“Was the voice Van Berg’s?”
“I couldn’t tell, dear. It was a kind of—scream. Then, as I hurried along to wake you, I heard something else——”
She clung to me tightly.
“What darling?”
“I don’t know!” She shuddered violently. “A sort of dreadful
“Then you called out?”
“I didn’t call out till I got right to your door and had it open.”
I understood then that I had confused dreaming with reality. The distant voice, as it had seemed to me, had been that of Rima urgently calling at the opened door.
“It’s the green box!” she whispered, in an even lower tone. “Shan, I’m terrified! You know what happened on Thursday night! It must have been the same sound....”
That thought was on my own mind. Van Berg had been disturbed on Thursday night by an inexplicable happening, an outstanding feature of which had been a strange moaning sound. The chief had declined to take it seriously; but I knew our American colleague for a man of sound common sense not addicted to nervous imaginings.
And the green box was in his room....
Barefooted, I stepped towards the door, releasing Rima, whom I had been holding tightly.
“Stay here, darling,” I said; “unless I call you.”
I crept out into the corridor. It was dimly lighted a few paces along by a high, barred window. Almost opposite in the narrow street stood a deserted mosque, its minaret, from the balcony of which no mueddin had called for many years, overlooking the roof of our temporary residence. Moonlight, reflected from the dingy yellow wall of this mosque, vaguely illuminated the passage ahead of me.
The once holy building had a horrible history and I knew that Rima associated the sound she had heard with the legend of the mosque.
Stock still I stood for a moment, listening. The house was silent as a vault. It possessed three floors. The rooms beneath on the ground floor contained the stored furniture—or part of it—of the owner from whom Sir Lionel had leased the place. The ground-floor windows were heavily barred, and Alt Mahmoud slept in the lobby; so that none could enter without arousing him.
There were four rooms above, two of them unoccupied. Locked in one were a pair of Caspian kittens, beautiful little creatures with fur like finest silk, destined for the chiefs private menagerie, practical zoology being one of his hobbies. In the end, or southeast, room, Dr. Van Berg was quartered. Our records, the bulk of our photographs, and other valuables were in his charge as well as the green box. No sound disturbed the silence.
I advanced cautiously in the direction of the staircase. The widely open door of Rima’s room was on my left. Moonlight poured in upon the polished uncarpeted floor. Her shutters were open.
Pausing for a moment, puzzled, I suddenly remembered that she had opened them when that cry in the night had disturbed her.
Personally, I kept mine religiously closed against the incursions of nocturnal insects, since we were near the bank of the river and no great distance from a fruit market. I had switched off my torch, the reflected light through the high window being sufficient for my purpose. I passed Rima’s door—then pulled up short, my nerves jangling.
From somewhere, outside the house, and high up, came a singular sound.
It was a sort of whistle in a minor key, resembling nothing so much as a human imitation of a police whistle. It changed, passing from a moan to an indescribable wail...and dying away.
“Shan, did you hear it? That’s the
“I heard it,” I answered in a low voice. “For God’s sake, stay where you are.”
The chief’s door was ahead of me, in comparative shadow there at the end of the passage. I could see that it was closed:
a teak door, ornamented with iron scrollwork. Sir Lionel was a heavy sleeper. A narrow stair opened on the right and led down to the lobby. No sound reached me from beneath. Evidently Alt Mahmoud had not been aroused.
On my left was a stair to the floor above. I crept up. My nerves were badly jangled, and creaking of the ancient woodwork sounded in my ears like pistol shots. I gained the top corridor. Two windows faced west, commanding a view of low, flat roofs stretching away to a distant prospect of the river. The moonlight was dazzling. In contrast to the passage below it was like stepping from midnight into high noon. I paused again for a moment, listening intently. A sound of scurrying movement reached my ears from beyond Van Berg’s closed door. I took a step forward and paused again. Then, my hand on the clumsy native latch:
“Van Berg!” I said softly.
The only reply was a queer soft, plaintive howl. Let me confess that this nearly unnerved me. A vague but unmistakable menace had been overhanging us from the hour of our momentous discovery in Khorassan. Now, awakened as I had been, my memory repeating over and over again that weird, wailing sound, I recognized that I was by no means at my best.
Clenching my teeth, I raised the latch....I peered along the narrow room. It extended from the corridor to the opposite side of the house. I saw that the shutters were open in the deep, recessed window. Moonlight reflected from the wall of the mosque afforded scanty illumination.
A sickly sweet perfume hung in the air, strongly resembling that of mimosa, but having a pungency which gripped me by the throat. I pressed the button of my torch.
Some vague thing, indeterminate, streaky, leapt towards me. I shrank back, pistol levelled....And for the second time I heard
Perhaps I have never been nearer to true panic in my life. That moaning wail seemed to come from outside the house— and from high above. It seemed to vibrate throughout my entire nervous system. It was the most utterly damnable sound to which I had ever listened.
Only my sudden recognition of one of the facts saved me. The Caspian kittens were in the room! I remembered, and gasped in my relief, that the doctor was extremely fond of them. The little creatures, who were very tame, crouched at my feel, looking up at me with their big eyes, appealingly, as it seemed.
A vague stirring came from the depths of the house. The smell of mimosa was overpowering....Probably Rima had run down and aroused Ali Mahmoud.
These ideas, chaotically, with others too numerous to record, flashed through my mind at the same moment that, stricken motionless with horror, I stood staring down upon Dr. Van Berg, where he lay under the light of my torch.
His heavy body was huddled in so strange a position that, what with anger, regret, fear and other unnameable emotions, I could not at first realise what had happened. He was clothed in silk pajamas of an extravagant pattern which he affected, and his fair hair, which he wore long, hung down over his forehead so that it touched the floor.
He was lying across the green box.
He lay in such a way that his big body almost obscured the box from my view. But now I saw that his powerful arms were outstretched, and that his fingers were locked in a death grip upon the handles at either end.
That long moment of horrified inertia passed.
I sprang forward and dropped upon one knee. I tried to speak, but only a husky murmur came. There was blood on the lid of the box, and a pool was gathering upon the floor beside it. I put my hand under Van Berg’s chin and lifted his face. Then I stood upright, feeling very ill.
What I had seen had wiped the slate of consciousness clear of all but one thing. My fingers quivered on the Colt repeater. I wanted the life of the cowardly assassin who had done Van Berg to death—big, gentle, fearless Van Berg. For here was murder—cold-blooded murder!
A sort of buzzing in my ears died away and left me perfectly cool, with just that one desire for retribution burning in my brain. I heard footsteps—muffled voices. I didn’t heed them.
