CHAPTER III
GREY MAGIC
To Victor Cleves came the following telegram in code:
"_Washington_, "_April 14th, 1919._
"_Investigation ordered by the State Department as the result offrequent mention in despatches of Chinese troops operating with theRussian Bolsheviki forces has disclosed that the Bolsheviki are actuallyraising a Chinese division of 30,000 men recruited in Central Asia. Thisdivision has been guilty of the greatest cruelties. A strange rumourprevails among the Allied forces at Archangel that this Chinese divisionis led by Yezidee and Hassani officers belonging to the sect ofdevil-worshipers and that they employ black arts and magic in battle._
"_From information so far gathered by the several branches of the UnitedStates Secret Service operating throughout the world, it appearspossible that the various revolutionary forces of disorder, in Europeand Asia, which now are violently threatening the peace and security, ofall established civilisation on earth, may have had a common origin.This origin, it is now suspected, may date back to a very remote epoch;the wide-spread forces of violence and merciless destruction may havehad their beginning among some ancient and predatory race whoseexistence was maintained solely by robbery and murder._
"_Anarchists, terrorists, Bolshevists, Reds of all shades and degrees,are now believed to represent in modern times what perhaps once was atribe of Assassins--a sect whose religion was founded upon a commonpredilection for crimes of violence._
"_On this theory then, for the present, the United States Governmentwill proceed with this investigation of Bolshevism; and the SecretService will continue to pay particular attention to all Orientals inthe United States and other countries. You personally are formallyinstructed to keep in touch with XLY-371 (Alek Selden) and ZB-303 (JamesBenton), and to employ every possible means to become friendly with thegirl Tressa Norne, win her confidence, and, if possible, enlist heractively in the Government Service as your particular aid and comrade._
"_It is equally important that the movements of the Oriental, calledSanang, be carefully observed in order to discover the identity andwhereabouts of his companions. However, until further instructions he isnot to be taken into custody. M. H. 2479._
"_(Signed)_ "(John Recklow.)"
The long despatch from John Recklow made Cleves's duty plain enough.
For months, now, Selden and Benton had been watching Tressa Norne. Andthey had learned practically nothing about her.
And now the girl had come within Cleves's sphere of operation. She hadbeen in New York for two weeks. Telegrams from Benton in Chicago, andfrom Selden in Buffalo, had prepared him for her arrival.
He had his men watching her boarding-house on West Twenty-eighth Street,men to follow her, men to keep their eyes on her at the theatre, whereevery evening, at 10:45, her _entr' acte_ was staged. He knew where toget her. But he, himself, had been on the watch for the man Sanang; andhad failed to find the slightest trace of him in New York, althoughwarned that he had arrived.
So, for that evening, he left the hunt for Sanang to others, put on hisevening clothes, and dined with fashionable friends at the Patroons'Club, who never for an instant suspected that young Victor Cleves was inthe Service of the United States Government. About half-past nine hestrolled around to the theatre, desiring to miss as much as possible ofthe popular show without being too late to see the curious little _entr'acte_ in which this girl, Tressa Norne, appeared alone.
He had secured an aisle seat near the stage at an outrageous price; themain show was still thundering and fizzing and glittering as he enteredthe theatre; so he stood in the rear behind the orchestra until thedescending curtain extinguished the outrageous glare and din.
Then he went down the aisle, and as he seated himself Tressa Nornestepped from the wings and stood before the lowered curtain facing anexpectant but oddly undemonstrative audience.
The girl worked rapidly, seriously, and in silence. She seemed a merechild there behind the footlights, not more than sixteen anyway--herwinsome eyes and wistful lips unspoiled by the world's wisdom.
Yet once or twice the mouth drooped for a second and the winning eyesdarkened to a remoter blue--the brooding iris hue of far horizons.
She wore the characteristic tabard of stiff golden tissue and the goldpagoda-shaped headpiece of a Yezidee temple girl. Her flat,slipper-shaped foot-gear was of stiff gold, too, and curled upward atthe toes.
All this accentuated her apparent youth. For in face and throat nofirmer contours had as yet modified the soft fullness of immaturity; herlimbs were boyish and frail, and her bosom more undecided still, so thatthe embroidered breadth of gold fell flat and straight from her chest toa few inches above the ankles.
She seemed to have no stock of paraphernalia with which to aid theperformance; no assistant, no orchestral diversion, nor did she serveherself with any magician's patter. She did her work close to thefootlights.
