XIX
THE LIVING DEAD
The night held yet another adventure in store for Soames. His encounterwith the two Scotland Yard men had finally expelled all thoughts ofpleasure from his mind. The upper world, the free world, was beset withpitfalls; he realized that for the present, at any rate, there could beno security for him, save in the catacombs of Ho-Pin. He came out ofthe music-hall and stood for a moment just outside the foyer, glancingfearfully up and down the rain-swept street. Then, resuming the drenchedraincoat which he had taken off in the theater, and turning up itscollar about his ears, he set out to return to the garage adjoining thewarehouse of Kan-Suh Concessions.
He had fully another hour of leave if he cared to avail himself ofit, but, whilst every pedestrian assumed, in his eyes, the form of adetective, whilst every dark corner seemed to conceal an ambush, whilstevery passing instant he anticipated feeling a heavy hand upon hisshoulder, and almost heard the words:--"Luke Soames, I arrest you"...Whilst this was his case, freedom had no joys for him.
No light guided him to the garage door, and he was forced to seekfor the handle by groping along the wall. Presently, his hand came incontact with it, he turned it--and the way was open before him.
Being far from familiar with the geography of the place, he took out abox of matches, and struck one to light him to the shelf above which thebell-push was concealed.
Its feeble light revealed, not only the big limousine near which hewas standing and the usual fixtures of a garage, but, dimly penetratingbeyond into the black places, it also revealed something else....
The door in the false granite blocks was open!
Soames, who had advanced to seek the bell-push, stopped short. The matchburnt down almost to his fingers, whereupon he blew it out and carefullycrushed it under his foot. A faint reflected light rendered perceptiblethe stone steps below. At the top, Soames stood looking down. Nothingstirred above, below, or around him. What did it mean? Dimly to his earscame the hooting of some siren from the river--evidently that of a largevessel. Still he hesitated; why he did so, he scarce knew, save that hewas afraid--vaguely afraid.
Then, he asked himself what he had to fear, and conjuring up a mentalpicture of his white bedroom below, he planted his foot firmly uponthe first step, and from thence, descended to the bottom, guided by thefaint light which shone out from the doorway beneath.
But the door proved to be only partly opened, and Soames knockeddeferentially. No response came to his knocking, and he so greatlyventured as to push the door fully open.
The cave of the golden dragon was empty. Half frightfully, Soamesglanced about the singular apartment, in amid the mountainous cushionsof the leewans, behind the pedestal of the dragon; to the right and tothe left of the doorway wherein he stood.
There was no one there; but the door on the right--the door inlaid withebony and green stone, which he had never yet seen open was open now,widely opened. He glided across the floor, his wet boots creakingunmusically, and peeped through. He saw a matting-lined corridoridentical with that known as Block A. The door of one apartment, that onthe extreme left, was opened. Sickly fumes were wafted out to him, andthese mingled with the incense-like odor which characterized the templeof the dragon.
A moment he stood so, then started back, appalled.
An outcry--the outcry of a woman, of a woman whose very soul isassailed--split the stillness. Not from the passageway before him, butfrom somewhere behind him--from the direction of Block A--it came.
"For God's sake--oh! for God's sake, have mercy! Let me go!... let mego!" Higher, shriller, more fearful and urgent, grew the voice--"LET MEGO!"...
Soames' knees began to tremble beneath him; he clutched at the blackwall for support; then turned, and with unsteady footsteps crossed tothe door communicating with the corridor which contained his room.It had a lever handle of the Continental pattern, and, trembling withapprehension that it might prove to be locked, Soames pressed down thishandle.
The door opened...
"Hina, effendi!--hina!"
The voice sounded like that of Said....
"Oh! God in Heaven help me!... Help!--help!"...
"Imsik!"...
Footsteps were pattering upon the stone stairs; someone was descendingfrom the warehouse! The frenzied shrieks of the woman continued. Soamesbroke into a cold perspiration; his heart, which had leaped wildly,seemed now to have changed to a cold stone in his breast. Just at theentrance to the corridor he stood, frozen with horror at those cries.
"Ikfil el-bab!" came now, in the voice of Ho-Pin,--and nearer.
"Let me go!... only let me go, and I will never breathe a word. ... Ah!Ah! Oh! God of mercy! not the needle again! You are killing me!... notthe needle!"...
Soames staggered on to his own room and literally fell within--as acrossthe cave of the golden dragon, behind him, SOMEONE--one whom he did notsee but only heard, one whom with all his soul he hoped had not seenHIM--passed rapidly.
Another shriek, more frightful than any which had preceded it, struckthe trembling man as an arrow might have struck him. He dropped uponhis knees at the side of the bed and thrust his fingers firmly intohis ears. He had never swooned in his life, and was unfamiliar with thesymptoms, but now he experienced a sensation of overpowering nausea;a blood-red mist floated before his eyes, and the floor seemed to rockbeneath him like the deck of a ship....
That soul-appalling outcry died away, merged into a sobbing, moaningsound which defied Soames' efforts to exclude it.... He rose to hisfeet, feeling physically ill, and turned to close his door....
They were dragging someone--someone who sighed, shudderingly, and whosesighs sank to moans, and sometimes rose to sobs,--across the apartmentof the dragon. In a faint, dying voice, the woman spoke again:--
"Not Mr. King!... NOT MR. KING!... Is there no God in Heaven!... AH!spare me... spare"...
