The Voice of Káli/Chapter 7
Chapter VII
THE SHADOW OF A COWL
LATER, in the library, there was a curious development. Harley had been seeking for an opportunity of a chat with Latham, but it had not presented itself. Burton van Dean had brought Phil Westbury in to exhibit some of the strange curios which were housed in this room. But Harley had not failed to notice her reluctance and the manner in which she constantly glanced in Latham's direction.
“Really, Mr. Van Dean,” said the girl, “I hate to mention it, but mother will be worried to death, You know I should love to stay. But really” She looked once more at Latham.
“Miss Westbury,” interrupted Harley, “I regret to cause you any inconvenience, but I don't want anyone to leave this house, tonight.”
His words created a momentary silence of stupefaction.
“Hang it all, Harley!” replied Latham, “our lives aren't in danger.”
At that Van Dean stood up and laid his hand paternally on Phil Westbury's arm.
“Miss Westbury,” he said, “I quite understand and I apologize right from the bottom of my heart. I'm going to say that you don't grasp all the facts. Harley is right. Harley knows.”
“I know part, but not all,” replied Harley. He pointed to the image of Káli upon its carven pedestal. “One thing I don't know! and cannot understand is why you give that thing house room. It's an image, I know, but the symbol of a dreadful danger.
Van Dean shrugged his shoulders.
“It was sent down by one of my agents, Harley,” he replied. “It is very old, and probably unique, so for a while I tried to stifle my feelings about it; but I had arranged for its removal today. There's been some hitch.”
During the latter part of the evening he had recovered something of his self-possession, but now his voice shook nervously. Turning to Phil Westbury he said, “Really, you mustn't go, tonight.”
Jim Westbury, whose face wore its most gloomy expression, had listened dully to this conversation.
“I wonder if I dare take a pull at the old pipe?” he inquired. “Anybody mind me smoking a pipe in the library, Van Dean?
“The ladies are used to it,” was the reply.
“Cut it out, Jim, for a minute,” Joyce interrupted. “I want you to try that new step with me. Come along, you can smoke in the drawing room if you like. We've got a lot of new gramophone records you haven't heard.”
The two withdrew. And Harley, crossing to Latham, whispered, “I want a word with you. Come up to the study.”
Latham exchanged a quick glance with Phil Westbury and then followed Harley up the stairs to the study. Switching on the light, Harley closed the door and faced the other.
“Tell me, Latham,” he said quietly, “what's the mystery about the telegram which detained Mrs. Westbury?”
Latham started and then smiled rather unnaturally.
“Well,” he replied, “it was rather queer, Harley. It was worded in such a way that the sender obviously intended to detain not only Mrs. Westbury but Phil and myself at the Warren, tonight.”
“Hm!” muttered Harley. “By the sender, you mean Mrs, Westbury's solicitor?”
“I doubt it!” was the reply.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I feel dreadfully guilty to have acted as I have acted. But I think it was a fake! Phil thinks so, too, and she's rapidly getting in a panic about it.”
“You mean,” suggested Harley, “that this telegram did not come from the solicitor?”
“That's my meaning,” replied Latham. “Someone, for an unknown reason, wanted to prevent us coming to the Abbey, tonight.”
Harley stared at him curiously for a moment. “That being so,” he asked, “why did you come?”
“I might as well be frank with you, Harley,” Latham replied. “Phil and I are engaged, but Mrs. Westbury doesn't know! Oh! you haven't met her, Harley! She has ambitions for Phil far higher than a poor Indian Army officer. My leave expires on Thursday and, to tell you the truth, we bolted, just in order to be alone together for the evening, or at least, away from Mrs, Westbury. But in the circumstances, for there was something very mysterious about that telegram, Phil is naturally anxious to get back.”
“I see,” said Harley and held out his hand. “Let me congratulate you, Latham. You have solved a minor point that was worrying me. But frankly, although I am sympathetic, no one must leave this house, tonight. You are probably correct in your surmise that the telegram was not genuine. This makes it all the more important that you should not venture out of the grounds of the Abbey, tonight. I have something to tell you. Not long ago, I saw a signal being flashed from the tower on the hill.”
“The tower in the grounds of the Warren?”
“Yes. It was distinct. The night's as black as the Pit; there's a devil of a storm brewing. I couldn't read the message; it wasn't in plain Morse. But I do know that it was intended for someone here in the Abbey!”
“How do you know?”
“It was answered.”
“Answered! By whom?”
Harley lowered his voice.
“By someone in this room!” he replied. “Someone who was in this room at the time that you and Miss Westbury were in the library, below!”
“Good God!” muttered Latham. “Are you sure?”
“Certain. I saw him.”
“Who was it?”