Behind her loomed a black curtain; the strip of stage in front was bareeven of carpet; the orchestra remained mute.
But when she needed anything--a little table, for example--well, it wassuddenly there where she required it--a tripod, for instance, evidentlyfitted to hold the big iridescent bubble of glass in which swarmedlittle tropical fishes--and which arrived neatly from nowhere. Shemerely placed her hands before her as though ready to support somethingweighty which she expected and--suddenly, the huge crystal bubble wasvisible, resting between her hands. And when she tired of holding it,she set it upon the empty air and let go of it; and instead of crashingto the stage with its finny rainbow swarm of swimmers, out of thin airappeared a tripod to support it.
Applause followed, not very enthusiastic, for the sort of audience whichsustains the shows of which her performance was merely an _entr' acte_is an audience responsive only to the obvious.
Nobody ever before had seen that sort of magic in America. Peoplescarcely knew whether or not they quite liked it. The lightning ofinnovation stupefies the dull; ignorance is always suspicious ofinnovation--always afraid to put itself on record until its mind is madeup by somebody else.
So in this typical New York audience approbation was cautious, but everyfascinated eye remained focused on this young girl who continued to doincredible things, which seemed to resemble "putting something over" onthem; a thing which no uneducated American conglomeration ever quiteforgives.
The girl's silence, too, perplexed them; they were accustomed to gabble,to noise, to jazz, vocal and instrumental, to that incessantmetropolitan clamour which fills every second with sound in a city whoseonly distinction is its din. Stage, press, art, letters, socialexistence unless noisy mean nothing in Gotham; reticence, leisure,repose are the three lost arts. The megaphone is the city's symbol; itschiefest crime, silence.
The girl having finished with the big glass bubble full of tiny fish,picked it up and tossed it aside. For a moment it apparently floatedthere in space like a soap-bubble. Changing rainbow tints waxed andwaned on the surface, growing deeper and more gorgeous until thefloating globe glowed scarlet, then suddenly burst into flame andvanished. And only a strange, sweet perfume lingered in the air.
But she gave her perplexed audience no time to wonder; she had seatedherself on the stage and was already swiftly busy unfolding a white veilwith which she presently covered herself, draping it over her like atent.
The veil seemed to be translucent; she was apparently visible seatedbeneath it. But the veil turned into smoke, rising into the air in athin white cloud; and there, where she had been seated, was a statue ofwhite stone the image of herself!--in all the frail springtide of earlyadolescence--a white statue, cold, opaque, exquisite in its sculpturedimmobility.
There came, the next moment, a sound of distant thunder; flashes lightedthe blank curtain; and suddenly a vein of lightning and a sharper pealshattered the statue to fragments.
There they lay, broken bits of her own sculptured body, glistening in aheap behind the footlights. Then each fragment began to shimmer w
ith arosy internal light of its own, until the pile of broken marble glowedlike living coals under thickening and reddening vapours. And,presently, dimly perceptible, there she was in the flesh again, seatedin the fiery centre of the conflagration, stretching her armsluxuriously, yawning, seemingly awakening from refreshing slumber, hereyes unclosing to rest with a sort of confused apology upon herastounded audience.
As she rose to her feet nothing except herself remained on the stage--nodebris, not a shred of smoke, not a spark.
She came down, then, across an inclined plank into the orchestra amongthe audience.
In the aisle seat nearest her sat Victor Cleves. His business was to bethere that evening. But she didn't know that, knew nothing abouthim--had never before set eyes on him.
At her gesture of invitation he made a cup of both his hands. Into theseshe poured a double handful of unset diamonds--or what appeared to bediamonds--pressed her own hands above his for a second--and the diamondsin his palms had become pearls.
These were passed around to people in the vicinity, and finally returnedto Mr. Cleves, who, at her request, covered the heap of pearls with bothhis hands, hiding them entirely from view.
At her nod he uncovered them. The pearls had become emeralds. Again,while he held them, and without even touching him, she changed them intorubies. Then she turned away from him, apparently forgetting that hestill held the gems, and he sat very still, one cupped hand over theother, while she poured silver coins into a woman's gloved hands, turnedthem into gold coins, then flung each coin into the air, where itchanged to a living, fragrant rose and fell among the audience.
Presently she seemed to remember Cleve, came back down the aisle, andunder his close and intent gaze drew from his cupped hands, one by one,a score of brilliant little living birds, which continually flew abouther and finally perched, twittering, on her golden headdress--arainbow-crest of living jewels.
