us!

"Damn my thick head!" roared Bristol, furiously. "He's on the roof!It's flat as a floor and there's enough ivy alongside the water-spouton your house adjoining, Mr. Mostyn, to afford foothold to aninvading army!"

He plunged off toward the open door, and I heard him racing downthe Assyrian Room. 

"He had a short rope ladder fixed from the gutter!" he cried backat us. "Graham! Graham!" (the constable on duty in the hall)--"Getthe front door open! Get... " His voice died away as heleapt down the stairs. 

From the direction of Orpington Square came a horrid, chokingscream. It rose hideously; it fell, rose again--and died. 

The thief escaped. We saw the traces upon the ivy where he hadhastened down. Bristol ascended by the same route, and found wherethe ladder-hooks had twice been attached to the gutterway. ConstableGraham, who was first actually to leave the building, declared thathe heard the whirr of a re-started motor lower down Great OrchardStreet. 

Bristol's theory, later to be dreadfully substantiated, was thatthe thief had broken the glass and reached into the case with anarrangement similar to that employed for pruning trees, having aclutch at the end, worked with a cord. 

"Hassan has been too clever for us!" said the inspector. "But--whatin God's name did that awful screaming mean?"

I had a theory, but I did not advance it then. 

It was not until nearly dawn that my theory, and Bristol's, regardingthe clutch arrangement, both were confirmed. For close under therailings which abut on Orpington Square, in a pool of blood we foundjust such an instrument as Bristol had described. 

And still clutching it was a pallid and ghastly shrunken hand thathad been severed from above the wrist!

"Merciful God!" whispered the inspector--"look at the opal ring onthe finger! Look at the bandage where he cut himself on thebroken window-glass that first night, when Mr. Mostyn disturbed him. It wasn't the Hashishin who stole the thing.... It's EarlDexter's hand!"

No one spoke for a moment. Then--

"Which of them has--" began Mostyn huskily. 

"The slipper of the Prophet?" interrupted Bristol. "I wonder if weshall ever know?"

CHAPTER XV

A SHRIVELLED HAND

Around a large square table in a room at New Scotland Yard stood agroup of men, all of whom looked more or less continuously atsomething that lay upon the polished deal. One of the party, noneother than the Commissioner himself, had just finished speaking, and in silence now we stood about the gruesome object which hadfurnished him with the text of his very terse address. 

I knew myself privileged in being admitted to such a conference atthe C. I. D. Headquarters and owed my admission partly to InspectorBristol, and partly to the fact that under the will of the lateProfessor Deeping I was concerned in the uncanny business we weremet to discuss. 

Novelty has a charm for every one; and to find oneself immersed ina maelstrom of Eastern devilry, with a group of scientific murderersin pursuit of a holy Moslem relic, and unexpectedly to be made atrustee of that dangerous curiosity, makes a certain appeal to theadventurous. But to read of such things and to participate in themare widely different matters. The slipper of the Prophet and thedreadful crimes connected with it, the mutilations, murders, theuncanny mysteries which made up its history, were filling my worldwith horror. 

Now, in silence we stood around that table at New Scotland Yardand watched, as though we expected it to move, the ghastly "clue"which lay there. It was a shrivelled human hand, and about thethumb and forefinger there still dryly hung a fragment of lintwhich had bandaged a jagged wound. On one of the shrunken fingerswas a ring set with a large opal. 

Inspector Bristol broke the oppressive silence. 

"You see, sir, " he said, addressing the Commissioner, "this marksa new complication in the case. Up to this week although, unfortunately, we had made next to no progress, the thing wasstraightforward enough. A band of Eastern murderers, working alonglines quite novel to Europe, were concealed somewhere in London. We knew that much. They murdered Professor Deeping, but failed torecover the slipper. They mutilated everyone who touched itmysteriously. The best men in the department, working night andday, failed to effect a single arrest. In spite of the mysteriousactivity of Hassan of Aleppo the slipper was safely lodged in theBritish Antiquarian Museum. "

The Commissioner nodded thoughtfully. 

"There is no doubt, " continued Bristol, "that the Hashishin werewatching the Museum. Mr. Cavanagh, here"--he nodded in mydirection--"saw Hassan himself lurking in the neighbourhood. Wetook every precaution, observed the greatest secrecy; but inspite of it all a constable who touched the accursed thing losthis right hand. Then the slipper was taken. "

He stopped, and all eyes again were turned to the table. 

"The Yard, " resumed Bristol slowly, "had information that EarlDexter, the cleverest crook in America, was in England. He wasseen in the Museum, and the night following the slipper was stolen. Then outside the place I found--that!"

He pointed to the severed hand. No one spoke for a moment. Then--

"The new problem, " said the Commissioner, "is this: who took theslipper, Dexter or Hassan of Aleppo?"

"That's it, sir, " agreed Bristol. "Dexter had two passages bookedin the Oceanic: but he didn't sail with her, and--that's his hand!"

"You say he has not been traced?" asked the Commissioner. 

"No doctor known to the Medical Association, " replied Bristol, "isattending him! He's not in any of the hospitals. He has completelyvanished. The conclusion is obvious!"

"The evident deduction, " I said, "is that Dexter stole the slipperfrom the Museum--God knows with what purpose--and that Hassan ofAleppo recovered it from him. "

"You think we shall next hear of Earl Dexter from the river police?"suggested Bristol. 

"Personally, " replied the Commissioner, "I agree with Mr. Cavanagh. I think Dexter is dead, and it is very probable that Hassan andCompany are already homeward bound with the slipper of the Prophet. "

With all my heart I hoped that he might be right, but an intuitionwas with me crying that he was wrong, that many bloody deeds wouldbe, ere the sacred slipper should return to the East. 

CHAPTER XVI

THE DWARF

The manner in which we next heard of the whereabouts of the Prophet'sslipper was utterly unforeseen, wildly dramatic. That the Hashishinwere aware that I, though its legal trustee, no longer had chargeof the relic nor knowledge of its resting-place, was sufficientlyevident from the immunity which I enjoyed at this time from thatceaseless haunting by members of the uncanny organization ruled byHassan. I had begun to feel more secure in my chambers, and nolonger worked with a loaded revolver upon the table beside me. Butthe slightest unusual noise in the night still sufficed to arouseme and set me listening intently, to chill me with dread of whatit might portend. In short, my nerves were by no means recoveredfrom the ceaseless strain of the events connected with and arisingout of the death of my poor friend, Professor Deeping. 

One evening as I sat at work in my chambers, with the throb of busyFleet Street and its thousand familiar sounds floating in to methrough the open windows, my phone bell rang. 

Even as I turned to take up the receiver a foreboding possessed methat my trusteeship was no longer to be a sinecure. It wasBristol who had rung me up, and upon very strange business. 

"A development at last!" he said; "but at present I don't know whatto make of it. Can you come down now?"

"Where are you speaking from?"

"From the Waterloo Road--a delightful neighbourhood. I shall beglad if you can meet me at the entrance to Wyatt's Buildings inhalf an hour. "

"What is it? Have you found Dexter?"

"No, unfortunately. But it's murder!"

I knew as I hung up the receiver that my brief period of peace wasended; that the lists of assassination were reopened. I hurriedout through the court into Fleet Street, thinking of the key of thenow empty case at the Museum which reposed at my bankers, thinkingof the devils who pursued the slipper, thinking of the hundred andone things, strange and terrible, which went to make up the historyof that gruesome relic. 

Wyatt's Buildings, Waterloo Road, are a gloomy and forbidding blockof dwellings which seem to frown sullenly upon the high road, fromwhich they are divided by a dark and dirty courtyard. Passing aniron gateway, you enter, by way of an arch, into this sinister placeof uncleanness. Male residents in their shirt sleeves loungeagainst the several entrances. Bedraggled women nurse dirty infantsand sit in groups upon the stone steps, rendering them almostimpassable. But to-night a thing had happened in Wyatt's Buildingswhich had awakened in the inhabitants, hardened to sordid crime, asort of torpid interest. 

Faces peered from most of the windows which commanded a view of thecourtyard, looking like pallid blotches against the darkness; buta number of police confined the loungers within their severaldoorways, so that the yard itself was comparatively clear. 

I had had some difficulty in forcing a way through the crowd whichthronged the entrance, but finally I found myself standing besideInspector Bristol and looking down upon that which had brought usboth to Wyatt's Buildings. 

There was no moon that night, and only the light of the lamp in thearchway, with some faint glimmers from the stairways surrounding thecourt, reached the dirty paving. Bristol directed the light of apocket-lamp upon the hunched-up figure which lay in the dust, and Isaw it to be that of a dwarfish creature, yellow skinned and wearingonly a dark loin cloth. He had a malformed and disproportionatehead, a head that had been too large even for a big man. I knewafter first glance that this was one of the horrible dwarfs employedby the Hashishin in their murderous business. It might even be theone who had killed Deeping; but this was impossible to determineby reason of the fact that the hideous, swollen head, together withthe features, was completely crushed. I shall not describe thecreature's appearance in further detail. 

Having given me an opportunity to examine the dead dwarf, Bristolreturned the electric lamp to his pocket and stood looking at me inthe semi-gloom. A constable stood on duty quite near to us, andothers guarded the archway and the doors to the dwellings. Themurmur of subdued voices echoed hollowly in the wells of thestaircases, and a constant excited murmur proceeded from the crowdat the entrance. No pressmen had yet been admitted, though numbersof them were at the gates. 

"It happened less than an hour ago, " said Bristol. "The place wasmuch as you see it now, and from what I can gather there came thesound of a shot and several people saw the dwarf fall through theair and drop where he lies!"

The light was insufficient to show the expression upon the speaker'sface, but his voice told of a great wonder. 

"It is a bit like an Indian conjuring trick, " I said, looking up tothe sky above us; "who fired the shot?"

"So far, " replied Bristol, "I have failed to find out; but there'sa bullet in the thing's head. He was dead before he reached thepavement. "

"Did no one see the flash of the pistol?"

"No one that I have got hold of yet. Of course this kind ofevidence is very unreliable; these people regularly go out of theirway to mislead the police. "

"You think the body may have been carried here from somewhere else?"

"Oh, no; this is where it fell, right enough. You can see wherehis head struck the stones. "

"He has not been moved at all?"

"No; I shall not move him until I've worked out where in heaven'sname he can have fallen from! You and I have seen some mysteriousthings happen, Mr. Cavanagh, since the slipper of the Prophet cameto England and brought these people"--he nodded toward the thingat our feet--"in its train; but this is the most inexplicableincident to date. I don't know what to make of it at all. Quiteapart from the question of where the dwarf fell from, who shot athim and why?"

"Have you no theory?" I asked. "The incident to my mind pointsdirectly to one thing. We know that this uncanny creature belongedto the organization of Hassan of Aleppo. We know that Hassanimplacably pursues one object--the slipper. In pursuit of theslipper, then, the dwarf came here. Bristol!"--I laid my hand uponhis arm, glancing about me with a very real apprehension--"theslipper must be somewhere near!"

Bristol turned to the constable standing hard by. 

"Remain here, " he ordered. Then to me: "I should like you to comeup on to the roof. From there we can survey the ground and perhapsarrive at some explanation of how the dwarf came to fall upon thatspot. "

Passing the constable on duty at one of the doorways and making ourway through the group of loiterers there, we ascended amidconflicting odours to the topmost floor. A ladder was fixed againstthe wall communicating with a trap in the ceiling. Severalindividuals in their shirt sleeves and all smoking clay pipes hadfollowed us up. Bristol turned upon them. 

"Get downstairs, " he said--"all the lot of you, and stop there!"

With muttered imprecations our audience dispersed, slowly returningby the way they had come. Bristol mounted the ladder and opened thetrap. Through the square opening showed a velvet patch spangledwith starry points. As he passed up on to the roof and I followedhim, the comparative cleanness of the air was most refreshing afterthe varied fumes of the staircase. 

Side by side we leaned upon the parapet looking down into the dirtycourtyard which was the theatre of this weird mystery; looking downupon the stage, sordidly Western, where a mystic Eastern tragedyhad been enacted. 

I could see the constable standing beside the crushed thing uponthe stones. 

"Now, " said Bristol, with a sort of awe in his voice, "where did hefall from?"

And at his words, looking down at the spot where the dwarf lay, andnoting that he could not possibly have fallen there from any of thebuildings surrounding the courtyard, an eerie sensation crept overme; for I was convinced that the happening was susceptible of nonatural explanation. 

I had heard--who has not heard?--of the Indian rope trick, wherea fakir throws a rope into the air which remains magically suspendedwhilst a boy climbs upward and upward until he disappears into space. I had never credited accounts of the performance; but now I beganseriously to wonder if the arts of Hassan of Aleppo were not asgreat or greater than the arts of fakir. But the crowning mysteryto my mind was that of the Hashishin's death. It would seem thatas he had hung suspended in space he had been shot!

"You say that someone heard the sound of the shot?" I asked suddenly. 

"Several people, " replied Bristol; "but no one knows, or no onewill say, from what direction it came. I shall go on with theinquiry, of course, and cross-examine every soul in Wyatt'sBuildings. Meanwhile, I'm open to confess that I am beaten. "

In the velvet sky countless points blazed tropically. The hum ofthe traffic in Waterloo Road reached us only in a muffled way. Sordidness lay beneath us, but up there under the heavens we seemedremoved from it as any Babylonian astronomer communing with thestars. 

When, some ten minutes later, I passed out into the noise ofWaterloo Road, I left behind me an unsolved mystery and took withme a great dread; for I knew that the quest of the sacred slipperwas not ended, I knew that another tragedy was added to its history--andI feared to surmise what the future might hold for all of us. 

CHAPTER XVII

THE WOMAN WITH THE BASKET

Deep in thought respecting the inexplicable nature of this latestmystery, I turned in the direction of the bridge, and leaving behindme an ever-swelling throng at the gate of Wyatt's Buildings, proceeded westward. 

The death of the dwarf had lifted the case into the realms of themarvellous, and I noted nothing of the bustle about me, for mentallyI was still surveying that hunched-up body which had fallen out ofempty space. 

Then in upon my preoccupation burst a woman's scream!

I aroused myself from reverie, looking about to right and left. Evidently I had been walking slowly, for I was less than a hundredyards from Wyatt's Buildings, and hard by the entrance to anuninviting alley from which I thought the scream had proceeded. 

And as I hesitated, for I had no desire to become involved in adrunken brawl, again came the shrill scream: "Help! help!"

I cannot say if I was the only passer-by who heard the cry;certainly I was the only one who responded to it. I ran down thenarrow street, which was practically deserted, and heard windowsthrown up as I passed for the cries for help continued. 

Just beyond a patch of light cast by a street lamp a scene was beingenacted strange enough at any time and in any place, but doublysingular at that hour of the night, or early morning, in a lane offthe Waterloo Road. 

An old woman, from whose hand a basket of provisions had fallen, was struggling in the grasp of a tall Oriental! He was evidentlytrying to stifle her screams and at the same time to pinion herarms behind her!

I perceived that there was more in this scene than met the eye. Oriental footpads are rarities in the purlieus of Waterloo Road. So much was evident; and since I carried a short, sharp argument inmy pocket, I hastened to advance it. 

At the sight of the gleaming revolver barrel the man, who wasdressed in dark clothes and wore a turban, turned and ran swiftlyoff. I had scarce a glimpse of his pallid brown face ere he wasgone, nor did the thought of pursuit enter my mind. I turned tothe old woman, who was dressed in shabby black and who wasrearranging her thick veil in an oddly composed manner, consideringthe nature of the adventure that had befallen her. 

She picked up her basket, and turned away. Needless to say I wasrather shocked at her callous ingratitude, for she offered no word ofthanks, did not even glance in my direction, but made off hurriedlytoward Waterloo Road. 

I had been on the point of inquiring if she had sustained any injury, but I checked the words and stood looking after her in blankwonderment. Then my ideas were diverted into a new channel. Iperceived, as she passed under an adjacent lamp, that her basketcontained provisions such as a woman of her appearance would scarcelybe expected to purchase. I noted a bottle of wine, a chicken, and alarge melon. 

The nationality of the assailant from the first had marked the affairfor no ordinary one, and now a hazy notion of what lay behind allthis began to come to me. 

Keeping well in the shadows on the opposite side of the way, Ifollowed the woman with the basket. The lane was quite deserted;for, the disturbance over, those few residents who had raised theirwindows had promptly lowered them again. She came out intoWaterloo Road, crossed over, and stood waiting by a stopping-placefor electric cars. I saw her arranging a cloth over her basket insuch a way as effectually to conceal the contents. A strong mentalexcitement possessed me. The detective fever claims us all at onetime or another, I think, and I had good reason for pursuing anyinquiry that promised to lead to the elucidation of the slippermystery. A theory, covering all the facts of the assault incident, now presented itself, and I stood back in the shadow, watchful; ina degree, exultant. 

A Greenwich-bound car was hailed by the woman with the basket. Icould not be mistaken, I felt sure, in my belief that she castfurtive glances about her as she mounted the steps. But, havingseen her actually aboard, my attention became elsewhere engaged. 

All now depended upon securing a cab before the tram car hadpassed from view!

I counted it an act of Providence that a disengaged taxi appearedat that moment, evidently bound for Waterloo Station. I ran outinto the road with cane upraised. 

As the man drew up--

"Quick!" I cried. "You see that Greenwich car--nearly at theOphthalmic Hospital? Follow it. Don't get too near. I will giveyou further instructions through the tube. " I leapt in. We wereoff!

The rocking car ahead was rounding the bend now toward St. George'sCircus. As it passed the clock and entered South London Road itstopped. I raised the tube. 

"Pass it slowly!"

We skirted the clock tower, and bore around to the right. Then Idrew well back in the corner of the cab. 

The woman with the basket was descending! "Pull up a few yardsbeyond!" I directed. As the car re-started, and passed us, thetaxi became stationary. I peered out of the little window at theback. 

The woman was returning in the direction of Waterloo Road!

"Drive slowly back along Waterloo Road, " was my next order. "Pretend you are looking for a fare; I will keep out of sight. "

The man nodded. It was unlikely that any one would notice thefact that the cab was engaged. 

I was borne back again upon my course. The woman kept to the right, and, once we were entered into the straight road which leads to thebridge, I again raised the speaking-tube. 

"Pull up, " I said. "On the right-hand side is an old woman carryinga basket, fifty yards ahead. Do you see her? Keep well behind, butdon't lose sight of her. "

The man drew up again and sat watching the figure with the basketuntil it was almost lost from sight. Then slowly we resumed ourway. I would have continued the pursuit afoot now, but I fearedthat my quarry might again enter a vehicle. She did not do so, however, but coming abreast of the turning in which the mysteriousassault had taken place, she crossed the road and disappeared fromview. 

