CHAPTER XVII
THE DAMASCUS CURTAIN
The British public poured contributions into the air-fleet fund with alavishness that has never been equalled in history. For, after thestupendous sums, each one a big fortune in itself, which the Jewishfinanciers had subscribed, every man who called himself a Britisher (andwho thought that Britain really needed airships) came forward with hisdole.
There was a special service held at the Great Synagogue in Aldgate, andJuda was exalted in public estimation to a dizzy pinnacle.
One morning, whilst the enthusiasm was at its height, Mr. Oppner rosefrom the breakfast table upon hearing the 'phone bell ring.
"Zoe," he said, "if that's a reporter, tell him I'm ill in bed."
He shuffled from the room. Since the night of the abortive raid upon TheCedars he had showed a marked aversion from the society of newspapermen. Regarding the facts of his donation to the fund he had vouchsafedno word to Zoe. Closely had the story of his doings at Richmond beenhushed up; as closely as a bottomless purse can achieve such silencing,but, nevertheless, Zoe knew the truth.
Sheard was shown in.
"Excuse me," he said hastily, "but I wanted to ask Mr. Oppner if thereis anything in this article"--he held out a proof slip--"that he wouldlike altered. It's for the _Magazine of Empire_. They're havingfull-page photographs of all the Aero Millionaires, that's what theycall them now!"
"Can you leave it?" asked Zoe. "He is dressing--and not in a very goodtemper."
"Right!" said Sheard promptly, and laid the slip on the table. "'Phone meif there is anything to come out. Good-bye."
Zoe was reading the proof when her father came in again.
"Newspaper men been here?" he drawled. "Thought so. What a poor oldaddle-pated martyr I am."
"Listen," began Zoe, "this is an article all about you! It quotes Dr.Herman Hertz, that is to say, it represents you as quoting him! Itsays:--
"'The true Jew is an integral part of the life and spiritual endeavourof every nation where Providence has allotted his home. And as for theJews of this Empire, which is earth's nearest realisation hitherto ofjustice coupled with humanity, finely has a noble Anglo-Jewish soldier,Colonel Goldschmidt, expressed it: "Loyalty to the flag for which thesun once stood still can only deepen our devotion to the flag on whichthe sun never sets."' Is that all right?"
"H'm!" said Oppner. "Have Rohscheimer and Jesson seen this article?"
"Don't know!" answered Zoe.
"Because," explained Oppner, "they've showed their blame devotion to theflag on which the sun don't set, same as me, and if _they_ can stand it,my hide's as tough as theirs, I reckon."
It was whilst Mr. Oppner was thus expressing himself that Sheard, who,having left the proof at the Astoria, had raced back to the club to keepan appointment, quitted the club again (his man had disappointed him),and walked down the court to Fleet Street.
Mr. Aloys. X. Alden, arrayed in his capacious tweed suit, a Stetson felthat, and a pair of brogues with eloquent Broadway welts, liquidated thebusiness that had detained him in the "Cheshire Cheese" and drifted idlyin the same direction.
A taxi-driver questioned Sheard with his eyebrows, but the pressman,after a moment's hesitancy, shook his head, and, suddenly running outinto the stream of traffic, swung himself on a westward bound bus.Pausing in the act of lighting a Havana cigarette, Alden hailed thedisappointed taxi-driver and gave him rapid instructions. Thebroad-brimmed Stetson disappeared within the cab, and the cab darted offin the wake of the westward bound bus.
Such was the price that Mr. Thomas Sheard must pay for the reputationwon by his inspired articles upon Severac Bablon. For what he had learntof him during their brief association had enabled that clever journalistto invest his copy with an atmosphere of "exclusiveness" which hadattracted universal attention.
As a less pleasant result, the staff of the _Gleaner_--and Sheard inparticular--were being kept under strict surveillance.
Sheard occupied an outside seat, and as the bus travelled rapidlywestward, Fleet Street and the Strand offered to his gratified gaze onelong vista of placards:
"M. DUQUESNE IN LONDON."