As she drew the last warm, breathing little feathered miracle fromCleves's hands and released it, he said rapidly under his breath: "Iwant a word with you later. Where?"
She let her clear eyes rest on him for a moment, then with a shrug soslight that it was perceptible, perhaps, only to him, she moved on alongthe inclined way, stepped daintily over the footlights, caught fire,apparently, nodded to a badly rattled audience, and sauntered off,burning from head to foot.
What applause there was became merged in a dissonant instrumentaloutburst from the orchestra; the great god Jazz resumed direction, themindless audience breathed freely again as the curtain rose upon afamiliar, yelling turbulence, including all that Gotham reallyunderstands and cares for--legs and noise.
Victor Cleves glanced up at the stage, then continued to study the nameof the girl on the programme. It was featured in rather patheticsolitude under "_Entr' acte_." And he read further: "During the_entr' acte_ Miss Tressa Norne will entertain you with several phases ofBlack Magic. This strange knowledge was acquired by Miss Norne from theYezidees, among which almost unknown people still remain descendants ofthat notorious and formidable historic personage known in the twelfthcentury as The Old Man of the Mountain--or The Old Man of Mount Alamout.
"The pleasant profession of this historic individual was assassination;and some historians now believe that genuine occult power played a partin his dreadful record--a record which terminated only when the infantryof Genghis Khan took Mount Alamout by storm and hanged the Old Man ofthe Mountain and burned his body under a boulder of You-Stone.
"For Miss Norne's performance there appears to be no plausible,practical or scientific explanation.
"During her performance the curtain will remain lowered for fifteenminutes and will then rise on the last act of 'You Betcha Life.'"
The noisy show continued while Cleves, paying it scant attention,brooded over the programme. And ever his keen, grey eyes reverted to hername, Tressa Norne.
Then, for a little while, he settled back and let his absent gaze wanderover the galloping battalions of painted girls and the slapstickprincipals whose perpetual motion evoked screams of approbation from theaudience amid the din of the great god Jazz.
He had an aisle seat; he disturbed nobody when he went out and around tothe stage door.
The aged man on duty took his card, called a boy and sent it off. Theboy returned with the card, saying that Miss Norne had already dressedand departed.
Cleves tipped him and then tipped the doorman heavily.
"Where does she live?" he asked.
"Say," said the old man, "I dunno, and that's straight. But them ladiesmostly goes up to the roof for a look in at the 'Moonlight Masque' and adance afterward. Was you ever up there?"
"Yes."
"Seen the new show?"
"No."
"Well, g'wan up while you can get a table. And I bet the little girlwill be somewheres around."
"The little girl" _was_ "somewheres around." He secured a table, turnedand looked about at the vast cabaret into which only a few people hadyet filtered, and saw her at a distance in the carpeted corridor buyingviolets from one of the flower-girls.
A waiter placed a reserve card on his table; he continued on around theouter edge of the auditorium.
Miss Norne had already seated herself at a small table in the rear, anda waiter was serving her with iced orange juice and little French cakes.
When the waiter returned Cleves went up and took off his hat.
"May I talk with you for a moment, Miss Norne?" he said.
The girl looked up, the wheat-straw still between her scarlet lips.Then, apparently recognising in him the young man in the audience whohad spoken to her, she resumed her business of imbibing orange juice.
The girl seemed even frailer and younger in her hat and street gown. Asilver-fox stole hung from her shoulders; a gold bag lay on the tableunder the bunch of violets.
She paid no attention whatever to him. Presently her wheat-strawbuckled, and she selected a better one.
He said: "There's something rather serious I'd like to speak to youabout if you'll let me. I'm not the sort you evidently suppose. I'm nottrying to annoy you."
At that she looked around and upward once more.
Very, very young, but already spoiled, he thought, for the dark-blueeyes were coolly appraising him, and the droop of the mouth had becomealmost sullen. Besides, traces of paint still remained to incarnadinelip and cheek and there was a hint of hardness in the youthful plumpnessof the features.
"Are you a professional?" she asked without curiosity.
"A theatrical man? No."
"Then if you haven't anything to offer me, what is it you wish?"
"I have a job to offer if you care for it and if you are up to it," hesaid.
Her eyes became slightly hostile:
"What kind of job do you mean?"
"I want to learn something about you first. Will you come over to mytable and talk it over?"
"No."
"What sort do you suppose me to be?" he inquired, amused.
"The usual sort, I suppose."
"You mean a Johnny?"