I leapt out of the cab, thrust half a crown into the man's hand, and ran on to the corner. The night was now far advanced, and Iknew that the chances of detection were thereby increased. Butthe woman seemed to have abandoned her fears, and I saw her justahead of me walking resolutely past the lamp beyond which a shorttime earlier she had met with a dangerous adventure. 

Since the opposite side of the street was comparatively in darkness, I slipped across, and in a state of high nervous tension pursuedthis strange work of espionage. I was convinced that I hadforestalled Bristol and that I was hot upon the track of those whocould explain the mystery of the dead dwarf. 

The woman entered the gate of the block of dwellings even moreforbidding in appearance than those which that night had stageda dreadful drama. 

As the figure with the basket was lost from view I crept on, andin turn entered the evil-smelling hallway. I stepped cautiously, and standing beneath a gaslight protected by a wire frame, Icongratulated myself upon having reached that point of vantage assilently as any Sioux stalker. 

Footsteps were receding up the stone stairs. Craning my neck, Ipeered up the well of the staircase. I could not see the woman, but from the sound of her tread it was possible to count thelandings which she passed. When she had reached the fourth, and Iheard her step upon yet another flight, I knew that she must bebound for the topmost floor; and observing every precaution, almostholding my breath in a nervous endeavour to make not the slightestsound, rapidly I mounted the stairs. 

I was come to the third landing in this secret fashion when quitedistinctly I heard the grating of a key in a lock!

Since four doors opened upon each of the landings, at all costs, I thought, I must learn by which door she entered. 

Throwing caution to the winds I raced up the remaining flights ... And there at the top the woman confronted me, with blazing eyes!--witheyes that thrilled every nerve; for they were violet eyes, theonly truly violet eyes I have ever seen! They were the eyes of thewoman who like a charming, mocking will-o'-the-wisp had dancedthrough this tragic scene from the time that poor Professor Deepinghad brought the Prophet's slipper to London up to this present hour!

There at the head of those stone steps in that common dwelling-houseI knew her--and in the violet eyes it was written that she knew, and feared, me!

"What do you want? Why are you following me?"

She made no endeavour to disguise her voice. Almost, I think, shespoke the words involuntarily. 

I stood beside her. Quickly as she had turned from the door at myascent, I had noted that it was that numbered forty-eight which shehad been about to open. 

"You waste words, " I said grimly. "Who lives there?"

I nodded in the direction of the doorway. The violet eyes watchedme with an expression in their depths which I find myself whollyunable to describe. Fear predominated, but there was anger, too, and with it a sort of entreaty which almost made me regret that Ihad taken this task upon myself. From beneath the shabby black hatescaped an errant lock of wavy hair wholly inconsistent with theassumed appearance of the woman. The flickering gaslight on thelanding sought out in that wonderful hair shades which seemed toglow with the soft light seen in the heart of a rose. The thickveil was raised now and all attempts at deception abandoned. Atbay she faced me, this secret woman whom I knew to hold the key tosome of the darkest places which we sought to explore. 

"I live there, " she said slowly. "What do you want with me?"

"I want to know, " I replied, "for whom are those provisions inyour basket?"

She watched me fixedly. 

"And I want to know, " I continued, "something that only you cantell me. We have met before, madam, but you have always eluded me. This time you shall not do so. There's much I have to ask of you, but particularly I want to know who killed the Hashishin who liesdead at no great distance from here!"

"How can I tell you that? Of what are you speaking?"

Her voice was low and musical; that of a cultured woman. Sheevidently recognized the futility of further subterfuge in thisrespect. 

"You know quite well of what I am speaking! You know that youcan tell me if any one can! The fact that you go disguised alonecondemns you! Why should I remind you of our previous meetings--ofthe links which bind you to the history of the Prophet's slipper?"She shuddered and closed her eyes. "Your present attitude is asufficient admission!"

She stood silent before me, with something pitiful in her pose--awonderfully pretty woman, whose disarranged hair and dilapidated hatcould not mar her beauty; whose clumsy, ill-fitting garments couldnot conceal her lithe grace. 

Our altercation had not thus far served to arouse any of theinhabitants and on that stuffy landing, beneath the flickeringgaslight, we stood alone, a group of two which epitomized strangethings. 

Then, with that quietly dramatic note which marks real life entrancesand differentiates them from the loudly acclaimed episodes of thestage, a third actor took up his cue. 

"Both hands, Mr. Cavanagh!" directed an American voice. 

Nerves atwitch, I started around in its direction. 

From behind the slightly opened door of No. 48 protruded a steelbarrel, pointed accurately at my head!

I hesitated, glancing from the woman toward the open door. 

"Do it quick!" continued the voice incisively. "You are up againsta desperate man, Mr. Cavanagh. Raise your hands. Carneta, relieveMr. Cavanagh of his gun!"

Instantly the girl, with deft fingers, had obtained possession ofmy revolver. 

"Step inside, " said the crisp, strident voice. Knowing myselfhelpless and quite convinced that I was indeed in the clutches ofdesperate people, I entered the doorway, the door being held openfrom within. She whom I had heard called Carneta followed. Thedoor was reclosed; and I found myself in a perfectly bare and dimpassageway. From behind me came the order--

"Go right ahead!"

Into a practically unfurnished room, lighted by one gas jet, Iwalked. Some coarse matting hung before the two windows and afairly large grip stood on the floor against one wall. A gas-ringwas in the hearth, together with a few cheap cooking utensils. 

I turned and faced the door. First entered Carneta, carrying thebasket; then came a man with a revolver in his left hand and hisright arm strapped across his chest and swathed in bandages. Oneglance revealed the fact that his right hand had been severed--revealedthe fact, though I knew it already, that my captor was Earl Dexter. 

He looked even leaner than when I had last seen him. I had no doubtthat his ghastly wound had occasioned a tremendous loss of blood. His gaunt face was positively emaciated, but the steely gray eyeshad lost nothing of their brightness. There was a good deal aboutMr. Earl Dexter, the cracksman, that any man must have admired. 

"Shut the door, Carneta, " he said quietly. His companion closedthe door and Dexter sat down on the grip, regarding me with hisoddly humorous smile. 

"You're a visitor I did not expect, Mr. Cavanagh, " he said. "Iexpected someone worse. You've interfered a bit with my plans butI don't know that I can't rearrange things satisfactorily. I don'tthink I'll stop for supper, though--" He glanced at the girl, whostood silent by the door. 

"Just pack up the provisions, " he directed, nodding toward thebasket--"in the next room. "

She departed without a word. 

"That's a noticeable dust coat you're wearing, Mr. Cavanagh, " saidthe American; "it gives me a great notion. I'm afraid I'll have toborrow it. "

He glanced, smiling, at the revolver in his left hand and back againto me. There was nothing of the bully about him, nothingmelodramatic; but I took off the coat without demur and threw itacross to him. 

"It will hide this stump, " he said grimly; "and any of the Hashishingentlemen who may be on the look-out--though I rather fancy theroad is clear at the moment--will mistake me for you. See the idea?Carneta will be in a cab and I'll be in after her and away beforethey've got time to so much as whistle. "

Very awkwardly he got into the coat. 

"She's a clever girl, Carneta, " he said. "She's doctored me allalong since those devils cut my hand off. "

As he finished speaking Carneta returned. 

She had discarded her rags and wore a large travelling coat and afashionable hat. 

"Ready?" asked Dexter. "We'll make a rush for it. We meant to goto-night anyway. It's getting too hot here!" He turned to me. 

"Sorry to say, " he drawled, "I'll have to tie you up and gag you. Apologize; but it can't be helped. "

Carneta nodded and went out of the room again, to return almostimmediately with a line that looked as though it might have beenemployed for drying washing. 

"Hands behind you, " rapped Dexter, toying with the revolver--"andthink yourself lucky you've got two!"

There was no mistaking the manner of man with whom I had to deal, and I obeyed; but my mind was busy with a hundred projects. Veryneatly the girl bound my wrists, and in response to a slight nodfrom Dexter threw the end of the line up over a beam in the slopingceiling, for the room was right under the roof, and drew it up insuch a way that, my wrists being raised behind me, I became utterlyhelpless. It was an ingenious device indicating considerableexperience. 

"Just tie his handkerchief around his mouth, " directed Dexter:"that will keep him quiet long enough for our purpose. I hope youwill be released soon, Mr. Cavanagh, " he added. "Greatly regretthe necessity. "

Carneta bound the handkerchief over my mouth. 

Dexter extinguished the gas. 

"Mr. Cavanagh, " he said, "I've gone through hell and I've lost themost useful four fingers and a thumb in the United States to gethold of the Prophet's slipper. Any one can have it that's open topay for it--but I've got to retire on the deal, so I'll drive ahard bargain! Good-night!"

There was a sound of retreating footsteps, and I heard the entrancedoor close quietly. 

CHAPTER XVIII

WHAT CAME THROUGH THE WINDOW

I had not been in my unnatural position for many minutes before Ibegan to suffer agonies, agonies not only physical but mental; forstanding there like some prisoner of the Inquisition, it came to mehow this dismantled apartment must be the focus of the dreadfulforces of Hassan of Aleppo!

That Earl Dexter had the slipper of the Prophet I no longer doubted, and that he had sustained, in this dwelling beneath the roof, anuncanny siege during the days which had passed since the theft fromthe Antiquarian Museum, was equally certain. Helpless, gagged, Ipictured those hideous creatures, evil products of the secret East, who might, nay, who must surround that place! I thought of thehorrible little yellow man who lay dead in Wyatt's Buildings; andit became evident to me that the house in which I was now imprisonedmust overlook the back of those unsavoury tenements. The windows, sack-covered now, no doubt commanded a view of the roofs of thebuildings. One of the mysteries that had puzzled us was solved. Itwas Earl Dexter who had shot the yellow dwarf as he was bound forthis very room! But how humanly the Hashishin had proposed to gainhis goal, how he had travelled through empty space--for from emptyspace the shot had brought him down--I could not imagine. 

I knew something of the almost supernatural attributes of thesepeople. From Professor Deeping's book I knew of the incrediblefeats which they could perform when under the influence of the drughashish. From personal experience also I knew that they had powerswholly abnormal. 

The pain in my arms and back momentarily increased. An awesomesilence ruled. I tortured myself with pictures of murderousyellow men possessed of the power claimed by the Mahatmas, oflevitation. Mentally I could see a distorted half-animal creaturecarrying a great gleaming knife and floating supernaturally towardme through the night!

A soft pattering sound became perceptible on the sloping roof above!

I think I have never known such intense and numbing fear as thatwhich now descended upon me. Perhaps I may be forgiven it. A moredreadful situation it would be hard to devise. Knowing that I wason the fifth story of a house, bound, helpless, I knew, too, that asecond mystic guardian of the slipper was come to accomplish thetask in which the first had failed!

I began to pray fervently. 

Neither of the windows were closed; and now through the intensedarkness I heard one of them being raised up--up--up... 

The sacking was pulled aside inch by inch. 

Silhouetted against the faintly luminous background I saw a hunched, unnatural figure. The real was more dreadful even than theimaginary--for some stray beam of light touched into cold radiancea huge curved knife which the visitant held between his teeth!

My fear became a madness, and I twisted my body violently in a wildendeavour to free myself. A dreadful pain shot through my leftshoulder, and the whole nightmare scene--the thing with the knifeat the window--the low-ceiled room-began to fade away from me. Iseemed to be falling into deep water. 

A splintering crash and the sound of shouting formed my lastrecollections ere unconsciousness came. 

I found myself lying in an armchair with Bristol forcing brandybetween my lips. My left arm hung limply at my side and the painin my dislocated shoulder was excruciating. 

"Thank God you are all right, Mr. Cavanagh!" said the inspector. "I got the surprise of my life when we smashed the door in andfound you tied up here!"

"You came none too soon, " I said feebly. "God knows how Providencedirected you here. "

"Providence it was, " replied Bristol. "From the roof of Wyatt'sBuildings--you know the spot?--I saw the second yellow devilcoming. By God! They meant to have it to-night! They don't valuetheir lives a brass farthing against that damned slipper!"

"But how--"

"Along the telegraph-wires, Mr. Cavanagh! They cross Wyatt'sBuildings and cross this house. It was a moonless night or weshould have seen it at once! I watched him, saw him drop to thisroof--and brought the men around to the front. "

"Did he, that awful thing, escape?"

"He dropped full forty feet into a tree--from the tree to theground, and went off like a cat!"

"Earl Dexter has escaped us, " I said, "and he has the slipper!"

"God help him!" replied Bristol. "For by now he has that hell-packat his heels! What a case! Heavens above, it will drive me mad!"

CHAPTER XIX

A RAPPING AT MIDNIGHT

Inspector Bristol finished his whisky at a gulp and stood up, a tall, massive figure, stretching himself and yawning. 

"The detective of fiction would be hard at work on this case, now, "he said, smiling, "but I don't even pretend to be. I am at astandstill and I don't care who knows it. "

"You have absolutely no clue to the whereabouts of Earl Dexter?"

"Not the slightest, Mr. Cavanagh. You hear a lot about the machineryof the law, but as a matter of fact, looking for a clever man hiddenin London is a good deal like looking for a needle in a haystack. Then, he may have been bluffing when he told you he had the Prophet'sslipper. He's already had his hand cut off through interfering withthe beastly thing, and I really can't believe he would take furtherchances by keeping it in his possession. Nevertheless, I should liketo find him. "

He leaned back against the mantelpiece, scratching his headperplexedly. In this perplexity he had my sympathy. No suchpursuit, I venture to say, had ever before been required of ScotlandYard as this of the slipper of the Prophet. An organization foundedin 1090, which has made a science of assassination, which throughthe centuries has perfected the malign arts, which, lingering on ina dark spot in Syria, has suddenly migrated and established itselfin London, is a proposition almost unthinkable. 

It was hard to believe that even the daring American cracksmanshould have ventured to touch that blood-stained relic of theProphet, that he should have snatched it away from beneath the veryeyes of the fanatics who fiercely guarded it. What he hoped togain by his possession of the slipper was not evident, but the factremained that if he could be believed, he had it, and providedScotland Yard's information was accurate, he still lurked in hidingsomewhere in London. 

Meanwhile, no clue offered to his hiding-place, and despite theceaseless vigilance of the men acting under Bristol's orders, notrace could be found of Hassan of Aleppo nor of his fiendishassociates. 

"My theory is, " said Bristol, lighting a cigarette, "that evenDexter's cleverness has failed to save him. He's probably a deadman by now, which accounts for our failing to find him; and Hassanof Aleppo has recovered the slipper and returned to the East, takinghis gruesome company with him--God knows how! But that accountsfor our failing to find him. "

I stood up rather wearily. Although poor Deeping had appointed melegal guardian of the relic, and although I could render but a pooraccount of my stewardship, let me confess that I was anxious totake that comforting theory to my bosom. I would have given muchto have known beyond any possibility of doubt that the accursedslipper and its blood-lustful guardian were far away from England. Had I known so much, life would again have had something to offerme besides ceaseless fear, endless watchings. I could have sleptagain, perhaps; without awaking, clammy, peering into every shadow, listening, nerves atwitch to each slightest sound disturbing thenight; without groping beneath the pillow for my revolver. 

"Then you think, " I said, "that the English phase of the slipper'shistory is closed? You think that Dexter, minus his right hand, has eluded British law--that Hassan and Company have evadedretribution?"

"I do!" said Bristol grimly, "and although that means the biggestfailure in my professional career, I am glad--damned glad!"

Shortly afterward he took his departure; and I leaned from thewindow, watching him pass along the court below and out under thearch into Fleet Street. He was a man whose opinions I valued, andin all sincerity I prayed now that he might be right; that thesurcease of horror which we had recently experienced after theghastly tragedies which had clustered thick about the hauntedslipper, might mean what he surmised it to mean. 

The heat to-night was very oppressive. A sort of steaming mistseemed to rise from the court, and no cooling breeze entered myopened windows. The clamour of the traffic in Fleet Street cameto me but remotely. Big Ben began to strike midnight. So faras I could see, residents on the other stairs were all abed anda velvet shadow carpet lay unbroken across three parts of thecourt. The sky was tropically perfect, cloudless, and jewelledlavishly. Indeed, we were in the midst of an Indian summer; itseemed that the uncanny visitants had brought, together with anatmosphere of black Eastern deviltry, something, too, of theEastern climate. 

The last stroke of the Cathedral bell died away. Other moredistant bells still were sounding dimly, but save for theceaseless hum of the traffic, no unusual sound now disturbed thearchaic peace of the court. 

I returned to my table, for during the time that had passed I hadbadly neglected my work and now must often labour far into thenight. I was just reseated when there came a very soft rappingat the outer door!

No doubt my mood was in part responsible, but I found myselfthinking of Poe's weird poem, "The Raven"; and like the charactertherein I found myself hesitating. 

I stole quietly into the passage. It was in darkness. How odd itis that in moments of doubt instinctively one shuns the dark andseeks the light. I pressed the switch lighting the hall lamp, andstood looking at the closed door. 

Why should this late visitor have rapped in so uncanny a fashionin preference to ringing the bell?

I stepped back to my table and slipped a revolver into my pocket. 

The muffled rapping was repeated. As I stood in the study doorwayI saw the flap of the letter-box slowly raised!

Instantly I extinguished both lights. You may brand me aschildishly timid, but incidents were fresh in my memory whichjustified all my fears. 

A faintly luminous slit in the door showed me that the flap was nowfully raised. It was the dim light on the stairway shining through. Then quite silently the flap was lowered. Came the soft rappingagain. 

"Who's there?" I cried. 

No one answered. 

Wondering if I were unduly alarming myself, yet, I confess, strungup tensely in anticipation that this was some device of the phantomenemy, I stood in doubt. 

The silence remained unbroken for thirty seconds or more. Then yetagain it was disturbed by that ghostly, muffled rapping. 

I advanced a step nearer to the door. 

"Who's there?" I cried loudly. "What do you want?"

The flap of the letter box began to move, and I formed a suddendetermination. Making no sound in my heelless Turkish slippersI crept close up to the door and dropped upon my knees. 

Thereupon the flap became fully lifted, but from where I crouchedbeneath it I was unable to see who or what was looking in; yet Ihesitated no longer. I suddenly raised myself and thrust therevolver barrel through the opening!

"Who are you?" I cried. "Answer or I fire!"--and along the barrelI peered out on to the landing. 

Still no one answered. But something impalpable--a powder--avapour--to this hour I do not know what--enveloped me with itsnauseating fumes; was puffed fully into my face! My eyes, mymouth, my nostrils became choked up, it seemed, with a deadlystifling perfume. 

Wildly, feeling that everything about me was slipping away, that Iwas sinking into a void, for ought I knew that of dissolution, Ipulled the trigger once, twice, thrice... 

