“You done that on purpose,” snarled Diver.
“Me?” said Jan innocently. “Why, you took my bunk and that leaves yours, so now yours is mine.”
“Yeah, but this thing here isn’t fit for a hog to sleep in!”
“Then why should you object?” said Jan complacently.
Diver eyed him doubtfully and seemed about to make a fight for it when breakfast appeared. Diver was much too interested in his stomach to put fighting before eating and so he snatched the tray under the door and put it on the table and, placing his arms guardingly about it, appeared on the verge of devouring it all himself.
Jan sat watching him for several seconds and Diver began to relax, throwing a scornful grunt in Jan’s direction. Diver got his muscles in working order, snapped his teeth a couple times experimentally and fell to.
Jan still watched him. Two eggs vanished and the remaining two were about to follow the example of the first pair when Jan let out a startled exclamation.
“Look out!”
“What’s wrong?” snarled Diver.
“Why, good golly, you wouldn’t want to eat that, would you?” And he advanced, placing his hand close to the plate to indicate something.
Diver took his eyes off Jan and looked at the plate and there, squarely between the two eggs, was the biggest cockroach he had ever seen! And not only that but only half of him was present.
Diver clapped one hand over his mouth and the other over his stomach and his snaky eyes got big as dollars.
“Quick!” said Jan. “I’ve heard they’re poison as arsenic. Guard! Guard!”
The officer, having distributed the last tray, came speeding back. “What’s the matter with you two guys now?”
“It’s Diver!” said Jan urgently. “He’s poisoned! Hurry, he may die even before you get him to the infirmary! Don’t stand there gawping like an idiot! DO something!”
Jan swiftly aided Diver to the now open door and the guard led the staggering pickpocket away. Diver still had his hands where he had first put them but now looked as green as a shark’s belly.
“What’s up?” said the counterfeiter urgently.
Jan yawned and watched Diver out of sight. Then he grinned. “It’s something he thought he ate.” And so saying he calmly sat down at the tray, chose clean tools and ate the ham and the toast and drank the coffee with very great relish. Tiger purred with contentment and the luxurious feeling which always follows a job well done.
The feeling of well-being, however, did not last very long. Jan, recalling Alice’s present, stripped down and prepared for a shave. All went well until he confronted himself in the glass. With a shock he beheld nobody but Jan Palmer, thin and pale of countenance, narrow of chest, timid-eyed and, generally, about as unlike the handsome, swashbuckling Tiger as anyone could imagine. His physiognomy took the heart out of him. What chance did a miserable chip of a human being like himself have against the inexorable forces of the law, against the antagonism of his relatives, against a manager who would be only too glad to see him hanged? Weapons he had none. Friends he had none. Plans were as impracticable as they were nebulous.
He felt as though someone had drained the life blood from him, and he sank down upon the chair with a groan, blanking out the mirror with hands over his eyes.
“Oh, God!” he whimpered. “Why, oh why, did I ever even hear of that copper jar?” He was silent then for a long, long time, and the patch of lather upon his face grew dry as cotton. At last he spiritlessly scraped the blond fuzz from his face and sponged himself in a vain attempt to dispel the penetrating odor of the jail. It was only when he began to don the clean white shirt that he experienced a degree of relief.
Today was Sunday. Would she come to see him? Or did she, too, think he was wholly mad and only favored him as a softhearted woman feeds a mangy stray?
The day would tell that, might even answer all of it. And so he vainly attempted to speed the hours by reading Houdini. But as he found that absolutely none of the conditions for escaping set forth in the book were to be fulfilled in this jail and as the thought of getting out almost drove him wild, he at length gave it over and merely sat, listening to a tower clock strike the hours. Would she come to him today?
It was eleven, and then it was noon. It was one and the Sunday dinner was served with the information that Diver Mullins had been put to bed in the hospital after the exertions of a doctor and a stomach pump. It was two, and then two-thirty. And still no footstep like hers sounded in the hard cellblock.
He gave her up and gloomily regarded a cockroach’s attempt to climb the slippery side of the washbowl. She wouldn’t spoil her day with a visit to the jail. It was thoughtless of him to expect it. Besides, what was he to her?
“Well! What happened to your friend?”
Jan leaped a foot and came down standing. “Alice! I mean . . . Miss Hall! Gee, I . . . gosh.”
The officer let her into the cell and locked it behind her. “I’ll have to wait here, miss. I ain’t really supposed—”
She beamed upon him, and he melted. With a heartfelt sigh he leaned against the bars and swung his keys round and round, beginning after a while to hum softly.
Alice put a package down on a chair and Jan seated her with such a flurry of activity that he almost knocked it off.
“You’re alone today.”
“Yes,” said Jan. “Yes, I’m alone. Gee!”
She smiled at him. It was the first time she had done that and for an instant he was afraid that she might be amused by the way he acted. He sat down and became dignified on the instant.
“I . . . I didn’t think you’d come. I almost gave you up. But you did, didn’t you?”