"Yes--of sorts."
She let her insolent eyes sweep him once more, from head to foot.
He was a well-built young man and in his evening dress he had thatsomething about him which placed him very definitely where he reallybelonged.
"Would you mind looking at my card?" he asked.
He drew it out and laid it beside her, and without stirring she scannedit sideways.
"That's my name and address," he continued. "I'm not contemplatingmischief. I've enough excitement in life without seeking adventure.Besides, I'm not the sort who goes about annoying women."
She glanced up at him again:
"You are annoying me!"
"I'm sorry. I was quite honest. Good-night."
He took his _conge_ with unhurried amiability; had already turned awaywhen she said:
"Please ... what do you desire to say to me?" He came back to her table:
"I couldn't tell
you until I know a little more about you."
"What--do you wish to know?"
"Several things. I could scarcely ask you--go over such matters withyou--standing here."
There was a pause; the girl juggled with the straw on the table for afew moments, then, partly turning, she summoned a waiter, paid him,adjusted her stole, picked up her gold bag and her violets and stood up.Then she turned to Cleves and gave him a direct look, which had in itthe impersonal and searching gaze of a child.
When they were seated at the table reserved for him the place alreadywas filling rapidly--backwash from the theatres slopped through everyaisle--people not yet surfeited with noise, not yet sufficiently soddenby their worship of the great god Jazz.
"Jazz," said Cleves, glancing across his dinner-card at TressaNorne--"what's the meaning of the word? Do you happen to know?"
"Doesn't it come from the French '_jaser_'?"
He smiled. "Possibly. I'm rather hungry. Are you?"
"Yes."
"Will you indicate your preferences?"
She studied her card, and presently he gave the order.
"I'd like some champagne," she said, "unless you think it's tooexpensive."
He smiled at that, too, and gave the order.
"I didn't suggest any wine because you seem so young," he said.
"How old do I seem?"
"Sixteen perhaps."
"I am twenty-one."
"Then you've had no troubles."
"I don't know what you call trouble," she remarked, indifferently,watching the arriving throngs.
The orchestra, too, had taken its place.
"Well," she said, "now that you've picked me up, what do you really wantof me?" There was no mitigating smile to soften what she said. Shedropped her elbows on the table, rested her chin between her palms andlooked at him with the same searching, undisturbed expression that is sodisconcerting in children. As he made no reply: "May I have a cocktail?"she inquired.
He gave the order. And his mind registered pessimism. "There is nothingdoing with this girl," he thought. "She's already on the toboggan." Buthe said aloud: "That was beautiful work you did down in the theatre,Miss Norne."
"Did you think so?"
"Of course. It was astounding work."
"Thank you. But managers and audiences differ with you."
"Then they are very stupid," he said.
"Possibly. But that does not help me pay my board."
"Do you mean you have trouble in securing theatrical engagements?"
"Yes, I am through here to-night, and there's nothing else in view, sofar."
"That's incredible!" he exclaimed.
She lifted her glass, slowly drained it.
For a few moments she caressed the stem of the empty glass, her gazeremote.
"Yes, it's that way," she said. "From the beginning I felt that myaudiences were not in sympathy with me. Sometimes it even amounts tohostility. Americans do not like what I do, even if it holds theirattention. I don't quite understand why they don't like it, but I'malways conscious they don't. And of course that settles it--to-night hassettled the whole thing, once and for all."
"What are you going to do?"
"What others do, I presume."
"What do others do?" he inquired, watching the lovely sullen eyes.
"Oh, they do what I'm doing now, don't they?--let some man pick them upand feed them." She lifted her indifferent eyes. "I'm not criticisingyou. I meant to do it some day--when I had courage. That's why I justasked you if I might have some champagne--finding myself a little scaredat my first step.... But you _did_ say you might have a job for me.Didn't you?"
"Suppose I haven't. What are you going to do?"
The curtain was rising. She nodded toward the bespangled chorus."Probably that sort of thing. They've asked me."
Supper was served. They both were hungry and thirsty; the music madeconversation difficult, so they supped in silence and watched theimbecile show conceived by vulgarians, produced by vulgarians and servedup to mental degenerates of the same species--the average metropolitanaudience.
For ten minutes a pair of comedians fell up and down a flight of steps,and the audience shrieked approval.
"Miss Norne?"
The girl who had been watching the show turned in her chair and lookedback at him.
"Your magic is by far the most wonderful I have ever seen or heard of.Even in India such things are not done."