"My God!"--the words choked in my throat and I reeled back intothe passage--"it's not loaded!"

I threw up my arms to save myself, lurched, and fell forward intowhat seemed a bottomless pit. 

CHAPTER XX

THE GOLDEN PAVILION

When I opened my eyes it was to a conviction that I dreamed. Ilay upon a cushioned divan in a small apartment which I find myselfat a loss adequately to describe. 

It was a yellow room, then, its four walls being hung with yellowsilk, its floor being entirely covered by a yellow Persian carpet. One lamp, burning in a frame of some lemon coloured wood and havingits openings filled with green glass, flooded the place with aghastly illumination. The lamp hung by gold chains from the ceiling, which was yellow. Several low tables of the same lemon-hued woodas the lamp-frame stood around; they were inlaid in fanciful designswith gleaming green stones. Turn my eyes where I would, clutch myaching head as I might, this dream chamber would not disperse, butremained palpable before me--yellow and green and gold. 

There was a niche behind the divan upon which I lay framed aboutwith yellow wood. In it stood a golden bowl and a tall pot ofyellow porcelain; I lay amid yellow cushions having golden tassels. Some of them were figured with vivid green devices. 

To contemplate my surroundings assuredly must be to court madness. No door was visible, no window; nothing but silk and luxury, yellowand green and gold. 

To crown all, the air was heavy with a perfume wholly unmistakableby one acquainted with Egypt's ruling vice. It was the reek ofsmouldering hashish--a stench that seemed to take me by the throat, a vapour damnable and unclean. I saw that a little censer, goldenin colour and inset with emeralds, stood upon the furthermost cornerof the yellow carpet. From it rose a faint streak of vapour; and Ifollowed the course of the sickly scented smoke upward through thestill air until in oily spirals it lost itself near to the yellowceiling. As a sick man will study the veriest trifle I studiedthat wisp of smoke, pencilled grayly against the silken draperies, the carven tables, against the almost terrifying persistency of theyellow and green and gold. 

I strove to rise, but was overcome by vertigo and sank back againupon the yellow cushions. I closed my eyes, which throbbed andburned, and rested my head upon my hands. I ceased to conjectureif I dreamed or was awake. I knew that I felt weak and ill, thatmy head throbbed agonizingly, that my eyes smarted so as to renderit almost impossible to keep them open, that a ceaseless hummingwas in my ears. 

For some time I lay endeavouring to regain command of myself, toprepare to face again that scene which had something horrifyingin its yellowness, touched with the green and gold. 

And when finally I reopened my eyes, I sat up with a suppressed cry. For a tall figure in a yellow robe from beneath which peeped yellowslippers, a figure crowned with a green turban, stood in the centreof the apartment!

It was that of a majestic old man, white bearded, with aquilinenose, and the fierce eagle eyes of a fanatic set upon me sternly, reprovingly. 

With folded arms he stood watching me, and I drew a sharp breath androse slowly to my feet. 

There amid the yellow and green and gold, amid the abominable reekof burning hashish I stood and faced Hassan of Aleppo!

No words came to me; I was confounded. 

Hassan spoke in that gentle voice which I had heard only once before. 

"Mr. Cavanagh, " he said, "I have brought you here that I might warnyou. Your police are seeking me night and day, and I am fully aliveto my danger whilst I stay in your midst. But for close upon athousand years the Sheikh-al-jebal, Lord of the Hashishin, hasguarded the traditions and the relics of the Prophet, Salla-'llahu'ale yhi wasellem! I, Hassan of Aleppo, am Sheikh of the Orderto-day, and my sacred duty has brought me here. "

The piercing gaze never left my face. I was not yet by any meansmy own man and still I made no reply. 

"You have been wise, " continued Hassan, "in that you have nevertouched the sacred slipper. Had you lain hands upon it, no secrecycould have availed you. The eye of the Hashishin sees all. Thereis a shaft of light which the true Believer perceives at night ashe travels toward El-Medineh. It is the light which uprises, aspiritual fire, from the tomb of the Prophet (Salla-'llahu 'aleyhiwasellem!). The relics also are radiant, though in a lesser degree. "

He took a step toward me, spreading out his lean brown hands, palmsdownward. 

"A shaft of light, " he said impressively, "shines upward now fromLondon. It is the light of the holy slipper. " He gazed intentlyat the yellow drapery at the left of the divan, but as though hewere looking not at the wall but through it. His features workedconvulsively; he was a man inspired. "I see it now!" he almostwhispered--"that white light by which the guardians of the relicmay always know its resting place!"

I managed to force words to my lips. 

"If you know where the slipper is, " I said, more for the sake oftalking than for anything else, "why do you not recover it?"

Hassan turned his eyes upon me again. 

"Because the infidel dog, " he cried loudly, "who has soiled it withhis unclean touch, defies us--mocks us! He has suffered the lossof the offending hand, but the evil ginn protect him; he is inspiredby efreets! But God is great and Mohammed is His only Prophet! Weshall triumph; but it is written, oh, daring infidel, that you againshall become the guardian of the slipper!"

He spoke like some prophet of old and I stared at him fascinated. I was loth to believe his words. 

"When again, " he continued, "the slipper shall be in the receptacleof which you hold the key, that key must be given to me!"

I thought I saw the drift of his words now; I thought I perceivedwith what object I had been trapped and borne to this mysteriousabode for whose whereabouts the police vainly were seeking. By theexercise of the gift of divination it would seem that Hassan ofAleppo had forecast the future history of the accursed slipper orbelieved that he had done so. According to his own words I wasdoomed once more to become trustee of the relic. The key of thecase at the Antiquarian Museum, to which he had prophesied theslipper's return, would be the price of my life! But--

"In order that these things may be fulfilled, " he continued, "I mustpermit you to return to your house. So it is written, so it shallbe. Your life is in my hands; beware when it is demanded of youthat you hesitate not in yielding up the key!"

He raised his hands before him, making a sort of obeisance, I doubtnot in the direction of Mecca, drew aside one of the yellow hangingsbehind him and disappeared, leaving me alone again in that nightmareapartment of yellow and green and gold. A moment I stood watchingthe swaying curtain. Utter silence reigned, and a sort of panicseized me infinitely greater than that occasioned by the presenceof the weird Sheikh. I felt that I must escape from the place orthat I should become raving mad. 

I leapt forward to the curtain which Hassan had raised and jerkedit aside; it had concealed a door. In this door and about levelwith my eyes was a kind of little barred window through which shonea dim green light. I bent forward, peering into the place beyond, but was unable to perceive anything save a vague greenness. 

And as I peered, half believing that the whole episode was adreadful, fevered dream, the abominable fumes of hashish grew, orseemed to grow, quite suddenly insupportable. Through the squareopening, from the green void beyond, a cloud of oily vapour, pungent, stifling, resembling that of burning Indian hemp, poured out andenveloped me!

With a gasping cry I fell back, fighting for breath, for a breathof clean air unpolluted with hashish. But every inhalation drewdown into my lungs the fumes that I sought to escape from. Iexperienced a deathly sickness; I seemed to be sinking into a seaof hashish, amid bubbles of yellow and green and gold, and I knewno more until, struggling again to my feet, surrounded by utterdarkness--I struck my head on the corner of my writing-table ... ForI lay in my own study!

My revolver, unloaded, was upon the table beside me. The night wasvery still. I think it must have been near to dawn. 

"My God!" I whispered, "did I dream it all? Did I dream it all?"

CHAPTER XXI

THE BLACK TUBE

"There's no doubt in my mind, " said Inspector Bristol, "that yourexperience was real enough. "

The sun was shining into my room now, but could not wholly dispersethe cloud of horror which lay upon it. That I had been drugged wassufficiently evident from my present condition, and that I had beentaken away from my chambers Inspector Bristol had satisfactorilyproved by an examination of the soles of my slippers. 

"It was a clever trick, " he said. "God knows what it was theypuffed into your face through the letter box, but the devilish artsof ten centuries, we must remember, are at the command of Hassan ofAleppo! The repetition of the trick at the mysterious place youwere taken to is particularly interesting. I should say you won'tbe in a hurry to peer through letter boxes and so forth in thefuture?"

I shook my aching head. 

"That accursed yellow room, " I replied, "stank with the fumes ofhashish. It may have been some preparation of hashish that wasused to drug me. "

Bristol stood looking thoughtfully from the window. 

"It was a nightmare business, Mr. Cavanagh, " he said; "but itdoesn't advance our inquiry a little bit. The prophecy of the oldman with the white beard--whom you assure me to be none other thanHassan of Aleppo--is something we cannot very well act upon. Heclearly believes it himself; for he has released you after havingcaptured you, evidently in order that you may be at liberty to takeup your duty as trustee of the slipper again. If the slipper reallycomes back to the Museum the fact will show Hassan to be somethinglittle short of a magician. I shan't envy you then, Mr. Cavanagh, considering that you hold the keys of the case!"

"No, " I replied wearily. "Poor Professor Deeping thought that heacted in my interests and that my possession of the keys wouldconstitute a safeguard. He was wrong. It has plunged me into thevery vortex of this ghastly affair. "

"It is maddening, " said Bristol, "to know that Hassan and Companyare snugly located somewhere under our very noses, and that allScotland Yard can find no trace of them. Then to think that Hassanof Aleppo, apparently by means of some mystical light, has knowledgeof the whereabouts of the slipper and consequently of thewhereabouts of Earl Dexter (another badly wanted man) is extremelydiscouraging! 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 thephantom characters of the ghoulish drama dancing through mybrain. The distorted yellow dwarfs seemed to gibe apish before me. Severed hands clenched and unclenched themselves in my face, andgleaming knives flashed across the mental picture. Predominant overall was the stately figure of Hassan of Aleppo, that benignant, remorseless being, that terrible guardian of the holy relic whodirected the murderous operations. Earl Dexter, The Stetson Man, with his tightly bandaged arm, his gaunt, clean-shaven face anddaredevil smile, figured, too, in my feverish daydream; nor wasthat other character missing, the girl with the violet eyes whosebeautiful presence I had come to dread; for like a sybil announcingdestruction her appearances in the drama had almost invariablypresaged fresh tragedies. I recalled my previous meetings withthis woman of mystery. I recalled my many surmises regarding herreal identity and association with the case. I wondered why in thenot very distant past I had promised to keep silent respecting her;I wondered why up to that present moment, knowing beyond doubt thather activities were inimical to my interests, were criminal, I hadobserved 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 walkedalong the passage I was endeavouring to make up my mind how I shouldact, how I should receive her. 

I opened the door; and there, wearing European garments but a greenturban ... 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 feltthat modern London was crumbling about me and that I was becomeinvolved in the fantastic mazes of one of those Oriental intriguessuch as figure in the Romance of Abu Zeyd, or with which mostEuropean readers have been rendered familiar by the glowing pagesof "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 willfollow you. "

Still the sense of unreality held me thralled and my brain refusedme 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 tubeheld loosely in his grasp. 

How infinitely more terrifying are perils unknown than those knownand appreciated! Had a European armed with a pistol attempted asimilar act of coercion, I cannot doubt that I should have put upsome sort of fight; had he sat before me now as Hassan of Alepposat, with a comprehensible weapon thus laid upon his knees, Ishould 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 lifeinto channels unsuspected, before that black tube with its unknownpotentialities, I sat in a kind of passive panic which I cannotattempt to describe, which I had never experienced before and havenever known since. 

"There is one about to visit you, " he said, "whom you know, whom Ithink you expect. For it is written that she shall come and suchevents cast a shadow before them. I, too, shall be present at yourmeeting!"

His eagle eyes opened widely; they burned with fanaticism. 

"Already she is here!" he resumed suddenly, and bent as onelistening. "She comes under the archway; she crossed thecourtyard--and is upon the stair! Admit her, effendim; I shall be closebehind you!"

The door-bell rang. 

With the consciousness that the black tube was directed toward theback of my head, I went and opened the door. My mind was at workagain, and busy with plans to terminate this impossible situation. 

On the landing stood a girl wearing a simple white frock whichfitted her graceful figure perfectly. A white straw hat, of the NewYork tourist type, with a long veil draped from the back suited herdelicate beauty very well. The red mouth drooped a little at thecorners, but the big violet eyes, like lamps of the soul, seemedafire with mystic light. 

"Mr. Cavanagh, " she said, very calmly and deliberately, "there isonly one way now to end all this trouble. I come from the man whocan return the slipper to where it belongs; but he wants his price!"

Her quiet speech served completely to restore my mental balance, andI noted with admiration that her words were so chosen as to commither in no way. She knew quite well that thus far she might appearin the matter with impunity, and she clearly was determined to saynothing that could imperil her. 

"Will you please come in?" I said quietly--and stood aside toadmit her. 

Exhibiting wonderful composure, she entered--and there, in thebadly lighted hallway came face to face with my other visitor!

It was a situation so dramatic as to seem unreal. 

Away from that tall figure retreated the girl with the violeteyes--and away--until she stood with her back to the wall. Even inthe gloom I could see that her composure was deserting her; herbeautiful face was pallid. 

"Oh, God!" she whispered, all but inaudible--"You!"

Hassan, grasping the black rod in his hand, signed to her to enterthe study. She stood quite near to me, with her eyes fixed uponhim. I bent closer to her. 

"My revolver--in left-hand table drawer, " I breathed in her ear. "Get it. He is watching me!"

I could not tell if my words had been understood, for, never takingher gaze from the Sheikh of the Assassins, she sidled into the study. I followed her; and Hassan came last of all. Just within thedoorway he stood, confronting us. 

"You have come, " he said, addressing the girl and speaking inperfect English but with a marked accent, "to open your impudentnegotiations through Mr. Cavanagh for the return of the thrice holyrelic to the Museum! Your companion, the man, who is inspired bythe Evil One, has even dared to demand ransom for the slipper fromme!"

Hassan was majestic in his wrath; but his eyes were black withvenomous hatred. 

"He has suffered the penalty which the Koran lays down; he has losthis right hand. But the lord of all evil protects him, else erethis he had lost his life! Move no closer to that table!"

I started. Either Hassan of Aleppo was omniscient or he hadoverheard my whispered words!

"Easily I could slay you where you stand!" he continued. "But todo so would profit me nothing. This meeting has been revealed tome. Last night I witnessed it as I slept. Also it has beenrevealed to me by Erroohanee, in the mirror of ink, that the slipperof the Prophet, Salla-'llahu 'ale yhi wasellem! Shall indeed returnto that place accursed, that infidel eyes may look upon it! It isthe will of Allah, whose name be exalted, that I hold my hand, butit is also His will that I be here, at whatever danger to myworthless body. "

He turned his blazing eyes upon me. 

"To-morrow, ere noon, " he said, "the slipper will again be in theMuseum from which the man of evil stole it. So it is written;obscure are the ways. We met last night, you and I, but at thattime much was dark to me that now is light. The holy 'Alee spoketo me in a vision, saying: 'There are two keys to the case in whichit will be locked. Secure one, leaving the other with him whoholds it! Let him swear to be secret. This shall be the price ofhis life!'"

The black tube was pointed directly at my forehead. 

"Effendim, " concluded the speaker, "place in my hand the key of thecase in the Antiquarian Museum!"

Hands convulsively clenched, the girl was looking from me to Hassan. My throat felt parched, but I forced speech to my lips. 

"Your omniscience fails you, " I said. "Both keys are at my bank!"

Blacker grew the fierce eyes--and blacker. I gave myself up forlost; I awaited death--death by some awful, unique means--withwhat courage I could muster. 

From the court below came the sound of voices, the voices ofpassers-by who so little suspected what was happening near to themthat had someone told them they certainly had refused to credit it. The noise of busy Fleet Street came drumming under the archway, too. 

Then, above all, another sound became audible. To this day I findmyself unable to define it; but it resembled the note of a silverbell. 

Clearly it was a signal; for, hearing it, Hassan dropped the tubeand glanced toward the open window. 

In that instant I sprang upon him!

That I had to deal with a fanatic, a dangerous madman, I knew; thatit was his life or mine, I was fully convinced. I struck out thenand caught him fairly over the heart. He reeled back, and I madea wild clutch for the damnable tube, horrid, unreasoning fear ofwhich thus far had held me inert. 

I heard the girl scream affrightedly, and I knew, and felt my heartchill to know, that the tube had been wrenched from my hand! Hassanof Aleppo, old man that he appeared, had the strength of a tiger. Herecovered himself and hurled me from him so that I came to the floorcrashingly half under my writing-table!

Something he cried back at me, furiously--and like an enraged animal, his teeth gleaming out from his beard, he darted from the room. Thefront door banged loudly. 

Shaken and quivering, I got upon my feet. On the threshold, in astate of pitiable hesitancy, stood the pale, beautiful accompliceof Earl Dexter. One quick glance she flashed at me, then turnedand ran!

Again the door slammed. I ran to the window, looking out into thecourt. The girl came hurrying down the steps, and with never abackward glance ran on and was lost to view in one of the passagesopening riverward. 

Out under the arch, statelily passed a tall figure--and InspectorBristol was entering! I saw the detective glance aside as the twoall but met. He stood still, and looked back!

"Bristol!" I cried, and waved my arms frantically. 

"Stop him! Stop him! It's Hassan of Aleppo!"

Bristol was not the only one to hear my wild cry--not the only oneto dash back under the arch and out into Fleet Street. 

But Hassan of Aleppo was gone!

CHAPTER XXII

THE LIGHT OF EL-MEDINEH

Bristol and I walked slowly in the direction of the entrance of theBritish Antiquarian Museum. It was the day following upon thesensational scene in my chambers. 

"There's very little doubt, " said Bristol, "that Earl Dexter hasthe slipper and that Hassan of Aleppo knows where Dexter is inhiding. I don't know which of the two is more elusive. Hassanapparently melted into thin air yesterday; and although The StetsonMan has never within my experience employed disguises, no one hasset eyes upon him since the night that he vanished from his lodgingsoff the Waterloo Road. It's always possible for a man to bafflethe police by remaining closely within doors, but during all thetime that has elapsed Dexter must have taken a little exerciseoccasionally, and the missing hand should have betrayed him. "

"The wonder to me is, " I replied, "that he has escaped death at thehands of the Hashishin. He is a supremely daring man, for I shouldthink that he must be carrying the slipper of the Prophet aboutwith him!"

"I would rather he did it than I!" commented Bristol. "For sheeraudacity commend me to The Stetson Man! His idea no doubt was touse you as intermediary in his negotiations with the Museumauthorities, but that plan failing, he has written them direct, thoughtfully omitting his address, of course!"

We were, in fact, at that moment bound for the Museum to inspectthis latest piece of evidence. 

"The crowning example of the man's audacity and cleverness, " addedmy companion, "is his having actually approached Hassan of Aleppowith a similar proposition! How did he get in touch with him? AllScotland Yard has failed to find any trace of that weird character!"

