Transcribed by Sean Pobuda
THE PERILS OF PAULINE
By Charles Goddard
CHAPTER I
THE BREATH OF DEAD CENTURIES
In one of the stateliest mansions on the lower Hudson, near New York,old Stanford Marvin, president of the Marvin Motors Company, dozed overhis papers, while Owen, his confidential secretary, eyed him across themahogany flat-topped desk. A soft purring sound floated in the openwindow and half-roused the aged manufacturer. It came from one of hisown cars--six cylinders chanting in unison a litany of power to thegreat modern god of gasoline.
These things had been in his mind since the motor industry started. Hehad lived with them, wrestled with them during his meals and taken themto his dreams at night. Now they formed a rhythm, and he heard them inhis brain just before the fainting spells, which had come so frequentlyof late. He glanced at the secretary and noted Owen's gaze withsomething of a start.
"What are you thinking about, Raymond?" he queried, with his customarydirectness.
"Your health, sir," replied Owen, who, like all intelligent rascals,never lied when the truth would do equally well. As a matter of fact,Owen had wondered whether his employer would last a year or a month.He much preferred a month, for there was reason to believe that theMarvin will would contain a handsome bequest to "my faithfulsecretary."
"Oh, bosh!" said the old man. "You and Dr. Stevens would make a mummyof me before I'm dead."
"That reminds me, sir," said Owen, smoothly, "that the InternationalExpress Company has delivered a large crate addressed to you fromCairo, Egypt. I presume it is the mummy you bought on your last trip.Where shall I place it?"
Mr. Marvin's eye coursed around the walls of the handsome library,which had been his office since the doctor had forbidden him to visithis automobile works and steel-stamping mills.
"Take out that bust of Pallas Athene," he ordered, "and stand the mummyup in its place."
Owen nodded, poised his pencil and prompted:
"You were just dictating about the new piston rings."
Mr. Marvin drew his hand across his eyes and looked out the window.Within the range of his vision was one of the most charming sights inthe world--a handsome youth and a pretty girl, arrayed in whiteflannels, playing tennis.
"Never mind the letters. Tell Harry and Pauline I wish to see them."
Alone, the old man opened a drawer and took a dose of medicine, then heunfolded Dr. Stevens's letter and read its final paragraph, whichprescribed a change of climate, together with complete and permanentrest or "I will not answer for the consequences."
There was little doubt that no primer mover in a great industry wasbetter able to leave its helm than Standford Marvin. His lieutenantswere able, efficient and contented. The factories would go of theirown momentum for a year or two at least, then his son, Harry, just outof college, should be able, perhaps, to help. His lieutenants hadproved Marvin's unerring instinct in judging character. Not one singlecase came to the old employer's mind of a man who had failed to turnout exactly as he expected. Yet the most trusted man of all, RaymondOwen, the secretary, was disloyal and dishonest.
This one exception was easily enough explained. When Owen came toMarvin's attention, fifteen years before, he was a fine, honest,faithful man. It was born and bred in him to be straight. During thefirst five' or six years in the Marvin household the older man tookpains to keep watch on this quiet, tactful youth until he knew all hisways and even his habits of thought. There was no doubt that Owen wasas upright and clean as the old man himself.
At the age of forty the devil entered into Owen. It came in the formof insomnia. Loss of sleep will make any man irritable andunreasonable, but hardly dishonest. With the sleeplessness, however,came the temptation to take drugs. Owen shifted from one narcotic toanother, finally, settling down upon morphine. Five years of theopiate had made him its slave. Every physician knows that morphinefiends become dishonest.
The secretary had speculated with his modest savings and lost them. Hehad borrowed and lost again, and now, for some time, had been bettingon horse races. This last had made him acquainted with a certainMontgomery Hicks, who lived well without visible source of income.Through Hicks, Owen had betrayed one of his employer's guardedsecrets. Hicks, armed with this secret, promptly changed from afriendly creditor to a blackmailer.
Owen, on his way to summon Pauline and Harry, descended to thebasement, where the butler, gardener, and a colored man were uncratingthe Egyptian mummy. He told them to stand it in place of the bust ofPallas Athene in the library, and then went out, crossing the splendidlawns, and graveled roads to the tennis court. There was no design inOwen's mind against the two players, but of late the instinct of boththe hunter and the hunted were showing in him, and it prompted him toapproach quietly and under cover. So he passed along the edge of ahedge and stood a moment within earshot.
Pauline was about to "serve," but paused to look down at the loosenedlaces of her small white shoe. She heard Harry's racquet drop and sawhim hurdle the net. In another instant he was at her feet tying thetiny bow.
"You needn't have done that, Harry," she said.