“I know it sounds like a nightmare,” he replied, “but it was someone enveloped in a cowl and hood! Oh! it appears preposterous, but there may be common sense behind it. There is a tradition that the Abbey is haunted by a monk. Anyone meeting such a figure in the passages would maybe not be likely to query his identity. De you follow me?”
Latham stared hard for a moment.
“Yes,” he replied. “I do. It's someone who would be recognized?”
Harley nodded grimly.
“Latham,” he said, “for many nights past, someone has come into this room and the library, after everyone else was in bed. Yet, never a bell of the alarm rings. There was someone in Van Dean's study earlier tonight.”
“You're right there, Harley,” Latham agreed. “Dear old Rex! Poor brave old chap. It was”
He ceased speaking and stared wildly at Harley. From the library below had come a piercing shriek. There came a second, a third! Latham dashed open the study door and he and Harley raced down into the library.
Phil Westbury was there alone. She was crouching on the floor over by the bookcases, her hands raised to her face, her wide open eyes staring wildly in the direction of the French windows, from which she had evidently retreated to the further limit of the room.
Latham ran across to her and raised her tenderly.
“My dear!” he said. “Whatever is the matter?”
“Oh!” She looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear, her face blanched. “The monk!”
“What do you mean, Miss Westbury?” asked Harley.
“He crossed!” she said, as Latham led her to an armchair. “There! Outside the window!”
Harley turned and stared at the French windows. The storm had retreated temporarily and the moonlight shone outside, as was evident through the thin material of the curtain. The shadow of anyone crossing the terrace fairly near to the house would certainly have been visible.
“It was a horrible, crouching figure!” the girl went on, her voice shaking hysterically. “With a great hood drawn over its head! Oh, Harry!” She clutched at Latham. “Take me back again! I am frightened of this house!”
“Miss Westbury,” said Harley soothingly, “don't unduly alarm yourself. You have not seen a ghost. I cannot explain at the moment, but I shall do so in good time. Be brave. You have nothing to fear.”
From somewhere in the distance came a low rumble of thunder. Faintly, too, the notes of a fox trot, played by the gramophone in the drawing room, reached them. Harley understood why Phil Westbury's screams had failed to attract the notice of the others.
“Oh,” said the girl, who was fighting for composure, “was that thunder, again?”
“Yes,” answered Harley. “They're getting it on the coast, now.”
Latham was holding the girl's hand and she looked up, smiling bravely.
“You must think me a dreadful coward, Mr. Harley.”
“On the contrary, I love your courage,” he assured her; “many women would have been prostrated.”
“But,” she pleaded, “it was not anything supernatural I saw? Please tell me it was not.”
“It was not, Miss Westbury,” Harley replied. “You may take my word for it.”
She stood up, smiling more composedly.
“Then, I think I'll go and talk to Joyce a while,” she said.
“Are you sure,” asked Latham anxiously, “that you're all right?”
“Quite sure,” replied the girl.
“Perhaps you would ask your brother to join us here, Miss Westbury,” said Harley, opening the door.
Loudly, now, from the gramophone in the drawing room came the tones of a dance piece.
Jim came into the library.
“Cheerio!” he greeted them. “Want me to do something?”
“Yes,” snapped Harley, “shut the door.”
Jim scowled gloomily, but returned and closed the door, whereupon the sound of dance music became almost imperceptible.
“Westbury,” said Harley.
“Yes?”
“Have you been sitting in that chair?”
He pointed to a deep rest chair, upon the rug before the high, old-fashioned fireplace.
“No,” Westbury answered.
“You, Latham?”
“No”
“Anybody else, tonight, that you can remember?”
“Not that I can remember,” returned Latham slowly, staring in a very puzzled fashion at Harley.
“Quite so,” murmured the latter. “Would you mind standing just there, Westbury?” He indicated a spot to the left of the study staircase. “And you, Latham, just there?”
Both men looked surprised, but recognizing that there was method in his madness, obeyed.
“Thanks,” he murmured. “Now, from where you are, can you see anything of the image of Káli, Westbury?”
“What part of her image?”
“Any part.”
“Not a bit; only the pedestal.”
Harley moved farther away from the figure.
“Can you now, Latham?”
“No,” was the reply.
Harley moved nearer again.
“Now?”
“Yes. I can see a little corner peeping out.”
“Ah,” said Harley, a note of satisfaction in his voice. “Might I trouble you to stand on the stair, Westbury, three steps up?”
Jim Westbury, hands deep in pockets, moved up the study stairs. “Is this a guessing story, or something?” he inquired.
But Harley ignored him and said, “Latham, please take my place, here.”
Latham did so; and Harley, crossing to the rest chair before the fireplace, seated himself in it.
“Can you see me from there, Westbury?” he demanded.
“Not an eyelash.”
“You, Latham?”