"Birds of a feather--" I suggested. 

"But they are not birds of a feather!" cried Bristol. "On your ownshowing, Hassan of Aleppo is simply waiting his opportunity tobalance Dexter's account forever! I always knew Dexter was a cleverman; I begin to think he's the most daring genius alive!"

We mounted the steps of the Museum. In the hallway Mostyn, thecurator, awaited us. Having greeted Bristol and myself he led theway to his private office, and from a pigeon-hole in his desk tookout a letter typewritten upon a sheet of quarto paper. 

Bristol spread it out upon the blotting pad and we bent over itcuriously. 

SIR--

I believe I can supply information concerning the whereabouts ofthe missing slipper of Mohammed. As any inquiry of this naturemust be extremely perilous to the inquirer and as the relic is apriceless one, my fee would be 10, 000 pounds. The fanatics whoseek to restore the slipper to the East must not know of anynegotiations, therefore I omit my address, but will communicatefurther if you care to insert instructions in the agony columnof Times. 

 Faithfully, EARL DEXTER

Bristol laughed grimly. 

"It's a daring game, " he said; "a piece of barefaced impudence quitecharacteristic. 

"He's posing as a sort of private detective now, and is prepared fora trifling consideration to return the slipper which he stolehimself! He must know, though, that we have his severed hand atthe Yard to be used in evidence against him. "

"Is the Burton Room open to the public again?" I asked Mostyn. 

"It is open, yes, " he replied, "and a quite unusual number ofvisitors come daily to gaze at the empty case which once held theslipper of the Prophet. "

"Has the case been mended?"

"Yes; it is quite intact again; only the exhibit is missing. "

We ascended the stairs, passed along the Assyrian Room, which seemedto be unusually crowded, and entered the lofty apartment known asthe Burton Room. The sunblinds were drawn, and a sort of dim, religious light prevailed therein. A group of visitors stood aroundan empty case at the farther end of the apartment. 

"You see, " said Mostyn, pointing, "that empty case has a greaterattraction than all the other full ones!"

But I scarcely heeded his words, for I was intently watching themovements of one of the group about the empty case. I have saidthat the room was but dimly illuminated, and this fact, togetherno doubt with some effect of reflected light, enhanced by myimagination, perhaps produced the phenomenon which was occasioningme so much amazement. 

Remember that my mind was filled with memories of weird things, that I often found myself thinking of that mystic light whichHassan of Aleppo had called the light of El-Medineh--that lightwhereby, undeterred by distance, he claimed to be able to trace thewhereabouts of any of the relics of the Prophet. 

Bristol and Mostyn walked on then; but I stood just within thedoorway, intently, breathlessly watching an old man wearing anout-of-date Inverness coat and a soft felt hat. He had a graybeard and moustache, and long, untidy hair, walked with a stoop, and in short was no unusual type of Visitor to that institution. 

But it seemed to me, and the closer I watched him the moreconvinced I became, that this was no optical illusion, that a faintluminosity, a sort of elfin light, played eerily about his head!

As Bristol and Mostyn approached the case the old man began to walktoward me and in the direction of the door. The idea flashedthrough my mind that it might be Hassan of Aleppo himself, Hassanwho had predicted that the stolen slipper should that day bereturned to the Museum!

Then he came abreast of me, passed me, and I felt that mysurmise had been wrong. I saw Bristol, from farther up the room, turn and look back. Something attracted his trained eye, I suppose, which was not perceptible to me. But he suddenly came stridingalong. Obviously he was pursuing the old man, who was just aboutto leave the apartment. Seeing that the latter had reached thedoorway, Bristol began to run. 

The old man turned; and amid a chorus of exclamations from theastonished spectators, Bristol sprang upon him!

How it all came about I cannot say, cannot hope to describe; butthere was a short, sharp scuffle, the crack of a well-directedblow ... And Bristol was rolling on his back, the old man, hatless, was racing up the Assyrian Room, and everyone in the placeseemed to be shouting at once!

Bristol, with blood streaming from his face, staggered to his feet, clutching at me for support. 

"After him, Mr. Cavanagh!" he cried hoarsely. "It's your turnto-day! After him! That's Earl Dexter!"

Mostyn waited for no more, but went running quickly through theAssyrian Room. I may mention here that at the head of the stairshe found the caped Inverness which had served to conceal Dexter'smutilated arm, and later, behind a piece of statuary, a wig anda very ingenious false beard and moustache were discovered. Butof The Stetson Man there was no trace. His brief start had enabledhim to make good his escape. 

As Mostyn went off, and a group of visitors flocked in ourdirection, Bristol, who had been badly shaken by the blow, turnedto them. 

"You will please all leave the Burton Room immediately, " he said. 

Looks of surprise greeted his words; but with his handkerchiefraised to his face, he peremptorily repeated them. The officialnote in his voice was readily to be detected; and the wonder-strickengroup departed with many a backward glance. 

As the last left the Burton Room, Bristol pointed, with a rathershaky finger, at the soft felt hat which lay at his feet. It hadformed part of Dexter's disguise. Close beside it lay anotherobject which had evidently fallen from the hat--a dull red thinglying on the polished parquet flooring. 

"For God's sake don't go near it!" whispered Bristol. "The roommust be closed for the present. And now I'm off after that man. Step clear of it. "

His words were unnecessary; I shunned it as a leprous thing. 

It was the slipper of the Prophet!

CHAPTER XXIII

THE THREE MESSAGES

I stood in the foyer of the Astoria Hotel. About me was the pulsingstir of transatlantic life, for the tourist season was now at itsheight, and I counted myself fortunate in that I had been able tosecure a room at this establishment, always so popular with Americanvisitors. Chatting groups surrounded me and I became acquaintedwith numberless projects for visiting the Tower of London, theNational Gallery, the British Museum, Windsor Castle, Kew Gardens, and the other sights dear to the heart of our visiting cousins. Loaded lifts ascended and descended. Bradshaws were in greatevidence everywhere; all was hustle and glad animation. 

The tall military-looking man who stood beside me glanced about himwith a rather grim smile. 

"You ought to be safe enough here, Mr. Cavanagh!" he said. 

"I ought to be safe enough in my own chambers, " I replied wearily. "How many of these pleasure-seeking folk would believe that a mancan be as greatly in peril of his life in Fleet Street as in themost uncivilized spot upon the world map? Do you think if I toldthat prosperous New Yorker who is buying a cigar yonder, forinstance, that I had been driven from my chambers by a band ofEastern assassins founded some time in the eleventh century, hewould believe it?"

"I am certain he wouldn't!" replied Bristol. "I should not havecredited it myself before I was put in charge of this damnable case. "

My position at that hour was in truth an incredible one. The sacredslipper of Mohammed lay once more in the glass case at theAntiquarian Museum from which Earl Dexter had stolen it. Now, withapish yellow faces haunting my dreams, with ghostly menaces doggingme day and night, I was outcast from my own rooms and compelled, inself-defence, to live amid the bustle of the Astoria. So whollynonplussed were the police authorities that they could afford me noprotection. They knew that a group of scientific murderers layhidden in or near to London; they knew that Earl Dexter, the foremostcrook of his day, was also in the metropolis--and they could make nomove, were helpless; indeed, as Bristol had confessed, were hopeless!

Bristol, on the previous day, had unearthed the Greek cigar merchant, Acepulos, who had replaced the slipper in its case (for a monetaryconsideration). He had performed a similar service when thebloodstained thing had first been put upon exhibition at the Museum, and for a considerable period had disappeared. We had feared thathis religious pretensions had not saved him from the avengingscimitar of Hassan; but quite recently he had returned again to hisSoho shop, and in time thus to earn a second cheque. 

As Bristol and I stood glancing about the foyer of the hotel, aplain-clothes officer whom I knew by sight came in and approachedmy companion. I could not divine the fact, of course, but I wasabout to hear news of the money-loving and greatly daringGraeco-Moslem. 

The detective whispered something to Bristol, and the latter started, and paled. He turned to me. 

"They haven't overlooked him this time, Mr. Cavanagh, " he said. "Acepulos has been found dead in his room, nearly decapitated!"

I shuddered involuntarily. Even there, amid the chatter and laughterof those light-hearted tourists, the shadow of Hassan of Aleppo wasfalling upon me. 

Bristol started immediately for Soho and I parted from him in theStrand, he proceeding west and I eastward, for I had occasion thatmorning to call at my bank. It was the time of the year when Londonis full of foreigners, and as I proceeded in the direction of FleetStreet I encountered more than one Oriental. To my excitedimagination they all seemed to glance at me furtively, with menacingeyes, but in any event I knew that I had little to fear whilst Icontrived to keep to the crowded thoroughfares. Solitude I dreadedand with good reason. 

Then at the door of the bank I found fresh matter for reflection. The assistant manager, Mr. Colby, was escorting a lady to the door. As I stood aside, he walked with her to a handsome car which waited, and handed her in with marks of great deference. She was heavilyveiled and I had no more than a glimpse of her, but she appeared tobe of middle age and had gray hair and a very stately manner. 

I told myself that I was unduly suspicious, suspicious of everyoneand of everything; yet as I entered the bank I found myself wonderingwhere I had seen that dignified, grayhaired figure before. I eventhought of asking the manager the name of his distinguished customer, but did not do so, for in the circumstances such an inquiry musthave appeared impertinent. 

My business transacted, I came out again by the side entrance whichopens on the little courtyard, for this branch of the London Countyand Provincial Bank occupies a corner site. 

A ragged urchin who was apparently waiting for me handed me a note. I looked at him inquiringly. 

"For me?" I said. 

"Yes, sir. A dark gentleman pointed you out as you was goin' intothe bank. "

The note was written upon a half sheet of paper and, doubting if itwas really intended for me, I unfolded it and read the following--

 Mr. Cavanagh, take the keys of the case containing the holy slipper to your hotel this evening without fail. HASSAN. 

"Who gave you this, boy?" I asked sharply. 

"A foreign gentleman, sir, very dark--like an Indian. "

"Where is he?"

"He went off in a cab, sir, after he give me the note. "

I handed the boy sixpence and slowly pursued my way. An idea wasforming in my mind to trap the enemy by seeming acquiescent. Iwondered if my movements were being watched at that moment. Sinceit was more than probable, I returned to the bank, entered, andmade some trivial inquiry of a cashier, and then came out again andwalked on as far as the Report office. 

I had not been in the office more than five minutes before Ireceived a telegram from Inspector Bristol. It had been handed inat Soho, and the message was an odd one. 

 CAVANAGH, Report, London. Plot afoot to steal keys. Get them from bank and join me 11 o'clock at Astoria. Have planned trap. BRISTOL. 

This was very mysterious in view of the note so recently received byme, but I concluded that Bristol had hit upon a similar plan to thatwhich was forming in my own mind. It seemed unnecessarily hazardous, though, actually to withdraw the keys from their place of safety. 

Pondering deeply upon the perplexities of this maddening case, Ishortly afterward found myself again at the bank. With the managerI descended to the strong-room, and the safe was unlocked whichcontained the much-sought-for keys of the case at the AntiquarianMuseum. 

"There are the keys, quite safe!--and by the way, this is my secondvisit here this morning, Mr. Cavanagh, " said the manager, with whomI was upon rather intimate terms. "A foreign lady who has recentlybecome a customer of the bank deposited some valuable jewels herethis morning--less than an hour ago, in fact. "

"Indeed, " I said, and my mind was working rapidly. "The lady whocame in the large blue car, a gray-haired lady?"

"Yes, " was the reply, "did you notice her, then?"

I nodded and said no more, for in truth I had no more to say. Ihad good reason to respect the uncanny powers of Hassan of Aleppo, but I doubted if even his omniscience could tell him (since I hadactually gone down into the strong-room) whether when I emerged Ihad the keys, or whether my visit and seeming acceptance of hisorders had been no more than a subterfuge!

That the Hashishin had some means of communicating with me at theAstoria was evident from the contents of the note which I hadreceived, and as I walked in the direction of the hotel my mindwas filled with all sorts of misgivings. I was playing with fire!Had I done rightly or should I have acted otherwise? I sighedwearily. The dark future would resolve all my doubts. 

When I reached the Astoria, Bristol had not arrived. I lighted acigarette and sat down in the lounge to await his coming. Presentlya boy approached, handing me a message which had been taken downfrom the telephone by the clerk. It was as follows--

 Tell Mr. Cavanagh, who is waiting in the hotel, to take what I am expecting to his chambers, and say that I will join him there in twenty minutes. INSPECTOR BRISTOL. 

Again I doubted the wisdom of Bristol's plan. Had I not fled tothe Astoria to escape from the dangerous solitude of my rooms? Thathe was laying some trap for the Hashishin was sufficiently evident, and whilst I could not justly suspect him of making a pawn of meI was quite unable to find any other explanation of this latest move. 

I was torn between conflicting doubts. I glanced at my watch. Yes!There was just time for me to revisit the bank ere joining Bristolat my chambers! I hesitated. After all, in what possible way couldit jeopardize his plans for me merely to pretend to bring the keys?

"Hang it all!" I said, and jumped to my feet. "These maddeningconjectures will turn my brain! I'll let matters stand as theyare, and risk the consequences!"

I hesitated no longer, but passed out from the hotel and once moredirected my steps in the direction of Fleet Street. 

As I passed in under the arch through which streamed many busyworkers, I told myself that to dread entering my own chambers athigh noon was utterly childish. Yet I did dread doing so! And asI mounted the stair and came to the landing, which was always moreor less dark, I paused for quite a long time before putting thekey in the lock. 

The affair of the accursed slipper was playing havoc with my nerves, and I laughed dryly to note that my hand was not quite steady as Iturned the key, opened my door, and slipped into the dim hallway. 

As I closed it behind me, something, probably a slight noise, butpossibly something more subtle--an instinct--made me turn rapidly. 

There facing me stood Hassan of Aleppo. 

CHAPTER XXIV

I KEEP THE APPOINTMENT

That moment was pungent with drama. In the intense hush of thenext five seconds I could fancy that the world had slipped awayfrom me and that I was become an unsubstantial thing of dreams. I was in no sense master of myself; the effect of the presence ofthis white-bearded fanatic was of a kind which I am entirely unableto describe. About Hassan of Aleppo was an aroma of evil, yet ofmajesty, which marked him strangely different from other men--fromany other that I have ever known. In his venerable presence, remembering how he was Sheikh of the Assassins, and recalling hisbloody history, I was always conscious of a weakness, physical andmental. He appalled me; and now, with my back to the door, I stoodwatching him and watching the ominous black tube which he held inhis hand. It was a weapon unknown to Europe and therefore morefearful than the most up-to-date of death-dealing instruments. 

Hassan of Aleppo pointed it toward me. 

"The keys, effendim, " he said; "hand me the keys!"

He advanced a step; his manner was imperious. The black tube wasless than a foot removed from my face. That I had my revolver inmy pocket could avail me nothing, for in my pocket it must remain, since I dared to make no move to reach it under cover of thatunfamiliar, terrible weapon. 

The black eyes of Hassan glared insanely into mine. 

"You will have placed them in your pocketcase, " he said. "Take itout; hand it to me!"

I obeyed, for what else could I do? Taking the case from my pocket, I placed it in his lean brown hand. 

An expression of wild exultation crossed his features; the eagleeyes seemed to be burning into my brain. A puff of hot vapourstruck me in the face--something which was expelled from themysterious black tube. And with memories crowding to my mind ofsimilar experiences at the hands of the Hashishin, I fell back, clutching at my throat, fighting for my life against the deadly, vaporous thing that like a palpable cloud surrounded me. I triedto cry out, but the words died upon my tongue. Hassan of Alepposeemed to grow huge before my eyes like some ginn of Eastern lore. Then a curtain of darkness descended. I experienced a violent blowupon the forehead (I suppose I had pitched forward), and for thetime resigned my part in the drama of the sacred slipper. 

CHAPTER XXV

THE WATCHER IN BANK CHAMBERS

At about five o'clock that afternoon Inspector Bristol, who hadspent several hours in Soho upon the scene of the murder of theGreek, was walking along Fleet Street, bound for the offices of theReport. As he passed the court, on the corner of which stands abranch of the London County and Provincial Bank, his eye wasattracted by a curious phenomenon. 

There are reflectors above the bank windows which face the court, and it appeared to Bristol that there was a hole in one of these, the furthermost from the corner. A tiny beam of light shone fromthe bank window on to the reflector, or from the reflector on tothe window, which circumstance in itself was not curious. Butabove the reflector, at an acute angle, this mysterious beam wasseemingly projected upward. Walking a little way up the court hesaw that it shone through, and cast a disc of light upon theceiling of an office on the first floor of Bank Chambers above. 

It is every detective's business to be observant, and althoughmany thousands of passersby must have cast their eyes in the samedirection that day, there is small matter for wonder in the factthat Bristol alone took the trouble to inquire into the mystery--forhis trained eye told him that there was a mystery here. 

Possibly he was in that passive frame of mind when the brain isparticularly receptive of trivial impressions; for after a futilesearch of the Soho cigar store for anything resembling a clue, hewas quite resigned to the idea of failure in the case of Hassan andCompany. He walked down the court and into the entrance of BankChambers. An Inspection of the board upon the wall showed him thatthe first floor apparently was occupied by three firms, two of themlegal, for this is the neighbourhood of the law courts, and thethird a press agency. He stepped up to the first floor. Past thedoors bearing the names of the solicitors and past that belongingto the press agent he proceeded to a fourth suite of offices. Here, pinned upon the door frame, appeared a card which bore thelegend--

 THE CONGO FIBRE COMPANY

Evidently the Congo Fibre Company had so recently taken possessionof the offices that there had been no time to inscribe their titleeither upon the doors or upon the board in the hall. 

Inspector Bristol was much impressed, for into one of the roomsoccupied by the Fibre Company shone that curious disc of lightwhich first had drawn his attention to Bank Chambers. He rappedon the door, turned the handle, and entered. The sole furnitureof the office in which he found himself apparently consisted ofone desk and an office stool, which stool was occupied by an officeboy. The windows opened on the court, and a door marked "Private"evidently communicated with an inner office whose windows likewisemust open on the court. It was the ceiling of this inner office, unless the detective's calculation erred, which he was anxious toinspect. 

"Yes, sir?" said the boy tentatively. 

Bristol produced a card which bore the uncompromising legend: JohnHenry Smith. 

"Take my card to Mr. Boulter, boy, " he said tersely. The boystared. 

"Mr. Boulter, sir? There isn't any one of that name here. "

"Oh!" said Bristol, looking around him in apparent surprise: "howlong is he gone?"