"Oh, no!" Harry affirmed, as he vainly tried to make his bow as trimas its mate. "I suppose not. I don't suppose I need to, think, aboutyou all the time either, or follow you around till that new cockerspaniel of yours thinks I'm part of your shadow. Perhaps I don't needto love you."
"Harry, get up! Someone will see you and think you're proposing tome."
"Think? They ought to know I'm proposing. But, Pauline, talking about'need,' there isn't any need of your being so pretty. Your eyes arebigger and bluer than they really need to be. You could see just aswell if you didn't have such long, curly lashes, and there isn't anyreal necessity for the way they group together in that starry effect,like Nell Brinkley's girls. Is there any need of fifteen differentbeautiful shades of light where the sun strikes your hair just back ofyour ear?"
"Harry, stop this! The score is forty-fifteen."
"Yes, all these things are entirely unnecessary. I'm going to have oldMother Nature indicted by the Grand jury for willful, wasteful, wantonextravagance unless--unless--" Harry paused.
"Now, Harry, don't use up your whole vocabulary--promise what?"
"Promise to marry me at once."
"No, Harry, I can't do that--that is, right away. I must have time."
"Why time? Pauline, don't you love me?"
"Yes, I think I do love you, Harry, and you know there is nobody elsein the world."
"Then what do you want time for?"
"Why, to see life and to know what life really is."
"All right. Marry me, and I'll show you life. I'll lead you any kindof a life you want."
"No, that won't do. As an old, settled-down, married woman I couldn'treally do what I want. I must see life in its great moments. I musthave thrills, adventures, see people, do daring things, watch battles.It might be best for me even to see someone killed, if that werepossible. As I was telling Harley St. John last night--"
"Harley St. John? Well, if I catch that fop taking you motoring againyou'll get your wish and see a real nice aristocratic murder. He oughtto be put out of his misery, anyway; but where did you get all thesesudden notions about wild and strenuous life?"
Pauline did not answer. They both heard a discreet cough, and Owenrounded the corner of the hedge. He delivered his message, and thethree walked slowly toward the house.
Advancing to meet them came a dashy checked suit. Above it was a largePanama hat with a gaudy ribbon. A red necktie was also visible, evenat a considerable distance. Between the hat and the necktie a faceseveral degrees darker in color than the tie came i
nto view as thedistance lessened. It was Mr. Montgomery Hicks, whose first name wasusually pronounced "Mugumry" and thence degenerated into "Mug." Mug'sinflamed and scowling face and bulging eyes usually conveyed thegeneral impression that he was about to burst into profanity--aconjecture which frequently proved correct. In this case he merelyremarked in a sort of "newsboy" voice:
"Mr. Raymond Owen, I believe?"
The secretary's sallow face flushed a little as he stepped aside andlet Harry and Pauline pass out of earshot.
"See here, Mug," complained Owen, "I haven't a cent for you. You willget me discharged if you come around here like this."
"Well, I'll get you fired right now," growled Mug, "if you don't comeacross with the money." And he started toward the front steps. Owenled him out of sight of the house and finally got rid of him. For ablackmailer knows he can strike but once, and, having struck, he losesall power over his victim. So Hicks withheld the blow, collected apaltry thirty dollars, and consented to wait a little while for Marvinto die.
Harry and Pauline passed on into the house. He had the straightbackbone and well poised head of the West Pointer, but without theunnatural stiffness of the soldier's carriage; the shoulders of the"halfback," and the lean hips of a runner were his, and he had earnedthem in four years on his varsity football and track teams. The girlbeside him, half a head shorter, tripped along with the easy action ofa thoroughbred. Both bore the name of Marvin, yet there was norelationship.
Harry's mother, long dead, had adopted this girl on Mr. Marvin's firsttrip to Egypt. Pauline was the daughter of an English father and anative mother.
Mrs. Marvin first saw her as a blue-eyed baby, too young to understandthat its parents had just been drowned in the Nile. As brother andsister they grew up together until college separated the two. Afterfour years Pauline's dainty prettiness struck Harry with a distinctshock, the delightful sort of shock known as love at first sight. Itwas really Harry's first sight of her as a woman. Every sense andinstinct in him shouted, "Get that girl," and nothing in him answered"No."
Mr. Marvin looked unusually pale as those two very vital young personsstepped into the library. He read their thoughts and said quietly.
"Harry, I've been placed in the hands of a receiver."
"Receiver?" echoed Harry, with amazement, for he knew that Marvinenterprises were financed magnificently.
"Yes, Dr. Stevens is the receiver. He says I have exhausted my entirestock of nervous capital, that my account at the bank of physicalendurance is overdrawn, nature has called her loans, and you might saythat I am a nervous bankrupt."