“I can just see the top of your head.”
“Good!” snapped Harley, standing up. He moved the chair about a yard to the right. “Now suppose we join Van Dean and the ladies.”
Latham laughed shortly.
“By all means,” he said. “Anything to amuse you, Harley!”
As Westbury opened the door, the music of a one step swept out to meet them, but as the three men went out and closed the door there was silence again in the library.
Mohammed Khán entered, removed a coffee cup from the top of a bookcase, emptied several ashtrays, and generally tidied the room. He was about to leave the library when the telephone bell rang. Mohammed Khán crossed and took up the instrument.
“Yes,” he said, “It is. Will you please wait. I will bring him.”
He put the receiver down and went out to the drawing room. A moment later Van Dean came in and took up the instrument. He listened in growing consternation to the message and was just replacing the receiver when Harley returned.
“Anything wrong, Van Dean?” Harley asked.
“Wrong? Wrong?” echoed Van Dean distractedly. “Harley, your suspicions were all too true!”
“Tell me,” said Harley.
“My old friend, Dr. Huang H'Si, of the Chinese Legation, has just phoned me.”
“Well?”
Van Dean looked about him suspiciously.
“The Mandarin K is known to be in England!” he whispered.
“Hm,” muttered Harley. “That's no news. He's here in Norfolk! What steps are they taking?”
“They have informed the Foreign Office.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“And then?”
“Dr. Huang H'Si,” replied Van Dean, “thought it wise to advise me of the fact that” He hesitated, all the old symptoms of high nervous tension reappearing in his sensitive face.
“Yes?” prompted Harley.
“The Mandarin K disappeared from London yesterday!”
“Quite so!” murmured the other grimly. And his glance was drawn almost magnetically to the big rest chair in front of the fireplace.
“Harley,” said Van Dean hoarsely, “I try to keep a grip on my nerves, but I know the S. Group!” He rested his hand upon his bent back. “This—” and he clutched his breast over his heart—“and these—” touching the powerful spectacles which he wore—“are legacies of those fiends! Harley, of all of them—all of them I know by name—I would rather meet anyone, than the Mandarin K!”
Paul Harley grasped his arm.
“I understand, man,” he answered. “I understand, But we are at least forewarned. It will be our fault if we are taken by surprise. Quick, before we are interrupted: what do you know of the personal appearance of the Mandarin K? Did you ever see him?”
“Once, Harley,” was the reply. “But he wore the cowl and robe of a lama. It was an effectual disguise.”
Paul Harley started.
“Good God!” he muttered. “And you never saw him without the robe and the cowl of a priest of Lamaism?”
“Never. But I know many things about him. He is a linguist who speaks nearly every civilized language.”
“I know all this,” interrupted Harley. “Have I followed him half-around the world without learning to respect his acquirements? He is an excellent chemist. He nearly succeeded in poisoning me in Tientsin, and again in Hong Kong. He is a master of disguise. He sat beside me unsuspected in the Cairo Turf Club and tried to knife me when I came out!”
“What! He sat beside you? Then you”
“He certainly overheard all my conversation, of this I am sure.” He paused again, the telephone bell had rung. “Who can this be?” he muttered.
“I can't imagine,” returned Van Dean. “I'll go.” He took up the receiver. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, the line was engaged. Good! Hold on. For you, Harley. Innes, your secretary, speaking from Chancery Lane.”
Harley took up the instrument.
“Is that you, Innes?” he asked. “Yes, yes! Ah, good! At last! What? Are you sure?”
Throughout the ensuing moments that he stood at the telephone Burton van Dean watched him in almost agonized suspense; for he was a man come near to the end of his resources, a man who had suffered much and bravely. Even had he not been so intent upon the telephone conversation, it is doubtful if he would have detected the fact that the door of the study had been slightly opened, as though someone within listened to the speaker at the telephone in the library.
“Good, Innes!” Harley was saying. “Is that all? Yes, I quite understand and I shall act accordingly. I learned another important fact, tonight, but I cannot possibly tell it to you over the telephone. Stand by until three o'clock, Innes. I may want you to take certain action. Right. Good-by.”
He hung up the receiver and turned to the anxious man who had been hanging upon his words. The study door was closed again, silently.
“Let us go up to your study, Van Dean,” said Harley, resting his hand upon the other's shoulder.
The two passed up the stairs to the study. On the landing Harley halted for a moment.
“Van Dean,” he said, “you and I are standing between whet we call civilization and a horror five times blacker than the Great War. It's a very tiny shield, Van Dean, just two lives, to protect all the white races!”
“God knows it is!” muttered Van Dean.
“Brace up, Van Dean,” said Harley, gripping him hard. “Tonight the shield is going to be tested.”
He opened the study door and turned up the light. They entered together. The room was empty.