"I don't know, sir. I've only been here three weeks, and Mr. Knowlson only took the offices a month ago. "

"Oh, " commented Bristol, "then take my card to Mr. Knowlson; hewill probably be able to give me Mr. Boulter's present address. "

The boy hesitated. The detective had that authoritative mannerwhich awes the youthful mind. 

"He's out, sir, " he said, but without conviction. 

"Is he?" rapped Bristol. "Well, I'll leave my card. "

He turned and quitted the office, carefully closing the door behindhim. Three seconds later he reopened it, and peering in, was intime to see the boy knock upon the private door. A little wicket, or movable panel, was let down, the card of John Henry Smith waspassed through to someone unseen, and the wicket was reclosed!

The boy turned and met the wrathful eye of the detective. Bristolreentered, closing the door behind him. 

"See here, young fellow, " said he, "I don't stand for those tricks!Why didn't you tell me Mr. Knowlson was in?"

"I'm very sorry, sir!"--the boy quailed beneath his glance--"buthe won't see any one who hasn't an appointment. "

"Is there someone with him, then?"

"No. "

"Well, what's he doing?"

"I don't know, sir; I've never been in to see!"

"What! never been in that room?"

"Never!" declared the boy solemnly. "And I don't mind tellingyou, " he added, recovering something of his natural confidence, "that I am leaving on the 31st. This job ain't any use to me!"

"Too much work?" suggested Bristol. 

"No work at all!" returned the boy indignantly. "I'm just herefor a blessed buffer, that's what I'm here for, a buffer!"

"What do you mean?"

"I just have to sit here and see that nobody gets into thatoffice. Lively, ain't it? Where's the prospects?"

Bristol surveyed him thoughtfully. 

"Look here, my lad, " he said quietly; "is that door locked?"

"Always, " replied the boy. 

"Does Mr. Knowlson come to that shutter when you knock?"

"Yes. "

"Then go and knock!"

The boy obeyed with alacrity. He rapped loudly on the door, notnoticing or not caring that the visitor was standing directlybehind him. The shutter was lowered and a grizzled, bearded faceshowed for a moment through the opening. 

Bristol leant over the boy and pushed a card through into the handof the man beyond. On this occasion it did not bear the legend"John Henry Smith, " but the following--

 CHIEF INSPECTOR BRISTOL C. I. D. NEW SCOTLAND YARD

"Good afternoon, Mr. Knowlson, " said the detective dryly. "I wantto come in!"

There followed a moment of silence, from which Bristol divined thathe had blundered upon some mystery, possibly upon a big case; thena key was turned in the lock and the door thrown open. 

"Come right in, Inspector, " invited a strident voice. "Carter, youcan go home. "

Bristol entered warily, but not warily enough. For as the doorwas banged upon his entrance he faced around only in time tofind himself looking down the barrel of a Colt automatic. 

With his back to the door which contained the wicket, now reclosed, stood the man with the bearded face. The revolver was held in hisleft hand; his right arm terminated in a bandaged stump. Butwithout that his steel-gray eyes would have betrayed him to thedetective. 

"Good God!" whispered Bristol. "It's Earl Dexter!"

"It is!" replied the cracksman, "and you've looked in at a realinconvenient time! My visitors mostly seem to have that knack. I'll have to ask you to stay, Inspector. Sit down in that chairyonder. "

Bristol knew his man too well to think of opening any argument atthat time. He sat down as directed, and ignoring the revolverwhich covered him all the time, began coolly to survey the roomin which he found himself. In several respects it was anextraordinary apartment. 

The only bright patch in the room was the shining disc upon theceiling; and the detective noted with interest that this markedthe position of an arrangement of mirrors. A white-covered table, entirely bare, stood upon the floor immediately beneath thismysterious apparatus. With the exception of one or two ordinaryitems of furniture and a small hand lathe, the office otherwisewas unfurnished. Bristol turned his eyes again upon the daringman who so audaciously had trapped him--the man who had stolen theslipper of the Prophet and suffered the loss of his hand by thescimitar of an Hashishin as a result. When he had least expectedto find one, Fate had thrown a clue in Bristol's way. He reflectedgrimly that it was like to prove of little use to him. 

"Now, " said Dexter, "you can do as you please, of course, but youknow me pretty well and I advise you to sit quiet. "

"I am sitting quiet!" was the reply. 

"I am sorry, " continued Dexter, with a quick glance at his maimedarm, "that I can't tie you up, but I am expecting a friend anymoment now. "

He suddenly raised the wicket with a twitch of his elbow and, without removing his gaze from the watchful detective, criedsharply--

"Carter!"

But there was no reply. 

"Good; he's gone!"

Dexter sat down facing Bristol. 

"I have lost my hand in this game, Mr. Bristol, " he said genially, "and had some narrow squeaks of losing my head; but having gone sofar and lost so much I'm going through, if I don't meet a funeral!You see I'm up against two tough propositions. "

Bristol nodded sympathetically. 

"The first, " continued Dexter, "is you and Cavanagh, and Englishlaw generally. My idea--if I can get hold of the slipper again--oh! youneedn't stare; I'm out for it!--is to get the AntiquarianInstitution to ransom it. It's a line of commercial speculation Ihave worked successfully before. There's a dozen rich highbrows, cranks to a man, connected with it, and they are my likeliestbuyers--sure. But to keep the tone of the market healthy there'sHassan of Aleppo, rot him! He's a dangerous customer to approach, but you'll note I've been in negotiation with him already and amstill, if not booming, not much below par!"

"Quite so, " said Bristol. "But you've cut off a pretty hefty chewnevertheless. They used to call you The Stetson Man, you used todress like a fashion plate and stop at the big hotels. Those daysare past, Dexter, I'm sorry to note. You're down to the skulkinggame now and you're nearer an advert for Clarkson than Stein-Bloch!"

"Yep, " said Dexter sadly, "I plead guilty, but I think here'sCarneta!"

Bristol heard the door of the outer office open, and a moment laterthat upon which his gaze was set opened in turn, to admit a girlwho was heavily veiled, and who started and stood still in thedoorway, on perceiving the situation. Never for one unguardedmoment did the American glance aside from his prisoner. 

"The Inspector's dropped in, Carneta!" he drawled in his stridentway. "You're handy with a ball of twine; see if you can inducehim to stay the night!"

The girl, immediately recovering her composure, took off her hatin a businesslike way and began to look around her, evidently insearch of a suitable length of rope with which to fasten up Bristol. 

"Might I suggest, " said the detective, "that if you are shortlyquitting these offices a couple of the window-cords neatly joinedwould serve admirably?"

"Thanks, " drawled Dexter, nodding to his companion, who went intothe outer office, where she might be heard lowering the windows. She was gone but a few moments ere she returned again, carrying alength of knotted rope. Under cover of Dexter's revolver, Bristolstoically submitted to having his wrists tied behind him. The endof the line was then thrown through the ventilator above the doorwhich communicated with the outer office and Bristol was triced upin such a way that, his wrists being raised behind him to anuncomfortable degree, he was almost forced to stand upon tiptoe. The line was then secured. 

"Very workmanlike!" commented the victim. "You'll find a largehandkerchief in my inside breast pocket. It's a clean one, andI can recommend it as a gag!"

Very promptly it was employed for the purpose, and InspectorBristol found himself helpless and constrained in a very painfulposition. Dexter laid down his revolver. 

"We will now give you a free show, Inspector, " he said, genially, "of our camera obscura!"

He pulled down the blinds, which Bristol noted with interest to beblack, but through an opening in one of them a mysterious ray oflight--the same that he had noticed from Fleet Street--shone uponthat point in the ceiling where the arrangement of mirrors wasattached. Dexter made some alteration, apparently in the focus ofthe lens (for Bristol had divined that in some way a lens had beenfixed in the reflector above the bank window below) and the discof light became concentrated. The white-covered table was movedslightly, and in the darkness some further manipulation wasperformed. 

"Observe, " came the strident voice--"we now have upon the screenhere a minute moving picture. This little device, which is notprotected in any way, is of my own invention, and proved extremelyuseful in the Arkwright jewel case, which startled Chicago. It hasproved useful now. I know almost as much concerning thearrangements below as the manager himself. In confidence, Inspector, this is my last bid for the slipper! I have plunged on it. MadameSforza, the distinguished Italian lady who recently opened anaccount below, opened it for 500 pounds cash. She has drawn aportion, but a balance remains which I am resigned to lose. Hermotor-car (hired), her references (forged), the case of jewels whichshe deposited this morning (duds!)--all represent a considerableoutlay. It's a nerve-racking line of operation, too. Any hour ofthe day may bring such a visitor as yourself, for example. In short, I am at the end of my tether. "

Bristol, ignoring the increasing pain in his arms and wrists, turnedhis eyes upon the white-covered table and there saw a minute andclear-cut picture, such as one sees in a focussing screen, of theinterior of the manager's office of the London County and ProvincialBank!

CHAPTER XXVI

THE STRONG-ROOM

I wonder how often a sense of humour has saved a man fromdesperation? Perhaps only the Easterns have thoroughly appreciatedthat divine gift. I have interpolated the adventure of InspectorBristol in order that the sequence of my story be not broken;actually I did not learn it until later, but when, on the followingday, the whole of the facts came into my possession, I laughed andwas glad that I could laugh, for laughter has saved many a man frommadness. 

Certainly the Fates were playing with us, for at a time very nearlycorresponding with that when Bristol found himself bound andhelpless in Bank Chambers I awoke to find myself tied hand and footto my own bed! Nothing but the haziest recollections came to me atfirst, nothing but dim memories of the awful being who had lured methere; for I perceived now that all the messages proceeded, not fromBristol, but from Hassan of Aleppo! I had been a fool, and I wasreaping the fruits of my folly. Could I have known that almostwithin pistol shot of me the Inspector was trussed up as helpless asI, then indeed my situation must have become unbearable, since uponhim I relied for my speedy release. 

My ankles were firmly lashed to the rails at the foot of my bed;each of my wrists was tied back to a bedpost. I ached in every limband my head burned feverishly, which latter symptom I ascribed tothe powerful drug which had been expelled into my face by theuncanny weapon carried by Hassan of Aleppo. I reflected bitterlyhow, having transferred my quarters to the Astoria, I could not wellhope for any visitor to my chambers; and even the event of such avisitor had been foreseen and provided against by the cunning lordof the Hashishin. A gag, of the type which Dumas has described in"Twenty Years After, " the poire d'angoisse, was wedged firmly intomy mouth, so that only by preserving the utmost composure could Ibreathe. I was bathed in cold perspiration. So I lay listening tothe familiar sounds without and reflecting that it was quitepossible so to lie, undisturbed, and to die alone, my presence therewholly unsuspected!

Once, toward dusk, my phone bell rang, and my state of mind becameagonizing. It was maddening to think that someone, a friend, wasvirtually within reach of me, yet actually as far removed as if anocean divided us! I tasted the hellish torments of Tantalus. Icursed fate, heaven, everything; I prayed; I sank into bottomlessdepths of despair and rose to dizzy pinnacles of hope, when afootstep sounded on the landing and a thousand wild possibilities, vague possibilities of rescue, poured into my mind. 

The visitor hesitated, apparently outside my door; and a change, assudden as lightning out of a cloud, transformed my errant fancies. A gruesome conviction seized me, as irrational as the hope which itdisplayed, that this was one of the Hashishin--an apish yellowdwarf, a strangler, the awful Hassan himself!

The footsteps receded down the stairs. And my thoughts revertedinto the old channels of dull despair. 

I weighed the chances of Bristol's seeking me there; and, eager asI was to give them substance, found them but airy--ultimately wasforced to admit them to be nil. 

So I lay, whilst only a few hundred yards from me a singular scenewas being enacted. Bristol, a prisoner as helpless as myself, watched the concluding business of the day being conducted in thebank beneath him; he watched the lift descend to the strongroom--thespying apparatus being slightly adjusted in some way; he sawthe clerks hastening to finish their work in the outer office, andas he watched, absorbed by the novelty of the situation, he almostforgot the pain and discomfort which he suffered... 

"This little peep-show of ours has been real useful, " Dexterconfided out of the darkness. "I got an impression of the key ofthe strongroom door a week ago, and Carneta got one of the keys ofthe safe only this morning, when she lodged her box of jewellerywith the bank! I was at work on that key when you interrupted me, and as by means of this useful apparatus I have learnt thecombination, you ought to see some fun in the next few hours!"

Bristol repressed a groan, for the prospect of remaining in thatposition was thus brought keenly home to him. 

The bank staff left the premises one by one until only a solitaryclerk worked on at a back desk. His task completed, he, too, tookhis departure and the bank messenger commenced his nightly duty ofsweeping up the offices. It was then that excitement like ananaesthetic dulled the detective's pain--indeed, he forgot hisaching body and became merely a watchful intelligence. 

So intent had he become upon the picture before him that he had notnoticed the fact that he was alone in the office of the Congo FibreCompany. Now he realized it from the absolute silence about him, and from another circumstance. 

The spying apparatus had been left focussed, and on to the screenbeneath his eyes, bending low behind the desks and creeping, Indian-like, around, toward the head of the stair which communicatedwith the strongroom and the apartment used by the messenger, came thealert figure of Earl Dexter!

It may be a surprise to some people to learn that at any time inthe day the door of a bank, unguarded, should be left open, whenonly a solitary messenger is within the premises; yet for a fewminutes at least each evening this happens at more than one Citybank, where one of the duties of the resident messenger is to cleanthe outer steps. Dexter had taken advantage of the man's absencebelow in quest of scrubbing material to enter the bank through theopen door. 

Watching, breathless, and utterly forgetful of his own position, Bristol saw the messenger, all unconscious of danger, come up thestairs carrying a pail and broom. As his head reached the levelof the railings The Stetson Man neatly sand-bagged him, rushedacross to the outer door, and closed it!

Given duplicate keys and the private information which Dexter soingeniously had obtained, there are many London banks vulnerable tosimilar attack. Certainly, bullion is rarely kept in a branchstoreroom, but the detective was well aware that the keys of thecase containing the slipper were kept in this particular safe!

He was convinced, and could entertain no shadowy doubt, that atlast Dexter had triumphed. He wondered if it had ever hithertofallen to the lot of a representative of the law thus to be madean accessory to a daring felony!

But human endurance has well-defined limits. The fading lightrendered the ingenious picture dim and more dim. The painoccasioned by his position became agonizing, and uttering a stifledgroan he ceased to take an interest in the robbery of the LondonCounty and Provincial Bank. 

Fate is a comedian; and when later I learned how I had lain strappedto my bed, and, so near to me, Bristol had hung helpless as abutchered carcass in the office of the Congo Fibre Company, whilst, in our absence from the stage, the drama of the slipper marchedfeverish to its final curtain, I accorded Fate her well-earnedapplause. I laughed; not altogether mirthfully. 

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SLIPPER

Someone was breaking in at the door of my chambers!

I aroused myself from a state of coma almost death-like and listenedto the blows. The sun was streaming in at my windows. 

A splintering crash told of a panel broken. Then a moment later Iheard the grating of the lock, and a rush of footsteps along thepassage. 

"Try the study!" came a voice that sounded like Bristol's, save thatit was strangely weak and shaky. 

Almost simultaneously the Inspector himself threw open the bedroomdoor--and, very pale and haggard-eyed, stood there looking across atme. It was a scene unforgettable. 

"Mr. Cavanagh!" he said huskily--"Mr. Cavanagh! Thank God you'realive! But"--he turned--"this way, Marden!" he cried, "Untie himquickly! I've got no strength in my arms!"

Marden, a C. I. D. Man, came running, and in a minute, or less, I wassitting up gulping brandy. 

"I've had the most awful experience of my life, " said Bristol. "You've fared badly enough, but I've been hanging by my wrists--youknow Dexter's trick!--for close upon sixteen hours! I wasn'treleased until Carter, an office boy, came on the scene this morning!"

Very feebly I nodded; I could not talk. 

"The strong-room of your bank was rifled under my very eyes lastevening!" he continued, with something of his old vigour; "and fiveminutes after the Antiquarian Museum was opened to the public thismorning quite an unusual number of visitors appeared. 

"I saw the bank manager the moment he arrived, and learned a pieceof news that positively took my breath away! I was at the Museumseven minutes later and got another shock! There in the case wasthe red slipper!"

"Then, " I whispered-"it hadn't been stolen?"

"Wrong! It had! This was a duplicate, as Mostyn, the curator, sawat a glance! Some of the early visitors--they were Easterns--hadquite surrounded the case. They were watched, of course, but anynumber of Orientals come to see the thing; and, short of smashingthe glass, which would immediately attract attention, the authoritieswere unprepared, of course, for any attempt. Anyway, they weretricked. Somebody opened the case. The real slipper of the Prophetis gone!"

"They told you at the bank--"

"That you had withdrawn the keys! If Dexter had known that!"

"Hassan of Aleppo took them from me last night! At last theHashishin have triumphed. "

Bristol sank into the armchair. 

"Every port is watched, " he said. "But--"

CHAPTER XXVIII

CARNETA

"I am entirely at your mercy; you can do as you please with me. Butbefore you do anything I should like you to listen to what I haveto say. "

Her beautiful face was pale and troubled. Violet eyes looked sadlyinto mine. 

"For nearly an hour I have been waiting for this chance--until Iknew you were alone, " she continued. "If you are thinking of givingme up to the police, at least remember that I came here of my ownfree will. Of course, I know you are quite entitled to takeadvantage of that; but please let me say what I came to say!"

She pleaded so hard, with that musical voice, with her evidenthelplessness, most of all with her wonderful eyes, that I quiteabandoned any project I might have entertained to secure her arrest. I think she divined this masculine weakness, for she said, withgreater confidence--

"Your friend, Professor Deeping, was murdered by the man calledHassan of Aleppo. Are you content to remain idle while his murdererescapes?"

God knows I was not. My idleness in the matter was none of mychoosing. Since poor Deeping's murder I had come to handgripswith the assassins more than once, but Hassan had proved too cleverfor me, too clever for Scotland Yard. The sacred slipper was oncemore in the hands of its fanatic guardian. 

One man there was who might have helped the search, Earl Dexter. But Earl Dexter was himself wanted by Scotland Yard!

From the time of the bank affair up to the moment when thisbeautiful visitor had come to my chambers I had thought Dexter, aswell as Hassan, to have fled secretly from England. But the momentthat I saw Carneta at my door I divined that The Stetson Man muststill be in London. 

She sat watching me and awaiting my answer. 

"I cannot avenge my friend unless I can find his murderer. "

Eagerly she bent forward. 

"But if I can find him?"

That made me think, and I hesitated before speaking again. 

"Say what you came to say, " I replied slowly. "You must know thatI distrust you. Indeed, my plain duty is to detain you. But I willlisten to anything you may care to tell me, particularly if itenables me to trap Hassan of Aleppo. "

"Very well, " she said, and rested her elbows upon the table beforeher. "I have come to you in desperation. I can help you to findthe man who murdered Professor Deeping, but in return I want you tohelp me!"