“I thought they might not be feeding you well,” and she lifted the wrapper off the box to show him a chicken and some swell rolls and a thermos of coffee and numerous other things which he couldn’t take in all at once.
“Gosh, I mean you shouldn’t do that.” He floundered. “It . . . it costs . . . that is—”
“Oh, your uncle gave me the money.”
Jan’s face fell and then he brightened. “You’re lying! Green wouldn’t give a penny to his mother if she was dying of starvation!”
She squirmed, out of countenance for the first time since they had met. “It isn’t much, really. I . . . I never have so very many places to put my pay. But please, let’s not talk about that.”
“Gosh, I’m glad he didn’t,” said Jan illogically. “But you shouldn’t just the same, though it makes me feel swell to think that you would . . . unless . . . unless you do it just out . . . out of pity, that is.”
She started. “How so?”
“Well . . . gee . . . I can’t understand how a girl like you could . . . well . . . see anything in me.”
“Don’t, please.”
“I’ve offended you, I know,” said Jan. “I guess . . . I guess I’m not very good company. I’m sort of rattled, you see, and . . . and, well— Have you heard anything more about the bail?” he said abruptly to change the subject.
“I was at Mr. Green’s home this morning to take some letters,” said Alice. “And . . . well, none of them were about you. But I shouldn’t talk like this because . . . well, it’s sort of disloyal. After all . . . but wait, I forgot. I always have to think hard to remember that you own the line.”
“That’s not much of a compliment,” said Jan mournfully, “but I know it’s well deserved.”
“Well, then. Shannon came to see him and they talked for a long time.”
“What about?”
“Mostly about Shannon’s fee. He wants ten thousand dollars.”
“To do what?”
“To keep you from being hanged.”
“Then there’s a chance I won’t be?” cried Jan.
“Yes, of course there is.”
“Wait. Look here. Do you believe me now? I mean, you don’t think I did it, do you?”
“I don’t know what I think. As for your story about the jin
ni—”
“But it’s true!”
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said uneasily.
“All right. I’m crazy. Everybody thinks so, and so I must be so. I’m crazy. I have strength enough in this toothpick of an arm to split a man from crown to waist. I have always acted crazy. I have hit people and shouted at everyone around the house—”
“Maybe it would have been better if you had. Look, Jan. Listen to me. Stop dodging behind that story and come right out and say it was self-defense. You’ve been reading too much, that’s all. Come right out and tell the truth. After all, it’s a clear case of self-defense. Frobish came to steal that copper jar, thinking it might be full of ancient treasure. In his own field I understand the man was almost a maniac. Then, the odds are all with you. You had to kill him in self-defense, and I know that you had bruises on you—still have one there on your head, for that matter. He invaded your home and you were forced to threaten him and then he attacked you and you had to use that sword to save your life. A court will believe that. They’ll let you go free unless—” She stopped.
“Unless what?”
“Unless what your aunt told the reporters will be used against you. And unless Thompson’s statements, backed by Green, will influence justice. And if you have money enough to hire another lawyer besides Shannon.”
“Their statements?” said Jan.
“That you were always violent at home and that, very often, they had to keep you out of sight so that the public would not know that the head of the Bering Sea Steamship Corporation was . . . well . . . crazy.”
“They said that?” cried Jan, springing up.
“Jan, if you have money you can get, I’ll find the best lawyer in the country for you.”
He sank down on the bed. “Money,” he said dully. “I have none. What Green did with what I should have gotten, I don’t know. I thought he knew best and he said times were bad. I have no money.”
“But at least you can use that plea of self-defense.”
He gazed sadly at her. “A liar is always caught. I can tell nothing but the truth. An ifrit named Zongri killed Professor Frobish and that is the only story I can tell because it is the only true one.”
She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Then it is all over.”
“Why?”
“Because if you tell that story to the judge tomorrow—”
“My trial is tomorrow? But how—”
“It’s not a trial. On the recommendation of your aunt and Nathaniel Green and Shannon and on the findings of a psychiatrist who has already been paid five thousand dollars to do it, you are to be declared insane and sent to a private sanitarium from which no one can hope to escape.”
“To a madhouse? Me? But they’ll see there that I’m sane—”
“It’s not their business to find anyone sane. It’s a private home, far worse than any jail. I have heard of such places. They drug their patients continually, unbeknownst to them, until at last they really are insane. No pardon board, nothing. Unless you change your story as I have told you, you’ll be buried alive and Nathaniel Green will enjoy all the funds which he has looted from under your very nose.”
“A madhouse,” said Jan.
“No one will ever be able to see you and you know how they’ve visited you here. If you are declared insane—and it is as good as done except for the formalities involved— Green will automatically possess the power of attorney which you wisely refused to give him. The Bering Sea Steamship Corporation and all that you own will belong to Green and your aunt. And at the sanitarium they’ll kill you just as certainly as the sun will shine.”
Horror crept into Jan’s eyes. Nervously he began to pace up and down the cell and then, suddenly, he gripped the bars and shook them, shook them until the echoes bit into every corner of the building.