Soames closed the door and stood propped up against it, striving tofight down the deathly sickness which assailed him. His clothes weresticking to his clammy body, and a cold perspiration was trickling downhis forehead and into his eyes. The sensation at his heart was unlikeanything that he had ever known; he thought that he must be dying.
The awful sounds died away... then a muffled disturbance drew hisattention to a sort of square trap which existed high up on one wallof the room, but which admitted no light, and which hitherto hadnever admitted any sound. Now, in the utter darkness, he found himselflistening--listening...
He had learnt, during his duties in Block A, that each of the minutesuites was rendered sound-proof in some way, so that what took place inone would be inaudible to the occupant of the next, provided that bothdoors were closed. He perceived, now, that some precaution hithertoexercised continuously had been omitted to-night, and that the soundswhich he could hear came from the room next to his own--the room whichopened upon the corridor that he had never entered, and which now heclassified, mentally, as Block B.
What did it mean?
Obviously there had been some mishap in the usually smooth conductof Ho-Pin's catacombs. There had been a hurried outgoing in severaldirections... a search?
And by the accident of his returning an hour earlier than he wasexpected, he was become a witness of this incident, or of its dreadful,concluding phases. He had begun to move away from the door, but now hereturned, and stood leaning against it.
That stifling room where roses shed their petals, had been openedto-night; a chill touched the very center of his being and told him so.The occupant of that room--the Minotaur of this hideous labyrinth--wasat large to-night, was roaming the passages about him, was perhapsoutside his very door....
Dull moaning sounds reached him through the trap. He realized that if hehad the courage to cross the room, stand upon a chair and place his earto the wall, he might be able to detect more of what was passing in thenext apartment. But craven fear held him in its grip, and in vain hestrove to shake it off. Trembling wildly, he stood with his back to thedoor, whilst muttered
words, and moans, ever growing fainter, reachedhim from beyond. A voice, a harsh, guttural voice--surely not that ofHo-Pin--was audible, above the moaning.
For two minutes--three minutes--four minutes--he stood there, totteringon the brink of insensibility, then... a faint sound--a new sound,--drewhis gaze across the room, and up to the corner where the trap wassituated.
A very dim light was dawning there; he could just detect the outline ofan opening--a half-light breaking the otherwise impenetrable darkness.
He felt that his capacity for fear was strained to its utmost; that hecould support nothing more, yet a new horror was in store for him; for,as he watched that gray patch, in it, as in a frame, a black silhouetteappeared--the silhouette of a human head... a woman's head!
Soames convulsively clenched his jaws, for his teeth were beginning tochatter.
A whistle, an eerie, minor whistle, subscribed the ultimate touchof terror to the night. The silhouette disappeared, and, shortlyafterwards, the gray luminance. A faint click told of some shutter beingfastened; complete silence reigned.
Soames groped his way to the bed and fell weakly upon it, half lyingdown and burying his face in the pillow. For how long, he had no idea,but for some considerable time, he remained so, fighting to regainsufficient self-possession to lie to Ho-Pin, who sooner or later mustlearn of his return.
At last he managed to sit up. He was not trembling quite so wildly, buthe still suffered from a deathly sickness. A faint streak of light fromthe corridor outside shone under his door. As he noted it, it was joinedby a second streak, forming a triangle.
There was a very soft rasping of metal. Someone was opening the door!
Soames lay back upon the bed. This time he was past further panic andcome to a stage of sickly apathy. He lay, now, because he could not situpright, because stark horror had robbed him of physical strength, andhad drained the well of his emotions dry.
Gradually--so that the operation seemed to occupy an interminable time,the door opened, and in the opening a figure appeared.
The switch clicked, and the room was flooded with electric light.
Ho-Pin stood watching him.
Soames--in his eyes that indescribable expression seen in the eyes of abird placed in a cobra's den--met the Chinaman's gaze. This gaze was nodifferent from that which habitually he directed upon the people of thecatacombs. His yellow face was set in the same mirthless smile, and hiseyebrows were raised interrogatively. For the space of ten seconds, hestood watching the man on the bed. Then:--
"You wreturn vewry soon, Mr. Soames?" he said, softly.
Soames groaned like a dying man, whispering:
"I was... taken ill--very ill."...
"So you wreturn befowre the time awranged for you?"
His metallic voice was sunk in a soothing hiss. He smiled steadily: hebetrayed no emotion.
"Yes... sir," whispered Soames, his hair clammily adhering to his browand beads of perspiration trickling slowly down his nose.
"And when you wreturn, you see and you hear--stwrange things, Mr.Soames?"
Soames, who was in imminent danger of becoming physically ill, gulpednoisily.
"No, sir," he whispered,--tremulously, "I've been--in here all thetime."
Ho-Pin nodded, slowly and sympathetically, but never removed theglittering eyes from the face of the man on the bed.
"So you hear nothing, and see nothing?"
The words were spoken even more softly than he had spoken hitherto.
"Nothing," protested Soames. He suddenly began to tremble anew, and histrembling rattled the bed. "I have been--very ill indeed, sir."
Ho-Pin nodded again slowly, and with deep sympathy.
"Some medicine shall be sent to you, Mr. Soames," he said.
He turned and went out slowly, closing the door behind him.