I watched her closely. She was very plainly, almost poorly, dressed. Her face was pale and there were dark marks around her eyes. Thisbut served to render their strange beauty more startling; yet Icould see that my visitor was in real trouble. The situation was anodd one. 

"You are possibly about to ask me, " I suggested, "to assist EarlDexter to escape the police?"

She shook her head. Her voice trembled as she replied--

"That would not have induced me to run the risk of coming here. Icame because I wanted to find a man who was brave enough to help me. We have no friends in London, and so it became a question of terms. I can repay you by helping you to trace Hassan. "

"What is it, then, that Dexter asks me to do?"

"He asks nothing. I, Carneta, am asking!"

"Then you are not come from him?"

At my question, all her self-possession left her. She abruptlydropped her face into her hands and was shaken with sobs! It wasmore than I could bear, unmoved. I forgot the shady past, forgotthat she was the associate of a daring felon, and could only realizethat she was a weeping woman, who had appealed to my pity and whoasked my aid. 

I stood up and stared out of the window, for I experienced a notunnatural embarrassment. Without looking at her I said--

"Don't be afraid to tell me your troubles. I don't say I should goout of my way to be kind to Mr. Dexter, but I have no wish whateverto be instrumental in"--I hesitated--"in making you responsiblefor his misdeeds. If you can tell me where to find Hassan ofAleppo, I won't even ask you where Dexter is--"

"God help me! I don't know where he is!"

There was real, poignant anguish in her cry. I turned andconfronted her. Her lashes were all wet with tears. 

"What! has he disappeared?"

She nodded, fought with her emotion a moment, and went on unsteadily, "I want you to help me to find him for in finding him we shall findHassan!"

"How so?"

Her gaze avoided me now. 

"Mr. Cavanagh, he has staked everything upon securing the slipper--andthe Hashishin were too clever for him. His hand--thoseEastern fiends cut off his hand! But he would not give in. Hemade another bid--and lost again. It left him almost penniless. "

She spoke of Earl Dexter's felonious plans as another woman mighthave spoken of her husband's unwise investments! It was fantastichearing that confession of The Stetson Man's beautiful partner, andI counted the interview one of the strangest I had ever known. 

A sudden idea came to me. "When did Dexter first conceive the planto steal the slipper?" I asked. 

"In Egypt!" answered Carneta. "Yes! You may as well know! He isthoroughly familiar with the East, and he learned of the robbery ofProfessor Deeping almost as soon as it became known to Hassan. Iknow what you are going to ask--"

"Ahmad Ahmadeen!"

"Yes! He travelled home as Ahmadeen--the only time he ever useda disguise. Oh! the thing is accursed!" she cried. "I begged him, implored him, to abandon his attempts upon it. Day and night wewere watched by those ghastly yellow men! But it was all in vain. He knew, had known for a long time, where Hassan of Aleppo was inhiding!"

And I reflected that the best men at New Scotland Yard had failedto pick up the slightest clue!

"The Hashishin, of whom that dreadful man is leader, are rich, orhave supporters who are rich. The plan was to make them pay forthe slipper. "

"My God! it was playing with fire!"

She sat silent awhile. Emotion threatened to get the upper hand. Then--

"Two days ago, " she almost whispered, "he set out--to ... Get theslipper!"

"To steal it?"

"To steal it!"

"From Hassan of Aleppo?"

I could scarcely believe that any man, single-handed, could havehad the hardihood to attempt such a thing. 

"From Hassan, yes!"

I faced her, amazed, incredulous. 

"Dexter had suffered mutilation, he knew that the Hashishin soughthis 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 handsand leapt from the chair, fighting down her grief and with such astark horror in her beautiful eyes that from my very soul I longedto be able to help her. 

"Mr. Cavanagh" (she had courage, this bewildering accomplice of acracksman), "I know the house he went to! I cannot hope to make youunderstand what I have suffered since then. A thousand times I havebeen on the point of going to the police, confessing all I knew, andleading them to that house! O God! if only he is alive, this shallbe his last crooked deal--and mine! I dared not go to the police, for his sake! I waited, and watched, and hoped, through two suchnights and days ... Then I ventured. I should have gone mad if Ihad 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. Notas great, O heaven! not as great as mine, but yet a great one. Iremembered, too, that you were the kind of man--a woman can cometo... "

She sank back into the chair, and with her fingers twining anduntwining, sat looking dully before her. 

"In brief, " I said, "what do you propose?"

"I propose that we endeavour to obtain admittance to the house ofHassan of Aleppo--secretly, of course, and all I ask of you inreturn 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 alaw-abiding citizen. I was asked to connive in the escape of anotorious criminal, and at one and the same time to embark upon anexpedition patently burglarious! As though this were not enough, I was invited to beard Hassan of Aleppo, the most dreadful being Ihad ever encountered East or West, in his mysterious stronghold!

I wondered what my friend, Inspector Bristol, would have thought ofthe project; I wondered if I should ever live to see Hassan meet hisjust deserts as a result of this enterprise, which I was forced toadmit a foolhardy one. But a man who has selected the career of awar correspondent from amongst those which Fleet Street offers, isthe 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 andlooked 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 cameout upon Watling Street, white and dusty beneath the afternoon sun. We were less than an hour's train journey from London but foundourselves amid the Kentish hop gardens, amid a rural peace unbroken. My companion carried a camera case slung across her shoulder, butits contents were less innocent than one might have supposed. Infact, it contained a neat set of those instruments of the burglar'sart with whose use she appeared to be quite familiar. 

"There is an inn, " she said, "about a mile ahead, where we canobtain some vital information. He last wrote to me from there. "

Side by side we tramped along the dusty road. We both were silent, occupied with our own thoughts. Respecting the nature of mycompanion's I could entertain little doubt, and my own turned uponthe foolhardy nature of the undertaking upon which I was embarked. No other word passed between us then, until upon rounding a bendand passing a cluster of picturesque cottages, the yard of theVinepole came into view. 

"Do they know you by sight here?" I asked abruptly. 

"No, of course not; we never made strategic mistakes of that kind. If we have tea here, no doubt we can learn all we require. "

I entered the little parlour of the inn, and suggested that teashould be served in the pretty garden which opened out of it uponthe right. 

The host, who himself laid the table, viewed the camera casecritically. 

"We get a lot of photographers down here, " he remarked tentatively. 

"No doubt, " said my companion. "There is some very pretty sceneryin the neighbourhood. "

The landlord rested his hands upon the table. 

"There was a gentleman here on Wednesday last, " he said; "an oldgentleman who had met with an accident, and was staying somewherehereabouts for his health. But he'd got his camera with him, andit was wonderful the way he could use it, considering he hadn't gotthe use of his right hand. "

"He must have been a very keen photographer, " I said, glancing atthe girl beside me. 

"He took three or four pictures of the Vinepole, " replied thelandlord (which I doubted, since probably his camera was a dummy);"and he wanted to know if there were any other old houses in theneighbourhood. I told him he ought to take Cadham Hall, and he saidhe had heard that the Gate House, which is about a mile from here, was one of the oldest buildings about. "

A girl appeared with a tea tray, and for a moment I almost fearedthat the landlord was about to retire; but he lingered, whilst thegirl distributed the things about the table, and Carneta askedcasually, "Would there be time for me to photograph the Gate Housebefore dark?"

"There might be time, " was the reply, "but that's not the difficulty. Mr. Isaacs is the difficulty. "

"Who is Mr. Isaacs?" I asked. 

"He's the Jewish gentleman who bought the Gate House recently. Lotsof money he's got and a big motor car. He's up and down to Londonalmost every day in the week, but he won't let anybody takephotographs of the house. I know several who've asked. "

"But I thought, " said Carneta, innocently, "you said the oldgentleman who was here on Wednesday went to take some?"

"He went, yes, miss; but I don't know if he succeeded. "

Carneta poured out some tea. 

"Now that you speak of it, " she said, "I too have heard that theGate House is very picturesque. What objection can Mr. Isaacshave to photographers?"

"Well, you see, miss, to get a picture of the house, you have topass right through the grounds. "

"I should walk right up to the house and ask permission. Is Mr. Isaacs at home, I wonder?"

"I couldn't say. He hasn't passed this way to-day. "

"We might meet him on the way, " said I. "What is he like?"

"A Jewish gentleman sir, very dark, with a white beard. Wearsgold glasses. Keeps himself very much to himself. I don't knowanything about his household; none of them ever come here. "

Carneta inquired the direction of Cadham Hall and of the Gate House, and the landlord left us to ourselves. My companion exhibitedsigns of growing agitation, and it seemed to me that she had muchado to restrain herself from setting out without a moment's delayfor the Gate House, which, I readily perceived, was the place towhich our strange venture was leading us. 

I found something very stimulating in the reflection that, rashthough the expedition might be, and, viewed from whatever standpoint, undeniably perilous, it promised to bring me to that secretstronghold of deviltry where the sinister Hassan of Aleppo sosuccessfully had concealed himself. 

The work of the modern journalist had many points of contact withthat of the detective; and since the murder of Professor Deeping Ihad succumbed to the man-hunting fever more than once. I knew thatScotland Yard had failed to locate the hiding-place of theremarkable and evil man who, like an efreet of Oriental lore, obeyedthe talisman of the stolen slipper, striking down whomsoever laidhand upon its sacredness. It was a novel sensation to know that, aided by this beautiful accomplice of a rogue, I had succeeded wherethe experts had failed!

Misgivings I had and shall not deny. If our scheme succeeded itwould mean that Deeping's murderer should be brought to justice. If it failed-well, frankly, upon that possibility I did not dare toreflect!

It must be needless for me to say that we two strangely met allieswere ill at ease, sometimes to the point of embarrassment. Weproceeded on our way in almost unbroken silence, and, save for acouple of farm hands, without meeting any wayfarer, up to the timethat we reached the brow of the hill and had our first sight of theGate House lying in a little valley beneath. It was a small Tudormansion, very compact in plan and its roof glowed redly in therays of the now setting sun. 

From the directions given by the host of the Vinepole it wasimpossible to mistake the way or to mistake the house. Amidwell-wooded grounds it stood, a place quite isolated, but sotypically English that, as I stood looking down upon it, I foundmyself unable to believe that any other than a substantial countrygentleman could be its proprietor. 

I glanced at Carneta. Her violet eyes were burning feverishly, buther lips twitched in a bravely pitiful way. 

Clearly now my adventure lay before me; that red-roofed homesteadseemed to have rendered it all substantial which hitherto had beenshadowy; and I stood there studying the Gate House gravely, for itmight yet swallow me up, as apparently it had swallowed Earl Dexter. 

There, amid that peaceful Kentish landscape, fantasy danced andhorrors unknown lurked in waiting... 

The eminence upon which we were commanded an extensive prospect, and eastward showed a tower and flagstaff which marked the site ofCadham Hall. There were homeward-bound labourers to be seen in thelanes now, and where like a white ribbon the Watling Street layacross the verdant carpet moved an insect shape, speedily. 

It was a car, and I watched it with vague interest. At a pointwhere a dense coppice spread down to the roadway and a lane crossedwest to east, the car became invisible. Then I saw it again, nearerto us and nearer to the Gate House. Finally it disappeared amongthe trees. 

I turned to Carneta. She, too, had been watching. Now her gaze metmine. 

"Mr. Isaacs!" she said; and her voice was less musical than usual. "His chauffeur, who learned his business in Cairo, is probably theonly one of his servants who remains in England. "

"What!" I began--and said no more. 

Where the road upon which we stood wound down into the valley andlost itself amid the trees surrounding the Gate House, the carsuddenly appeared again, and began to mount the slope toward us!

"Heavens!" whispered Carneta. "He may have seen us--with glasses!Quick! Let us walk back until the hill-top conceals us; then wemust hide somewhere!"

I shared her excitement. Without a moment's hesitation we bothturned and retraced our steps. Twenty paces brought us to aspot where a stack of mangel wurzels stood at the roadside. 

"This will do!" I said. 

We ran around into the field, and crouched where we could peer outon the road without ourselves being seen. Nor had we taken up thisposition a moment too soon. 

Topping the slope came a light-weight electric, driven by a man who, in his spruce uniform, might have passed at a glance for a verydusky European. The car had a limousine back, and as the chauffeurslowed down, out from the open windows right and left peered thesolitary occupant. 

He had the cast of countenance which is associated with the besttype of Jew, with clear-cut aquiline features wholly destitute ofgrossness. His white beard was patriarchal and he wore gold-rimmedpince-nez and a glossy silk hat. Such figures may often be metwith in the great money-markets of the world, and Mr. Isaacs wouldhave passed for a successful financier in even more discerningcommunities than that of Cadham. 

But I scarcely breathed until the car was past; and, beside me, mycompanion, crouching to the ground, was trembling wildly. Fiftyyards toward the village Mr. Isaacs evidently directed the man toreturn. 

The car was put about, and flashed past us at high speed down intothe valley. When the sound of the humming motor had died tosomething no louder than the buzz of a sleepy wasp, I held out myhand to Carneta and she rose, pale, but with blazing eyes, andpicked up her camera case. 

"If he had detected us, everything would have been lost!" shewhispered. 

"Not everything!" I replied grimly--and showed her the revolverwhich I had held in my hand whilst those eagle eyes had beenseeking us. "If he had made a sign to show that he had seen us, infact, if he had once offered a safe mark by leaning from the car, Ishould have shot him dead without hesitation!"

"We must not show ourselves again, but wait for dusk. He must haveseen us, then, on the hilltop, but I hope without recognizing us. He has the sight and instincts of a vulture!"

I nodded, slipping the revolver into my pocket, but I wondered if Ishould not have been better advised to have risked a shot at themoment that I had recognized "Mr. Isaacs" for Hassan of Aleppo. 

CHAPTER XXX

AT THE GATE HOUSE

From sunset to dusk I lurked about the neighbourhood of the GateHouse with my beautiful accomplice--watching and waiting: a manbound upon stranger business, I dare swear, than any other in thecounty of Kent that night. 

Our endeavour now was to avoid observation by any one, and in this, I think, we succeeded. At the same time, Carneta, upon whoseexperience I relied implicitly, regarded it as most important thatwe should observe (from a safe distance) any one who entered orquitted the gates. 

But none entered, and none came out. When, finally, we made alongthe narrow footpath skirting the west of the grounds, the night wassilent--most strangely still. 

The trees met overhead, but no rustle disturbed their leaves and ofanimal life no indication showed itself. There was no moon. 

A full appreciation of my mad folly came to me, and with it a senseof heavy depression. This stillness that ruled all about the housewhich sheltered the awful Sheikh of the Assassins was ominous, Ithought. In short, my nerves were playing me tricks. 

"We have little to fear, " said my companion, speaking in a hushedand quivering voice. "The whole of the party left England somedays ago. "

"Are you sure?"

"Certain! We learned that before Earl made his attempt. Hassanremains, for some reason; Hassan and one other--the one who drivesthe car. "

"But the slipper?"

"If Hassan remains, so does the slipper!" From the knapsack, which, as you will have divined, did not contain a camera, she took out anelectric pocket lamp, and directed its beam upon the hedge above us. 

"There is a gap somewhere here!" she said. "See if you can find it. I dare not show the light too long. "

Darkness followed. I clambered up the bank and sought for theopening of which Carneta had spoken. 

"The light here a moment, " I whispered. "I think I have it!"

Out shone the white beam, and momentarily fell upon a black hole inthe thickset hedge. The light disappeared, and as I extended myhand to Carneta she grasped it and climbed up beside me. 

"Put on your rubber shoes, " she directed. "Leave the others here. "

There in the darkness I did as she directed, for I was provided witha pair of tennis shoes. Carneta already was suitably shod. 

"I will go first, " I said. "What is the ground like beyond?"

"Just unkempt bushes and weeds. "

Upon hands and knees I crawled through, saw dimly that there was ashort descent, corresponding with the ascent from the lane, andturned, whispering to my fellow conspirator to follow. 

The grounds proved even more extensive than I had anticipated. Wepressed on, dodging low-sweeping branches and keeping our arms up toguard our faces from outshoots of thorn bushes. Our progressnecessarily was slow, but even so quite a long time seemed to haveelapsed ere we came in sight of the house. 

This was my first expedition of the kind; and now that my goal wasactually in sight I became conscious of a sort of exultation hardto describe. My companion, on the contrary, seemed to have becomeicily cool. When next she spoke, her voice had a businesslike ring, which revealed the fact that she was no amateur at this class ofwork. 

"Wait here, " she directed. "I am going to pass all around thehouse, and I will rejoin you. "

I could see her but dimly, and she moved off as silent as an Indiandeer-stalker, leaving me alone there crouching at the extreme edgeof the thicket. I looked out over a small wilderness of unkemptflower-beds; so much it was just possible to perceive. The plantsin many instances had spread on to the pathways and contestedsurvival with the flourishing weeds. All was wild--deserted--eerie. 

A sense of dampness assailed me, and I raised my eyes to thelow-lying building wherein no light showed, no sign of life wasevident. The nearer wing presented a verandah apparently overgrownby some climbing plant, the nature of which it was impossible todetermine in the darkness. 

The zest for the nocturnal operation which temporarily had thrilledme succumbed now to loneliness. With keen anxiety I awaited thereturn of my more experienced accomplice. The situation wasgrotesque, utterly bizarre; but even my sense of humour could notsave me from the growing dread which this seemingly deserted placepoured into my heart. 

When upon the right I heard a faint rustling I started, and graspedthe revolver in my pocket. 

"Not a sound!" came in Carneta's voice. "Keep just inside thebushes and come this way. There is something I want to show you. "

The various profuse growths rendered concealment simple enough--ifindeed any other concealment were necessary than that which thestrangely black night afforded. Just within the evil-smellingthicket we made a half circuit of the building, and stopped. 

"Look!" whispered Carneta. 

The word was unnecessary, for I was staring fixedly in the directionof that which evidently had occasioned her uneasiness. 

It was a small square window, so low-set that I assumed it to bethat of a cellar, and heavily cross-barred. 

From it, out upon a tangled patch of vegetation, shone a dull redlight!

"There's no other light in the place, " my companion whispered. "For God's sake, what can it be?"

My mind supplied no explanation. The idea that it might be a darkroom no doubt was suggested by the assumed role of Carneta; but Iknew that idea to be absurd. The red light meant something else. 

Evidently the commencing of operations before all lights were outwas irregular, for Carneta said slowly--

"We must wait and watch the light. There was formerly a moataround the Gate House; that must be the window of a dungeon. "

I little relished the prospect of waiting in that swamp-like spot, but since no alternative presented itself I accepted the inevitable. For close upon an hour we stood watching the red window. No soundof bird, beast, or man disturbed our vigil; in fact, it wouldappear that the very insects shunned the neighbourhood of Hassan ofAleppo. But the red light still shone out. 