That item was exclusive to the _Gleaner_, and had been communicated toSheard upon a plain correspondence card, such as he had learnt toassociate with Severac Bablon. The _Gleaner_, amongst all London'snews-sheets, alone could inform a public, strung to a tense pitch ofexcitement, that M. Duquesne, of the Paris police, was staying at theHotel Astoria, in connection with the Severac Bablon case.
As the bus stopped outside Charing Cross Station, Sheard took a quickand anxious look back down the Strand. A taxi standing near the gatesattracted his attention, for, although he could not see the Stetsoninside, he noted that the cab was engaged, and, therefore, possiblyoccupied. It was sufficient, in these days of constant surveillance, toarouse his suspicion; it was more than sufficient to-day to set hisbrain working upon a plan to elude the hypothetical pursuer. He hadbecome, latterly, an expert in detecting detectives, and now his witsmust be taxed to the utmost.
For he had a correspondence card in his pocket which differed from thosehe was used to, in that it bore the address, 70A Finchley Road, andinvited him to lunch with Severac Bablon that day!
With the detectives of New York and London busy, and, now, with thefamous Duquesne in town, Sheard well might survey the Strand behind,carefully, anxiously, distrustfully.
Severac Bablon, so far as he was aware, no longer had any actual holdupon him. There was no substantial reason why he should not hand theinvitation--bearing that address which one man, alone, in London at thathour cheerfully would have given a thousand pounds to know--to theproper authorities. But Severac Bablon had appealed strongly,irresistibly, to something within Sheard that had responded with warmthand friendship. Despite his reckless, lawless deeds, the pressman nomore would have thought of betraying him than of betraying the mostsacred charge. In fact, as has appeared, he did not hesitate to aid andabet him in his most outrageous projects. But yet he wondered at thegreat, the incredible audacity of this super-audacious man who now hadentrusted to him the secret of his residence.
Hastily descending from the bus, he walked quickly forward to thenearest tobacconist's and turned in the entrance to note if the man whomight be in the taxi would betray his presence.
He did.
The Stetson appeared from the window, and a pair of keen grey eyes fixedthemselves upon the door wherein Sheard was lurking.
A rapid calculation showed the pressman where lay his best chance.Darting across the road, he dived, rabbit-like, into the burrow of theTube, got his ticket smartly, and ran to the stairway. With his head ona level with the floor of the booking-offices he paused.
An instant later the canoe-shaped brogues came clattering down fromabove. The American took in the people in the hall with onecomprehensive glance, got a ticket without a moment's delay, and jumpedinto a lift that was about to descend.
Two minutes afterwards Sheard was in a cab bound for the house ofSeverac Bablon. The New Journalism is an exciting vocation.
He discharged the cabman at the corner of Finchley Road, and walkedalong to No. 70A.
Opening the monastic looking gate, he passed around a trim lawn andstood in the porch of one of those small and picturesque houses whichsurvive in some parts of red-brick London.
A man who wore conventional black, but who looked like an Ababdeh Arab,opened the door before he had time to ring. He confirmed Sheard's guessat his Eastern nationality by the manner of his silent salutation.Without a word of inquiry he conducted the visitor to a small room onthe left of the hall and retired in the same noiseless fashion.
The journalist had anticipated a curious taste in decoration, and he wasnot disappointed. For this apartment could not well be termed a room; itwas a mere cell.
The floor was composed of blocks--or perhaps only faced with layers ofred granite; the walls showed a surface of smooth plaster. An unglazedwindow which opened on a garden afforded ampl
e light, and, presumablyfor illumination at night, an odd-looking antique lamp stood in a niche.A littered table, black with great age and heavily carved, and a chairto match, stood upon a rough fibre mat. There was no fireplace. The onlyluxurious touch in the strange place was afforded by a richly Damascenedcurtain, draped before a recess at the farther end.
From the table arose Severac Bablon, wearing a novel garment strangelylike a bernouse.