"So All you need is rest," cried Pauline, "and you will be as strong asever."
"Well, before I rest I want to assure myself about you children.Harry, you love Pauline, don't you?"
"You bet I do, father."
"Pauline, you love Harry, don't you?"
"Yes," answered Pauline slowly.
"And you will marry right away?"
"This very minute, if she would have me," said Harry.
"And you, Pauline?" queried the old man.
"Yes, father," for she loved him and felt toward him as if she wereindeed his daughter. "Perhaps some time I'll marry Harry, but not fora year or two. I couldn't marry him now, it wouldn't be right."
"Wouldn't be right?? Well, I'd like to know why not."
Pauline was silent a moment. She hated to oppose this fine old man,but her will was as firm as his, and well he knew it. Harry spoke forher:
"Oh, she wants to see life before she settles down--wild life, sinand iniquity, battle, murder and sudden death and all that sort ofstuff. I don't know what has gotten into women these days, anyway."
Then Polly, prettily, daintily, as she did all things, and withcharming little blushes and hesitations, confessed her secret. Inshort, it was her ambition to be a writer, a writer of something worthwhile--a great writer. To be a great writer one must know life, andto know life one must see it--see the world. She ended by asking thetwo men if this were not so.
They looked at each other and coughed with evident relief it thecomparative harmlessness of her whim.
"Yes, Polly," said old man Marvin, "a great writer ought to see life inorder to know what he is writing about. But what makes you suspectthat you have the ability to be even an ordinary writer?"
Marvin sire winked at Marvin son and Marvin son winked back, for no manis too old or too young to enjoy teasing a pretty and serious girl.
Pauline saw the wink, and her foot ceased tracing a pattern in thecarpet and stamped on it instead.
"I'll show you what reason I have to think I can write. My first storyhas just been published in the biggest magazine in the country. I havehad a copy of it lying around here for days with my story in it, andnobody has even looked at it."
Out she flashed, and Harry after her, almost upsetting the butler andgardener, who appeared in the library doorway. These two worthiesadvanced upon the statue of Pallas without noticing the master of thehouse sitting behind his big desk. The butler did notice that a largehound from the stable had followed the gardener into the room.
"That's what one gets for letting outdoor servants into the house,"muttered the butler, as he hustled the big dog to the front door andejected him.
"Is he addressing himself to me or to the pup, I wonder?" asked thegardener, a fat, good-natured Irishman, as he placed himself in frontof the statue.
He read the name "Pallas," forced his rusty derby hat down over hisears in imitation of the statue's helmet, and mimicked the pose.
Together they staggered out with their burden. A moment later theyreturned, carrying, with the help of two other men, the mummy in itsbig case. Owen also entered, and Marvin, with the joy of anEgyptologist, grasped a magnifying glass and examined the case.
The old man's bobby had been Egypt, his liberal checks had assisted inmany an excavation, and his knowledge of her relics was remarkable.Inserting a steel paper cutter in a crack he deftly pried open theupper half of the mummy's front. Beneath lay the mass of wrappings inwhich thousands of years ago the priests of the Nile had swathed somelady of wealth and rank. It was a woman, Marvin was sure, from theinscriptions on her tomb, and he believed her to be a princess.
The secretary excused himself and went to his room, where his preciousmorphine pills were hidden. The old man, left alone, deftly opened themany layers of cloth which bound the ancient form. A faint scent thatwas almost like a presence came forth from the unwrapped folds. Longlost balms they were, ancient spices, forgotten antiseptics of a greatrace that blossomed and Fell--thousands of years before its time.
"I smell the dead centuries," whispered Marvin to himself, "I canalmost feel their weight. The world was young when this womanbreathed. Perhaps she was pretty and foolish like my Polly--yes, andmaybe as stubborn, too. Manetho says they had a good deal to say inthose days. Ah, now we shall see her face."
He had uncovered a bit of the mummy's forehead when out of the bandagesfell a tiny vial. Marvin quickly picked it up. The vial was carvedfrom some sort of green crystal in the shape of a two-headed Egyptianbird god. Without effort the stopper came out and Marvin held thesmall bottle to his nostrils, only to drop it at the mummy's feet. Itexhaled the odor of the mummy which the reek of the centuriesintensified a thousand times.
It was too much for the old man. He had overtaxed his feeble vitalityand felt his senses leaving him. With the entire force of his will hewas able to get to a chair, into which he sank. The odor of the vialwas still in his nostrils. His eyes were fixed and stared straightahead, but he could see, in a faint, unnatural yellow light that bathedthe room.
From the vial, lying at the mummy's feet a vapor appeared to rise. Itfloated toward the swathed figure, enveloped it and seemed to beabsorbed by it.
"Perhaps this is death," thought Marvin, "for I cannot move or speak."