"We must risk it!" said Carneta steadily. "There are French windowsopening on to that verandah. Ten yards farther around the bushescome right up to the wall of the house. We'll go that way andaround by the other wing on to the verandah. "

Any action was preferable to this nerve-sapping delay, and with adetermination to shoot, and shoot to kill, any one who opposedour entrance, I passed through the bushes and, with Carneta, roundedthe southern border of that silent house and slipped quietly on tothe verandah. 

Kneeling, Carneta opened the knapsack. My eyes were growingaccustomed to the darkness, and I was just able to see her defthands at work upon the fastenings. She made no noise, and Iwatched her with an ever-growing wonder. A female burglar is apersonage difficult to imagine. Certainly, no one ever could havesuspected this girl with the violet eyes of being an expertcrackswoman; but of her efficiency there could be no question. Ithink I had never witnessed a more amazing spectacle than that ofthis cultured girl manipulating the tools of the house breaker withher slim white fingers. 

Suddenly she turned and clutched my arm. 

"The windows are not fastened!" she whispered. 

A strange courage came to me--perhaps that of desperation. For, ignoring the ominous circumstance, I pushed open the nearestwindow and stepped into the room beyond! A hissing breath fromCarneta acknowledged my performance, and she entered close behindme, silent in her rubber-soled shoes. 

For one thrilling moment we stood listening. Then came the whitebeam from the electric lamp to cut through the surrounding blackness. 

The room was totally unfurnished!

CHAPTER XXXI

THE POOL OF DEATH

Not a sound broke the stillness of the Gate House. It was the mosteerily silent place in which I had ever found myself. Out into thecorridor 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 whichthey opened bare and deserted. Then we came upon a short, descendingstair, at its foot a massive oaken door. 

Carneta glided down, noiseless as a ghost, and to one of theblackened panels applied an ingenious little instrument which shecarried in her knapsack. It was not unlike a stethoscope; and as Iwatched her listening, by means of this arrangement, for any soundbeyond the oaken door, I reflected how almost every advance made byscience places a new tool in the hand of the criminal. 

No word had been spoken since we had discovered this door; none hadbeen necessary. For we both knew that the place beyond was thatfrom which proceeded the mysterious red light. 

I directed the ray of the electric torch upon Carneta, as she stoodthere listening, and against that sombre oaken background her faceand profile stood out with startling beauty. She seemed halfperplexed and half fearful. Then she abruptly removed the apparatus, and, stooping to the knapsack, replaced it and took out a bunch ofwire keys, signing to me to hand her the lamp. 

As I crept down the steps I saw her pause, glancing back over hershoulder toward the door. The expression upon her face inducedme 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 momentthan this. The house which we were come prepared burglariouslyto enter was thrown open, it would seem, to us, inviting ourinspection!

Looking back upon that moment, it seems almost incredible that thesight of a key in a lock should have so thrilled me. But at thetime I perceived something sinister in this failure of the Lord ofthe Hashishin to close his doors to intruders. That Carneta sharedmy doubts and fears was to be read in her face; but her traininghad been peculiar, I learned, and such as establishes a surprisingresoluteness of character. 

Quite noiselessly she turned the key, and holding a dainty pocketrevolver in her hand, pushed the door open slowly!

An odour, sickly sweet and vaguely familiar, was borne to mynostrils. Carneta became outlined in dim, reddish light. Bendingforward slightly, she entered the room, and I, with muscles tensednervously, advanced and stood beside her. 

I perceived that this was a cellar; indeed, I doubt not that insome past age it had served as a dungeon. From the stone roof hungthe first evidence of Eastern occupation which the Gate House hadyielded; in the form of an Oriental lantern, or fanoos, ofrose-coloured waxed paper upon a copper frame. Its vague lightrevealed the interior of the hideous place upon whose threshold westood. 

Straight before us, deep set in the stone wall, was the tiny squarewindow, iron-barred without, and glazed with red glass, the lightfrom 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 thatmoment, claimed our undivided attention the sight of which sowrought 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. 

A few inches from our feet the floor became depressed, how deeplyI could not determine, for it was filled with water, water filthyand slimy! The strange, nauseating odour had grown all butunsupportable; it seemingly proceeded from this fetid pool which, occupying the floor of the dungeon, offered a barrier, since itsdepth was unknown, of fully twelve feet between ourselves and thefarther wall. 

There was a faint, dripping sound: a whispering, echoing drip-dripof falling water. I could not tell from whence it proceeded. 

Almost supporting my companion, whose courage seemed suddenly tohave failed her, I stared fascinatedly at that blood-stainedrelic. Something then induced me to look behind; I suppose awarning instinct of that sort which is unexplainable. I only knowthat upholding Carneta with my left arm, and nervously grasping myrevolver in my right, I turned and glanced over my shoulder. 

Very slowly, but with a constant, regular motion, the massive doorwas closing!

I snatched away my arm; in my left hand I held the electric torch, and springing sharply about I directed the searching ray into theblack gap of the stairway. A yellow face, a malignant Orientalface, came suddenly, fully, into view! Instantly I recognized itfor that of the man who had driven Hassan's car!

Acting upon the determination with which I had entered the GateHouse, I raised my revolver and fired straight between the evileyes! To the fact that I dropped my left hand in the act ofpulling the trigger with my right, and thus lost my mark, theservant of Hassan of Aleppo owed his escape. I missed him. Heuttered a shrill cry of fear and went racing up the wooden stair. I followed him with the light and fired twice at the retreatingfigure. I heard him stumble and a second time cry out. But, though I doubt not he was hit, he recovered himself, for I heardhis tread in the corridor above. 

Propping wide the door with my foot, I turned to Carneta. Herface was drawn and haggard; but her mouth set in a sort of grimdetermination. 

"Earl is dead!" she said, in a queer, toneless voice. "He diedtrying to get--that thing! I will get it, and destroy it!"

Before I could detain her, even had I sought to do so, she steppedinto the filthy water, struggled to recover her foothold, and sankabove her waist into its sliminess. Without hesitation she beganto advance toward the niche which contained the slipper. In themiddle of the pool she stopped. 

What memory it was which supplied the clue to the identity of thatnauseating smell, heaven alone knows; but as the girl stopped anddrew herself up rigidly--then turned and leapt wildly back towardthe door--I knew what occasioned that sickly odour!

She screamed once, dreadfully--shrilly--a scream of agonizingfear that I can never forget. Then, roughly I grasped her, for theneed was urgent--and dragged her out on to the floor beside me. With her wet garments clinging to her limbs, she fell prostrate onthe stones. 

A yard from the brink the slimy water parted, and the yellow snoutof a huge crocodile was raised above the surface! The saurian eyes, hungrily malevolent, rose next to view!

The extremity of our danger found me suddenly cool. As the thingdrew its slimy body up out of the poor I waited. The jaws wereextended toward the prostrate body, were but inches removed fromit, dripped their saliva upon the soddened skirt--when I bentforward, and at a range of some ten inches emptied the remainingthree loaded chambers of my revolver into the creature's lefteye!

Upchurned in bloody foam became the water of that dreadful place.... As one recalls the incidents of a fevered dream, I recalldragging Carneta away from the contorted body of the death-strickenreptile. A nightmare chaos of horrid, revolting sights and soundsforms my only recollection of quitting the dungeon of the slipper. 

I succeeded in carrying her up the stairs and out through the emptyrooms on to the verandah; but there, from sheer exhaustion, I laidher down. I had no means of reviving her and I lacked the strengthto carry her farther. Having recharged my revolver, I stood watchingher where she lay, wanly beautiful in the dim light. 

There was no doubt in my mind respecting the fate of Earl Dexter, nor could I doubt that the slipper in the dungeon below was aduplicate of the real one. It was a death-trap into which he hadlured Dexter and which he had left baited for whomsoever might tracethe cracksman to the Gate House. Why Hassan should have remainedbehind, unless from fanatic lust of killing, I could not imagine. 

When at last the fresher night air had its effect, and Carnetaopened her eyes, I led her to the gates, nor did she offer theslightest resistance, but looked dully before her, muttering overand over again, "Earl, Earl!"

The gates were open; we passed out on to the open road. No manpursued us, and the night was gravely still. 

CHAPTER XXXII

SIX GRAY PATCHES

When the invitation came from my old friend Hilton to spend a week"roughing it" with him in Warwickshire I accepted with alacrity. If ever a man needed a holiday I was that man. Nervous breakdownthreatened me at any moment; the ghastly experience at the GateHouse together with Carneta's grief-stricken face when I hadparted from her were obsessing memories which I sought in vain toshake off. 

A brief wire had contained the welcome invitation, and up to thetime when I had received it I had been unaware that Hilton wasback in England. Moreover, beyond the fact that his house, "Uplands, " was near H--, for which I was instructed to change atNew Street Station, Birmingham, I had little idea of its location. But he added "Wire train and will meet at H--"; so that I had nouneasiness on that score. 

I had contemplated catching the 2:45 from Euston, but by the timeI had got my work into something like order, I decided that the6:55 would be more suitable and decided to dine on the train. 

Altogether, there was something of a rush and hustle attendant upongetting away, and when at last I found myself in the cab, bound forEuston, I sat back with a long-drawn sigh. The quest of the Prophet'sslipper was ended; in all probability that blood-stained relic wasalready Eastward bound. Hassan of Aleppo, its awful guardian, hadtriumphed and had escaped retribution. Earl Dexter was dead. Icould not doubt that; for the memory of his beautiful accomplice, Carneta, as I last had seen her, broken-hearted, with her greatviolet eyes dulled in tearless agony--have I not said that it livedwith me?

Even as the picture of her lovely, pale face presented itself to mymind, the cab was held up by a temporary block in the traffic--andmy imagination played me a strange trick. 

Another taxi ran close alongside, almost at the moment that thepress of vehicles moved on again. Certainly, I had no more than apassing glimpse of the occupants; but I could have sworn that violeteyes looked suddenly into mine, and with equal conviction I couldhave sworn to the gaunt face of the man who sat beside theviolet-eyed girl for that of Earl Dexter!

The travellers, however, were immediately lost to sight in the rear, and I was left to conjecture whether this had been a not uncommonform of optical delusion or whether I had seen a ghost. 

At any rate, as I passed in between the big pillars, "The gatewayof the North, " I scrutinized, and closely, the numerous hurryingfigures about me. None of them, by any stretch of the imagination, could have been set down for that of Dexter, The Stetson Man. Nodoubt, I concluded, I had been tricked by a chance resemblance. 

Having dispatched my telegram, I boarded the 6:55. I thought Ishould have the compartment to myself, and so deep in reverie wasI that the train was actually clear of the platforms ere I learnedthat I had a companion. He must have joined me at the moment thatthe train started. Certainly, I had not seen him enter. But, suddenly looking up, I met the eyes of this man who occupied thecorner seat facing me. 

This person was olive-skinned, clean-shaven, fine featured, andperfectly groomed. His age might have been anything from twenty-fiveto forty-five, but his hair and brows were jet black. His eyes, too, were nearer to real black than any human eyes I had ever seenbefore--excepting the awful eyes of Hassan of Aleppo. Hassan ofAleppo! It was, to that hour, a mystery how his group of trainedassassins--the Hashishin--had quitted England. Since none of themwere known to the police, it was no insoluble mystery, I admit; butnevertheless it was singular that the careful watching of the portshad yielded no result. Could it be that some of them had not yetleft the country? Could it be--

I looked intently into the black eyes. They were caressing, smilingeyes, and looked boldly into mine. I picked up a magazine, pretending to read. But I supported it with my left hand; my rightwas in my coat pocket--and it rested upon my Smith and Wesson!

So much had the slipper of Mohammed done for me: I went in hourlydread of murderous attack!

My travelling companion watched me; of that I was certain. I couldfeel his gaze. But he made no move and no word passed between us. This was the situation when the train slowed into Northampton. AtNorthampton, to my indescribable relief (frankly, I was as nervousin those days as a woman), the Oriental traveller stepped out on tothe platform. 

Having reclosed the door, he turned and leaned in through the openwindow. 

"Evidently you are not concerned, Mr. Cavanagh, " he said. "Bewarned. Do not interfere with those that are!"

The night swallowed him up. 

My fears had been justified; the man was one of the Hashishin--aspy of Hassan of Aleppo! What did it mean?

I craned from the window, searching the platform right and left. But there was no sign of him. 

When the train left Northampton I found myself alone, and I shouldonly weary you were I to attempt to recount the troubled conjecturesthat bore me company to Birmingham. 

The train reached New Street at nine, with the result that havinggulped a badly needed brandy and soda in the buffet, I grabbed mybag, raced across--and just missed the connection! More than anhour later I found myself standing at ten minutes to eleven uponthe H-- platform, watching the red taillight of the "local"disappear into the night. Then I realized to the full that withfour miles of lonely England before me there hung above my head amysterious threat--a vague menace. The solitary official, whobut waited my departure to lock up the station, was the lastrepresentative of civilization I could hope to encounter until thegates of "Uplands" should be opened to me!

What was the matter with which I was warned not to interfere? MightI not, by my mere presence in that place, unwittingly be interferingnow?

With the station-master's directions humming like a refrain in myears, I passed through the sleeping village and out on to the road. The moon was exceptionally bright and unobscured, although a densebank of cloud crept slowly from the west, and before me the pathstretched as an unbroken thread of silvery white twining a sinuousway up the bracken-covered slope, to where, sharply defined againstthe moonlight sky, a coppice in grotesque silhouette marked thesummit. 

The month had been dry and tropically hot, and my footsteps rangcrisply upon the hard ground. There is nothing more deceptivethan a straight road up a hill; and half an hour's steady trampingbut saw me approaching the trees. 

I had so far resolutely endeavoured to keep my mind away from theidea of surveillance. Now, as I paused to light my pipe--anever-failing friend in loneliness--I perceived something move inthe shadows of a neighbouring bush. 

This object was not unlike a bladder, and the very incongruity ofits appearance served to revive all my apprehensions. Taking upmy grip, as though I had noticed nothing of an alarming nature, Ipursued my way up the slope, leaving a trail of tobacco smoke in mywake; and having my revolver secreted up my right coat-sleeve. 

Successfully resisting a temptation to glance behind, I entered thecover of the coppice, and, now invisible to any one who might bedogging me, stood and looked back upon the moon-bright road. 

There was no living thing in sight, the road was empty as far as theeye could see. The coppice now remained to be negotiated, and then, if the station-master's directions were not at fault, "Uplands"should be visible beyond. Taking, therefore, what I had designed tobe a final glance back down the hillside, I was preparing to resumemy way when I saw something--something that arrested me. 

It was a long way behind--so far that, had the moon been lessbright, I could never have discerned it. What it was I could noteven conjecture; but it had the appearance of a vague gray patch, moving--not along the road, but through the undergrowth--in mydirection. 

For a second my eye rested upon it. Then I saw a second patch--athird--a fourth!

Six!

There were six gray patches creeping up the slope toward me!

The sight was unnerving. What were these things that approached, silently, stealthily--like snakes in the grass?

A fear, unlike anything I had known before the quest of the Prophet'sslipper had brought fantastic horror into my life, came upon me. Revolver in hand I ran--ran for my life toward the gap in the treesthat marked the coppice end. And as I went something hummed throughthe darkness beside my head, some projectile, some venomous thing thatmissed its mark by a bare inch!

Painfully conversant with the uncanny weapons employed by theHashishin, I knew now, beyond any possibility of doubt, that deathwas behind me. 

A pattering like naked feet sounded on the road, and, withoutpausing in my headlong career, I sent a random shot into theblackness. 

The crack of the Smith and Wesson reassured me. I pulled up short, turned, and looked back toward the trees. 

Nothing--no one!

Breathing heavily, I crammed my extinguished briar into mypocket--re-charged the empty chamber of the revolver--and started torun again toward a light that showed over the treetops to my left. 

That, if the man's directions were right, was "Uplands"--if hisdirections were wrong--then... 

A shrill whistle--minor, eerie, in rising cadence--sounded on thedead silence with piercing clearness! Six whistles--seeminglyfrom all around me--replied!

Some object came humming through the air, and I ducked wildly. 

On and on I ran--flying from an unknown, but, as a warning instincttold me, deadly peril--ran as a man runs pursued by devils. 

The road bent sharply to the left then forked. Overhanging treesconcealed the house, and the light, though high up under the eaves, was no longer visible. Trusting to Providence to guide me, I plungeddown the lane that turned to the left, and, almost exhausted, saw thegates before me--saw the sweep of the drive, and the moonlight, gleaming on the windows!

None of the windows were illuminated. 

Straight up to the iron gates I raced. 

They were locked!

Without a moment's hesitation I hurled my grip over the top andclambered up the bars! As I got astride, from the blackness of thelane came the ominous hum, and my hat went spinning away across thelawn!--the black cloud veiled the moon and complete darkness fell. 

Then I dropped and ran for the house--shouting, though all butwinded--"Hilton! Hilton! Open the door!"

Sinking exhausted on the steps, I looked toward the gates--but theyshowed only dimly in the dense shadows of the trees. 

Bzzz! Buzz!

I dropped flat in the portico as something struck the metal knob ofthe door and rebounded over me. A shower of gravel told of anothermisdirected projectile. 

Crack! Crack! Crack! The revolver spoke its short reply into themysterious darkness; but the night gave up no sound to tell of ashot gone home. 

"Hilton! Hilton!" I cried, banging on the panels with the butt ofthe weapon. "Open the door! Open the door!"

And now I heard the coming footsteps along the hall within; heavybolts were withdrawn--the door swung open--and Hilton, pale-faced, appeared. His hand shot out, grabbed my coat collar; and weak, exhausted, I found myself snatched into safety, and the doorrebolted. 

"Thank God!" I whispered. "Thank God! Hilton, look to all yourbolts and fastenings. Hell is outside!"

CHAPTER XXXIII

HOW WE WERE REINFORCED

Hilton, I learned, was living the simple life at "Uplands. " Theplace was not yet decorated and was only partly furnished. Butwith his man, Soar, he had been in solitary occupation for a week. 

"Feel better now?" he asked anxiously. 

I reached for my tumbler and blew a cloud of smoke into the air. I could hear Soar's footsteps as he made the round of bolts andbars, testing each anxiously. 

"Thanks, Hilton, " I said. "I'm quite all right. You are naturallywondering what the devil it all means? Well, then, I wired youfrom Euston that I was coming by the 6:55. "

"H-- Post Office shuts at 7. I shall get your wire in the morning!"

"That explains your failing to meet me. Now for my explanation!"