Alice started back from him in terror. The officer quickly opened the door and pulled her out. And Jan, even then, did not calm himself.
“Thieves!” he shouted. “I’ll show them! I’ll show them!” And he beat his fists against the wall until the blood flowed from them.
In exhaustion he sank down upon the bunk and one hand fell across the box. Dully he looked for Alice and saw that she was gone.
“A living death in this world and who knows how long the other will last. And now I’ve lost the one thing in all this cursed Universe that I ever cared about.”
And under his hand the edge of that stout box crumped like dust.
To wait would be his lot.
But at least, in another place, though God only knew where it was, he might manage to battle for some happiness there.
In a black mood he impatiently waited for night.
Chapter Nine
The Secret of Sleep
He passed through the veil as one who pushes cobwebs from his face in an old deserted corridor, sleeping hardly at all, so great was his anxiety to discover if his treasure was still there. Though he knew he could never bring it into his land of waking, there were still many things to be done in his other world. And if he understood imperfectly how it was that he found himself a man within a man, he could nevertheless make the best of it.
He stirred restively upon the great white silk expanse, strangely conscious of having been there all the night and of resting very poorly. But he was not greatly concerned and his strong body was not one to demand more than the scantest rest.
His fingers shot under the pillow and he gripped a weighty circle of metal so hard that if his hands had not been those of a sailor, he could have cut himself severely upon the worn edge and the rough-cut stones.
Anxiously he stared all about him, making certain that the room was untenanted save for himself. And then, to make sure because he was half afraid it wasn’t true, he lifted the cover and eagerly inspected the ring anew.
The Seal of Sulayman! The crossed triangles and the magic circle about them seemed to vibrate with a mighty power. Solomon the Wise, ruler of his world, mightiest monarch of all time! And he had worn this ring upon his hand and had thereby been wise and great and omnipotent. And what if he had destroyed its power for evil over humans? What if Zongri had made it powerless in turn against ifrits? Was it not enough that it still brought all wisdom, that it struck away all locks and that among other things would reveal the hiding places of all the treasures of earth? And as he gloated over it a rattling at the door struck terror to his heart. The face of Tiger hardened and grew grim and his quick, clear eyes swept about him for a hiding place. But he had no time for that. He could only throw himself out of the bed and drop a white silk robe over him, concealing the seal in his sash.
It took several seconds to remove the bolts from without and he had dropped back upon the bed and was just in the act of stretching when the door swung inward. Three marid sentries stepped back and stared fixedly into space and then there came into view a woman who made Jan’s every muscle grow taut with wonder.
She paused on the threshold, looking up at him at his seat on the lofty bed. And, in turn, he looked down, unable to tear his gaze away from her.
She was robed in the sheerest of golden silk which showed every curve of her voluptuous body. Her only jewels were a girdle and a cap of pearls which lay like a moon against the midnight of her hair. Her eyes were fathomless seas of jet, making the pallor of her lovely, somehow bold face all the more exquisite. She appeared as one sculped in alabaster and given, by some enchantment, the breath of life.
It seemed to please her that he stared. With a small, amused smile she broke the spell by walking slowly forward with an ease not unlike flowing silk.
Jan stood up as she mounted the steps and mechanically gave her a hand to help her over the last. She nodded her thanks and gracefully sat upon the edge of the bed, signifying that he too could be seated.
He wondered wildly who she was and what she had to do with him. And he was not at all insensible to the hypnotic power of her eyes, which jangled with the hotness of the Seal
of Sulayman, lying like a coal in his sash.
“You wonder who I am,” she said.
He nodded.
“And why I have come here?”
Again he nodded.
She laughed and indicated the marids who were now closing and bolting the door again. “Those fools. I wonder that as little happens as there does in this palace. It is so very simple to order them about and pass them by . . .”
“But they have orders that I am to speak to no one.”
She laughed musically. “Do they? How funny. And yet I, who have no earthly business here, can walk airily through their ranks and into your presence as if they were so many dolls.” The chamber awakened at her renewed mirth and the small glasses on the shelf above the bed hummed in gay sympathy. “Ah, now, but I am not mocking you. One would hardly mock Tiger, would they? You wish to know why I came?”
“Indeed I would, M’Lady.”
“How gruff! And, I might add, handsomely gruff. Mark it all to curiosity, my Tiger. All to that and nothing more—except perhaps a fear that you were very lonely shut up here in this awful place and everyone ordered not to speak to you at all. You were lonely, weren’t you?”
“Why . . . yes. Why shouldn’t I be?”
She reached out her hand and took down two crystal goblets and a tall-necked bottle of amber wine. She poured them full and then held them up to the light to give him the one which contained the most.
“To the cheer of company,” she toasted.
He was very acutely aware of the danger here, for she was the first human being he had seen about the palace and he well knew that a human would not be permitted to come here so easily, no matter her beauty. But when he saw that she drank, he politely sipped his answer to her toast. His caution was prompted more by Jan than Tiger, for the wine was innocent compared to suddenly remembered beverages which went down with great authority.