But something else moved. There was a flutter among the bandages ofthe mummy. The commotion
increased. Something was moving inside. Thebandages were becoming loosened. They fell away from the face, andthen was Marvin amazed indeed. Instead of the tight, brownparchment-like skin one always finds in these ancient relics appeared asmooth, olive-tinted complexion. It was the face of a young andbeautiful woman. The features were serene as if in death, but therewas no sunken nose or mummy's hollow eyes.
A strand of black hair fell down, and the movement beneath the bandagesincreased. Out of the folds came an arm, a woman's arm, slender, yetrounded, an arm with light bones and fine sinews, clearly an arm andhand that had never known work. Marvin was well aware that a mummy'sarm is invariably a black skeleton claw.
At this point the old man made a mental note that he was not dead, forhe could feel his own breathing. The arm rapidly and gracefullyloosened and removed wrappings from the neck and breast. On the wristgashed a bracelet made of linked scarabs. The arm now cast away thelast covering of the bosom, neck and shoulders.
She freed her left hand, lifted out the bottom half of the case andslid the wrappings from her limbs. Barefooted and bare-ankled, clothedonly in a shimmering white gown that scarcely covered bare knees, and awhite head-dress with a green serpent head in front, she steppedsomewhat stiffly into the room. Slowly she made several movements oflimbs and body like the first steps of a dance. She rose on her toes,looked down at herself and swayed her lithe hips. It occurred toMarvin that all this was by way of a graceful little stretch after afew thousand years of sleep.
Marvin now observed that she was Pauline's height, and age, as well asgeneral size and form. Slightly shorter she might have been, but thenshe lacked Pauline's high heels. The general resemblance was strikingexcept in the color of the eyes and hair. Pauline's tresses were alight golden yellow, while this girl's hair was black as the hollow ofthe sphinx. Pauline's eyes were blue, but she who stood before himgazed through eyes too dark to guess their color.
The Egyptian had found a little mirror. She patted her hair, adjustedthe head-dress, but Marvin waited in vain for the powder puff. Fromthe mirror the girl's eyes wandered to a painting hanging above thedesk. It was an excellent likeness of Pauline. The resemblancebetween the two was obvious, not only to Marvin but evidently to theblack-haired girl. She turned to the old man and addressed him in astrange language. Not one word did he recognize, yet the syllableswere so clearly and carefully pronounced that he felt he was listeningto an educated woman. Some of the tones were like Pauline's, some werenot, but all were soft, sweet, modulated.
The meaning was clear enough. She wished Marvin to see theresemblance, and she frowned slightly because the rigid, staring figuredid not respond. Why should she be impatient, this woman of thePharaohs who had lain stiff and unresponsive while Babylon and Greeceand Rome and Spain had risen and fallen?
Soon she resorted to pantomime, pointed to herself and the picture,touched her eyes and nose and mouth and then the corresponding paintedfeatures. She felt of her own jet hair, shook her head and lookedquestioningly at the light coiffure of Pauline. She turned to the oldman, evidently asking if the painting were true in this respect. Thenshe smiled a smile like Pauline's. Perhaps she was asking if Paulinehad changed the color of her hair.
Now she became interested in a book on the corner of the desk. Withlittle musical exclamations of delight she turned the printed pages andappreciated that the shelves contained hundreds more of thesetreasures. The typewritten letters lying about excited her admirationand then the pen and ink. She quickly guessed the use of the pen andran eagerly to the mummy case. A moment's search brought forth a longroll of papyrus. Before Marvin's eyes she unrolled a scroll coveredwith Egyptian hieroglyphics.
There were footsteps in the hall and the Egyptian looked toward thedoor. Owen entered, looked at Marvin searchingly, placed him in a morecomfortable position in the chair, spoke his name and walked out. Whatseemed most surprising to the sick, man was his secretary's oversightof the girl. He passed in front of her, almost brushing her white robeand yet it was clear that he did not see her.
But the Egyptian had seen him and the sight had excited her. Sheseemed desperately anxious to say something to Marvin, something aboutPauline.
The mummy had a secret to reveal!
She tore the bracelet from her right wrist and tried to force it intoMarvin's nerveless grasp. Try as she would, his muscles did notrespond. There were voices in the hallway. Harry and Pauline wererunning downstairs. The Princess gave one last imploring glance at theparalyzed figure, passed her hand gently over his forehead; then shestepped quickly back to the case.
Harry and Pauline rushed in, followed less hastily by Owen. Theygrasped the old man's hands, and Harry, seizing the telephone, calledDr. Stevens. But to the surprise of everybody Marvin suddenly shookoff the paralysis, spoke, moved and seemed none the worse for hisseizure.