"No, not in India," she said, indifferently.
"Where then?"
"In China."
"You learned to do such things there?"
"Yes."
"Where, in China, did you learn such amazing magic?"
"In Yian."
"I never heard of it. Is it a province?"
"A city."
"And you lived there?"
"Fourteen years."
"When?"
"From 1904 to 1918."
"During the great war," he remarked, "you were in China?"
"Yes."
"Then you arrived here very recently."
"In November, from the Coast."
"I see. You played the theatres from the Coast eastward."
"And went to pieces in New York," she added calmly, finishing her glassof champagne.
"Have you any family?" he asked.
"No."
"Do you care to say anything further?" he inquired, pleasantly.
"About my family? Yes, if you wish. My father was in the spice trade inYian. The Yezidees took Yian in 1910, threw him into a well in his owncompound and filled it up with dead imperial troops. I was thirteenyears old.... The Hassani did that. They held Yian nearly eight years,and I lived with my mother, in a garden pagoda, until 1914. In Januaryof that year Germans got through from Kiaou-Chou. They had been sixmonths on the way. I think they were Hassanis. Anyway, they persuadedthe Hassanis to massacre every English-speaking prisoner. And so--mymother died in the garden pagoda of Yian.... I was not told for fouryears."
"Why did they spare you?" he asked, astonished at her story so quietlytold, so utterly destitute of emotion.
"I was seventeen. A certain person had placed me among the temple girlsin the temple of Erlik. It pleased this person to make of me a Mongoltemple girl as a mockery at Christ. They gave me the name Keuke Mongol.I asked to serve the shrine of Kwann-an--she being like to our Madonna.But this person gave me the choice between the halberds of theTchortchas and the sorcery of Erlik."
She lifted her sombre eyes. "So I learned how to do the things you saw.But--what I did there on the stage is not--respectable."
An odd shiver passed over him. For a second he took her literally,suddenly convinced that her magic was not white but black as the demonat whose shrine she had learned it. Then he smiled and asked herpleasantly, whether indeed she employed hypnosis in her miraculousexhibitions.
But her eyes became more sombre still, and, "I don't care to talk aboutit," she said. "I have already said too much."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry into professional secrets----"
"I can't talk about it," she repeated. "... Please--my glass is quiteempty."
When he had refilled it:
"How did you get away from Yian?" he asked.
"The Japanese."
"What luck!"
"Yes. One battle was fought at Buldak. The Hassanis and Blue Flags wereterribly cut up. Then, outside the walls of Yian, Prince Sanang'sTchortcha infantry made a stand. He was there with his Yezidee horsemen,all in leather and silk armour with casques and corselets of blackIndian steel.
"I could see them from the temple--saw the Japanese gunners open fire.The Tchortchas were blown to shreds in the blast of the Japaneseguns.... Sanang got away with some of his Yezidee horsemen."
"Where was that battle?"
"I told you, outside the walls of Yian."
"The newspapers never mentioned any such trouble in China," he said,suspiciously.
"Nobody knows about it except the Germans a
nd the Japanese."
"Who is this Sanang?" he demanded.
"A Yezidee-Mongol. He is one of the Sheiks-el-Djebel--a servant of TheOld Man of Mount Alamout."
"What is _he_?"
"A sorcerer--assassin."
"What!" exclaimed Cleves incredulously.
"Why, yes," she said, calmly. "Have you never heard of The Old Man ofMount Alamout?"
"Well, yes----"
"The succession has been unbroken since 1090 B.C.A Hassan Sabbah isstill the present Old Man of the Mountain. His Yezidees worship Erlik.They are sorcerers. But you would not believe that."
Cleves said with a smile, "Who is Erlik?"
"The Mongols' Satan."
"Oh! So these Yezidees are devil-worshipers!"
"They are more. They _are_ actually devils."
"You don't really believe that even in unexplored China there existssuch a creature as a real sorcerer, do you?" he inquired, smilingly.
"I don't wish to talk of it."
To his surprise her face had flushed, and he thought her sensitive mouthquivered a little.
He watched her in silence for a moment; then, leaning a little wayacross the table:
"Where are you going when the show here closes?"
"To my boarding-house."
"And then?"
"To bed," she said, sullenly.
"And to-morrow what do you mean to do?"
"Go out to the agencies and ask for work."
"And if there is none?"
"The chorus," she said, indifferently.
"What salary have you been getting?"
She told him.
"Will you take three times that amount and work with me?"