"My dear Sheard," he said warmly and familiarly, "I am really delightedto see you again."
Sheard shook his hand heartily. Severac Bablon was as irresistible asever.
"Take the arm-chair," he continued, "and try to overlook thepeculiarities of my study. Believe me, they are not intended for mereeffect. Every item of my arrangements has its peculiar note ofinspiration, I assure you."
Sheard turned, and found that a deep-seated, heavily-cushioned chair,also antique, and which he had overlooked, stood close behind him. Anodd perfume hung in the air.
"Ah," said Severac Bablon, in his softly musical voice, "you havedetected my vice."
He passed an ebony box to his visitor, containing cigarettes of a darkyellow colour. Sheard lighted one, and discovered it possessed apeculiar aromatic flavour, which he found very fascinating. SeveracBablon watched him with a quizzical smile upon his wonderfully handsomeface.
"I am afraid there is opium in them," he said.
Sheard started.
"Do not fear," laughed the other. "You cannot develop the vice, forthese cigarettes are unobtainable in London. Their history serves todisprove the popular theory that the use of tobacco was introduced fromMexico in the sixteenth century. These were known in the Eastgenerations earlier."
And so, with the mere melody of his voice, he re-established hissovereignty over Sheard's mind. His extraordinary knowledge ofextraordinary matters occasioned the pressman's constant amazement. Fromthe preparations made for the reception of the Queen of Sheba atSolomon's court in 980 B.C. he passed to the internal organisation ofthe Criminal Investigation Department.
"I should mention," said Sheard at this point, "that an attempt was madeto follow me here."
Severac Bablon waved a long white hand carelessly.
"Never mind," he replied soothingly. "It is annoying for you, but I giveyou my word that you shall not be compromised by _me_--come, luncheon iswaiting. I will show you the only three men in Europe and America whomight associate the bandit, the incendiary, with him who calls himselfSeverac Bablon."
He stood up and gazed abstractedly in the direction of the garden. Insilence he stood looking, not at the garden, but beyond it, into somevaster garden of his fancy. Sheard studied him with earnest curiosity.
"Will you never tell me," he began abruptly, "who you are really, whatis the source of your influence, and what is your aim in all this wildbusiness?"
Severac Bablon turned and regarded him fixedly.
"I will," he said, "when the day comes--if ever it does come." A shadowcrept over his mobile features.
"I am a dreamer, Sheard," he continued, "and perhaps a trifle mad. I amtrying to wield a weapon that my fathers were content to let rust in itsscabbard. For the source of the influence you speak of--its emblem liesthere."
He pointed a long, thin finger to the recess veiled with its heavyDamascus curtain.
"May I see it?"
The quizzical smile returned to the fine face.
"Oh, thou of the copy-hunting soul," exclaimed Severac Bablon. "A daymay come. But it is not to-day."
He seized Sheard by the arm and led him out into the hall.
"Look at these three portraits," he directed. "The three great practicalinvestigators of the world. Mr. Brinsley Monro, of Dearborn Street,Chicago; Mr. Paul Harley, of Chancery Lane; and last, but greatest, M.Victor Lemage, of Paris."
"Is Duquesne acting under his instructions?"
"M. Lemage took charge of the case this morning."
Sheard looked hard at Severac Bablon. Victor Lemage, inventor of theanthroposcopic system of identification, the greatest living authorityupon criminology, was a man to be feared.
Severac Bablon smiled, clapped both hands upon his shoulders, and lookedinto his eyes.
"It is the lighter side of my strange warfare," he said. "I revel in it,Sheard. It refreshes me for more serious things. This evening you mustarrange to meet me for a few moments. I shall have a 'scoop' to offeryou for the _Gleaner_. Do not fail me. It will leave you ample time toget on to Downing Street afterwards. You see, I knew you were going toDowning Street to-night! Am I not a magician? I shall wire you. If, whenyou ring at the door of the house to which you will be directed, no onereplies, go away at once. I will then communicate the news later. Andnow--lunch."