"Surrounding this house at the present moment, " I continued, "aremembers of an Eastern organization--the Hashishin, founded inKhorassan in the eleventh century and flourishing to-day!"

"Do you mean it, Cavanagh?"

"I do! One Hassan of Aleppo is the present Sheikh of the order, and he has come to England, bringing a fiendish company in his train, in pursuit of the sacred slipper of Mohammed, which was stolen bythe late Professor Deeping---"

"Surely I have read something about this?"

"Probably. Deeping was murdered by Hassan! The slipper was placedin the Antiquarian Museum--"

"From which it was stolen again!"

"Correct--by Earl Dexter, America's foremost crook! But the realfacts have never got into print. I am the only pressman who knowsthem, and I have good reason for keeping my knowledge to myself!Dexter is dead (I believe I saw his ghost to-day). But although, to the best of my knowledge, the accursed slipper is in the handsof Hassan and Company, I have been watched since I left Euston, and on my way to 'Uplands' my life was attempted!"

"For God's sake, why?"

"I cannot surmise, Hilton. Deeping, for certain reasons that areirrelevant at the moment, left the keys of the case at the Museumin my perpetual keeping--but the case was rifled a second time--"

"I read of it!"

"And the keys were stolen from me. I am utterly at a loss tounderstand why the Hashishin--for it is members of that awfulorganization who, without a doubt, surround this house at thepresent moment--should seek my life. Hilton, I have broughttrouble with me!"

"It's almost incredible!" said Hilton, staring at me. "Why dothese people pursue you?"

Ere I had time to reply Soar entered, arrayed, as was Hilton, inhis night attire. Soar was an ex-dragoon and a model man. 

"Everything fast, sir, " he reported; "but from the window of thebedroom over here--the room I got ready for Mr. Cavanagh--Ithought I saw someone in the orchard. "

"Eh?" jerked Hilton--"in the orchard? Come on up, Cavanagh!"

We all ran upstairs. The moonlight was streaming into the room. 

"Keep back!" I warned. 

Well within the shadow, I crept up to the window and looked out. The night was hot and still. No breeze stirred the leaves, butthe edge of the frowning thunder cloud which I had noted beforespread a heavy carpet of ebony black upon the ground. Beyond, Icould dimly discern the hills. The others stood behind me, constrained by the fear of this mysterious danger which I hadbrought to "Uplands. "

There was someone moving among the trees!

Closer came the figure, and closer, until suddenly a shaft ofmoonlight found passage and spilled a momentary pool of light amidthe shadows, I could see the watcher very clearly. A moment hestood there, motionless, and looking up at the window; then as heglided again into the shade of the trees the darkness becamecomplete. But I watched, crouching there nervously, for long afterhe was gone. 

"For God's sake, who is it?" whispered Hilton, with a sort of awein his voice. 

"It's Hassan of Aleppo!" I replied. 

Virtually, the house, with the capital of the Midlands so near uponthe one hand, the feverish activity of the Black Country reddeningthe night upon the other, was invested by fanatic Easterns!

We descended again to the extemporized study. Soar entered with usand Hilton invited him to sit down. 

"We must stick together to-night!" he said. "Now, Cavanagh, let ussee if we can find any explanation of this amazing business. I canunderstand that at one period of the slipper's history you were anobject of interest to those who sought to recover it; but if, asyou say, the Hashishin have the slipper now, what do they want withyou? If you have never touched it, they cannot be prompted bydesire for vengeance. "

"I have never touched it, " I replied grimly; "nor even anyreceptacle containing it. "

As I ceased speaking came a distant muffled rumbling. 

"That's the thunder, " said Hilton. "There's a tremendous stormbrewing. "

He poured out three glasses of whisky, and was about to speakwhen Soar held up a warning finger. 

"Listen!" he said. 

At his words, with tropical suddenness down came the rain. 

Hilton, his pipe in his hand, stood listening intently. 

"What?" he asked. 

"I don't know, sir; the sound of the rain has drowned it. "

Indeed, the rain was descending in a perfect deluge, its continuousroar drowning all other sounds; but as we three listened tenselywe detected a noise which hitherto had seemed like the overflowingof some spout. 

But louder and clearer it grew, until at last I knew it for whatit was. 

"It's a motor-car!" I cried. 

"And coming here!" added Soar. "Listen! it's in the lane!"

"It certainly isn't a taxicab, " declared Hilton. "None of the menwill come beyond the village. "

"That's the gate!" said Soar, in an awed voice, and stood up, looking at Hilton. 

"Come on, " said the latter abruptly, making for the door. 

"Be careful, Hilton!" I cried; "it may be a trick!"

Soar unbolted the front door, threw it open, and looked out. Inthe darkness of the storm it was almost impossible to see anythingin the lane outside. But at that moment a great sheet of lightningsplit the gloom, and we saw a taxicab standing close up to thegateway!

"Help! Open the gate!" came a high-pitched voice; "open the gate!"

Out into the rain we ran and down the gravel path. Soar had thegate open in a twinkling, and a woman carrying a brown leather grip, but who was so closely veiled that I had no glimpse of her features, leapt through on to the drive. 

"Lend a hand, two of you!" cried a vaguely familiar voice--"this way!"

Hilton and Soar stepped out into the road. The driver of the cabwas lying forward across the wheel, apparently insensible, but asHilton seized his arm he moved and spoke feebly. 

"For God's sake be quick, sir!" he said. "They're after us!They're on the other side of the lane, there!"

With that he dropped limply into Hilton's arms!

He was dragged in on to the drive--and something whizzed over ourheads and went sputtering into the gravel away up toward the house. The last to enter was the man who had come in the cab. As he barredthe gate behind him he suddenly reached out through the bars and Isaw a pistol in his hand. 

Once--twice--thrice--he fired into the blackness of the lane. 

"Take that, you swine!" he shouted. "Take that!"

As quickly as we could, bearing the insensible man, we hurried backto the door. On the step the woman was waiting for us, with herveil raised. A blinding flash of lightning came as we mounted thestep--and I looked into the violet eyes of Carneta! I turned andstared at the man behind me. 

It was Earl Dexter. 

Three of the mysterious missiles fell amongst us, but miraculouslyno one was struck. Amid the mighty booming of the thunder wereentered the houses and got the door barred. In the hall we laiddown the unconscious man and stood, a strangely met company, peering at one another in the dim lamplight. 

"We've got to bury the hatchet, Mr. Cavanagh!" said Dexter. "It'sa case of the common enemy. I've brought you your bag!" and hepointed to the brown grip upon the floor. 

"My bag!" I cried. "My bag is upstairs in my room. "

"Wrong, sir!" snapped The Stetson Man. "They are like as two peasin a pod, I'll grant you, but the bag you snatched off the platformat New Street was mine! That's what I'm after; I ought to be onthe way to Liverpool. That's what Hassan's after!"

"The bag!"

"You don't need to ask what's in the bag?" suggested Dexter. 

"What is in the bag?" ask Hilton hoarsely. 

"The slipper of the Prophet, sir!" was the reply. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

MY LAST MEETING WITH HASSAN OF ALEPPO

I felt dazed, as a man must feel who has just heard the deathsentence pronounced upon him. Hilton seemed to have becomeincapable of speech or action; and in silence we stood watchingCarneta tending the unconscious man. She forced brandy froma flask between his teeth, kneeling there beside him with herface very pale and dark rings around her eyes. Presently shelooked up. 

"Will you please get me a bowl of water and a sponge?" she saidquietly. 

Soar departed without a word, and no one spoke until he returned, bringing the sponge and the water, when the girl set to work in abusinesslike way to cleanse a wound which showed upon the man'shead. 

"She's a good nurse is Carneta, " said Dexter coolly. "She was theonly doctor I had through this"--indicating his maimed wrist. "Ifyou will fetch my bag down, there's some lint in it. "

I hesitated. 

"You needn't worry, " said Dexter; "as well be hung for a sheep asa lamb. You've handled the bag, and I'm not asking you to doany more. "

I went up to my room and lifted the grip from the chair upon whichI had put it. Even now I found it difficult to perceive anydifference between this and mine. Both were of identical appearanceand both new. In fact, I had bought mine only that morning, my oldone being past use, and being in a hurry, I had not left it to beinitialled. 

As I picked up the bag the lightning flashed again, and from thewindow I could see the orchard as clearly as by sunlight. At thefarther end near the wall someone was standing watching the house. 

I went downstairs carrying the fatal bag, and rejoined the group inthe hall. 

"He will have to be got to bed, " said Carneta, referring to thewounded man; "he will probably remain unconscious for a long time. "

Accordingly, we took the patient into one of the few furnishedbedrooms, and having put him to bed left him in care of the beautifulnurse. When we four men met again downstairs, amazement had renderedthe whole scene unreal to me. Soar stood just within the open door, not knowing whether to go or to remain; but Hilton motioned tohim to stay. Earl Dexter bit off the end of a cigar and stood withhis left elbow resting on the mantelpiece. 

His gaunt face looked gaunter than ever, but the daredevil gray eyesstill nursed that humorous light in their depths. 

"Mr. Cavanagh, " he said, "we're brothers! And if you'll considera minute, you'll see that I'm not lying when I say I'm on thestraight, now and for always!"

I made no reply: I could think of none. 

"I'm a crook, " he resumed, "or I was up to a while ago. There'sa warrant out for me--the first that ever bore my name. I'vesailed near the wind often enough, but it was desperation that gotme into hot water about that!"

He jerked his cigar in the direction of his grip, which lay now onthe rug at his feet. 

"I lost a useful right hand, " he went on--"and I lost every cent Ihad. It was a dead rotten speculation--for I lost my good name!I mean it! Believe me, I've handled some shady propositions in thepast, but I did it right in the sunlight! Up to the time I went outfor that damned slipper I could have had lunch with any detectivefrom Broadway to the Strand! I didn't need any false whiskers andthe Ritz was good enough for The Stetson Man. What now? I'm'wanted!' Enough said. "

He tossed the cigar--he had smoked scarce an inch of it--into theempty grate. 

"I'm an Aunt Sally for any man to shy at, " he resumed bitterly. "My place henceforth is in the dark. Right! I've finished; thebook's closed. From the time I quit England--if I can quit--I'mon the straight! I've promised Carneta, and I mean to keep myword. See here--"

Dexter turned to me. 

"You'll want to know how I escaped from the cursed death-trap atHassan's house in Kent? I'll tell you. I was never in it! Iwas hiding and waiting my chance. You know what was left to guardthe slipper while the Sheikh--rot him--was away looking afterarrangements for getting his mob out of the country?"

I nodded. 

"You fell into the trap--you and Carneta. By God! I didn't knowtill it was all over! But two minutes later I was inside thatplace--and three minutes later I was away with the slipper! Oh, itwasn't a duplicate; it was the goods! What then? Carneta hadhad a sickening of the business and she just invited me to say Yesor No. I said Yes; and I'm a straight man onward. "

"Then what were you doing on the train with the slipper?" askedHilton sharply. 

"I was going to Liverpool, sir!" snapped The Stetson Man, turningon him. "I was going to try to get aboard the Mauretania andthen make terms for my life! What happened? I slipped out atBirmingham for a drink--grip in hand! I put it down besideme, and Mr. Cavanagh here, all in a hustle, must have rushed inbehind me, snatched a whisky and snatched my grip and started forH--!"

A vivid flash of lightning flickered about the room. Then camethe deafening boom of the thunder, right over the house it seemed. 

"I knew from the weight of the grip it wasn't mine, " said Dexter, "and I was the most surprised guy in Great Britain and Ireland whenI found whose it was! I opened it, of course! And right on top wasa waistcoat and right in the first pocket was a telegram. Here itis!"

He passed it to me. It was that which I had received from Hilton. I had packed the suit which I had been wearing that morning andmust previously have thrust the telegram into the waistcoat pocket. 

"Providence!" Dexter assured me. "Because I got on the station intime to see Hassan of Aleppo join the train for H--! I was too late, though. But I chartered a taxi out on Corporation Street andinvited the man to race the local! He couldn't do it, but we gothere in time for the fireworks! Mr. Cavanagh, there are anythingfrom six to ten Hashishin watching this house!"

"I know it!"

"They're bareheaded; and in the dark their shaven skulls look likenothing human. They're armed with those damned tubes, too. I'dgive a thousand dollars--if I had it!--to know their mechanism. Well, gentlemen, deeds speak. What am I here for, when I might beon the way to Liverpool, and safety?"

"You're here to try to make up for the past a bit!" said a soft, musical voice. "Mr. Cavanagh's life is in danger. "

Carneta entered the room. 

The light played in that wonderful hair of hers; and pale though shewas, I thought I had never seen a more beautiful woman. 

"Tell them, " she said quietly, "what must be done. "

Soar glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes and shifteduneasily. Hilton stared as if fascinated. 

"Now, " rapped Dexter, in his strident voice, "putting aside allquestions of justice and right (we're not policemen), what do wewant--you and I, Mr. Cavanagh?"

"I can't think clearly about anything, " I said dully. "Explainyourself. "

"Very well. Inspector Bristol, C. I. D. , would want me and Hassanarrested. I don't want that! What I want is peace; I want to beable to sleep in comfort; I want to know I'm not likely to bemurdered on the next corner! Same with you?"

"Yes--yes. "

"How can we manage it? One way would be to kill Hassan of Aleppo;but he wants a lot of killing--I've tried! Moreover, directlywe'd done it, another Sheikh-al-jebal would be nominated and he'dcarry on the bloody work. We'd be worse off than ever. Right!we've got to connive at letting the blood-stained fanatic escape, and we've got to give up the slipper!"

"I'll do that with all my heart!"

"Sure! But you and I have both got little scores up against Hassan, which it's not in human nature to forget. But I've got it workedout that there's only one way. It may nearly choke us to have todo it, I'll allow. I'm working on the Moslem character. Mr. Hilton, make up a fire in the grate here!"

Hilton stared, not comprehending. 

"Do as he asks, " I said. "Personally, I am resigned to mutilation, since I have touched the bag containing the slipper, but ifDexter has a plan--"

"Excuse me, sir, " Soar interrupted. "I believe there's some coalin the coal-box, but I shall have to break up a packing-case forfirewood--or go out into the yard!"

"Let it be the packing-case, " replied Hilton hastily. 

Accordingly a fire was kindled, whilst we all stood about the roomin a sort of fearful uncertainty; and before long a big blaze wasroaring up the chimney. Dexter turned to me. 

"Mr. Cavanagh, " said he, "I want you to go right upstairs, open afirst-floor window--I would suggest that of your bedroom--andinvite Hassan of Aleppo to come and discuss terms!"

Silence followed his words; we were all amazed. Then--

"Why do you ask me to do this?" I inquired. 

"Because, " replied Dexter, "I happen to know that Hassan has somequeer kind of respect for you--I don't know why. "

"Which is probably the reason why he tried to kill me to-night!"

"That's beside the question, Mr. Cavanagh. He will believe you--whichis the important point. "

"Very well. I have no idea what you have in mind but I am preparedto adopt any plan since I have none of my own. What shall I say?"

"Say that we are prepared to return the slipper--on conditions. "

"He will probably try to shoot me as I stand at the window. "

Dexter shrugged his shoulders. 

"Got to risk it, " he drawled. 

"And what are the conditions?"

"He must come right in here and discuss them! Guarantee him safeconduct and I don't think he'll hesitate. Anyway, if he does, justtell him that the slipper will be destroyed immediately!"

Without a word I turned on my heel and ascended the stairs. 

I entered my room, crossed to the window, and threw it widely open. Hovering over the distant hills I could see the ominous thundercloud, but the storm seemed to have passed from "Uplands, " and onlya distant muttering with the faint dripping of water from the pipesbroke the silence of the night. A great darkness reigned, however, and I was entirely unable to see if any one was in the orchard. 

Like some mueddin of fantastic fable I stood there. 

"Hassan!" I cried--"Hassan of Aleppo!"

The name rang out strangely upon the stillness--the name whichfor me had a dreadful significance; but the whole episode seemedunreal, the voice that had cried unlike my voice. 

Instantly as any magician summoning an efreet I was answered. 

Out from the trees strode a tall figure, a figure I could notmistake. It was that of Hassan of Aleppo!

"I hear, effendim, and obey, " he said. "I am ready. Open thedoor!"

"We are prepared to discuss terms. You may come and gosafely"--still my voice sounded unfamiliar in my ears. 

"I know, effendim; it is so written. Open the door. "

I closed the window and mechanically descended the stairs. 

"Mind it isn't a trap!" cried Hilton, who, with the others, hadoverheard every word of this strange interview. "They may try torush the door directly we open it. "

"I'll stand the chest behind it, " said Soar; "between the door andthe wall, so that only one can enter at a time. "

This was done, and the door opened. 

Alone, majestic, entered Hassan of Aleppo. 

He was dressed in European clothes but wore the green turban of aSherif. With his snowy beard and coal-black eyes he seemed like avision of the Prophet, of the Prophet in whose name he had committedsuch ghastly atrocities. 

Deigning no glance to Soar nor to Hilton, he paced into the room, passing me and ignoring Carneta, where Earl Dexter awaited him. I shall never forget the scene as Hassan entered, to stand lookingwith blazing eyes at The Stetson Man, who sat beside the firewith the slipper of Mohammed in his hand!

"Hassan, " said Dexter quietly, "Mr. Cavanagh has had to promiseyou safe conduct, or as sure as God made me, I'd put a bulletin you!"

The Sheikh of the Hashishin glared fixedly at him. 

"Companion of the evil one, " he said, "it is not written that Ishall die by your hand--or by the hand of any here. But it hasbeen revealed to me that to-night the gates of Paradise may beclosed in my face. "

"I shouldn't be at all surprised, " drawled Dexter. "But it's upto you. You've got to swear by Mohammed--"

"Salla-'llahu 'aleyhi wasellem!"

"That you won't lay a hand upon any living soul, or allow any ofyour followers to do so, who has touched the slipper or hadanything to do with it, but that you will go in peace. "

"You are doomed to die!"

"You don't agree, then?"

"Those who have offended must suffer the penalty!"

"Right!" said Dexter--and prepared to toss the slipper into theheart of the fire!

"Stop! Infidel! Stop!"

There was real agony in Hassan's voice. To my inexpressiblesurprise he dropped upon his knee, extending his lean brown handstoward the slipper. 

Dexter hesitated. "You agree, then?"

Hassan raised his eyes to the ceiling. 

"I agree, " he said. "Dark are the ways. It is the will ofGod... "

Dimly the booming of the thunder came echoing back to us from thehills. Above its roll sounded a barbaric chanting to which thedrums of angry heaven formed a fitting accompaniment. 

I heard Soar shooting the bolts again upon the going of ourstrange visitor. 

Faint and more faint grew the chanting, until it merged into theremote muttering of the storm--and was lost. The quest of thesacred slipper was ended.