CHAPTER SIXTH
PERFUME
OF MIMOSA
“Poor Van Berg,” I explained, “slept in this room, which throughout the time that we have been in Ispahan we have used as an office. All the records are kept here, and up to the time of the tragedy the most valuable record of all: a strong iron box, which the chief almost invariably carried with him, and in which it was his custom to deposit valuable finds.”
“At the time of Van Berg’s death,” Nayland Smith said sharply, “what did this box contain?”
“It contained,” I replied, “to the best of my knowledge, fifteen plates of thin gold, upon which were engraved the articles of the New Creed; the ‘Sword of
Nayland Smith nodded.
“Van Berg was definitely uneasy from the time that we entered into occupancy of this house. It belongs to a Persian friend of Sir Lionel’s—for the chief has friends everywhere;
and he arranged in some way that it should be our headquarters in Ispahan. In certain respects it suited us well enough. But, as you can see, it’s in a queer district and it lies actually in the shadow of the so-called Ghost Mosque.”
“Ghost Mosque!” Nayland Smith echoed. “I don’t want to interrupt—but explain more fully what you mean.”
“I will do my best. It appears that years ago—I am rather shaky as to dates—an imam of the mosque opposite, who happened to be related to the Grand Sherif of Ispahan, conceived a passion for the favourite wife of the then heir apparent, who formerly had a house near by. They were detected together— so the story goes—inside the gallery of the minaret. The exact details of their fate at the hands of the eunuchs are more lurid than pleasant. But the guilty pair were finally thrown from the gallery to the street below. The mosque has never been used since that day; and the death cries of the victims are supposed to be heard from time to time...
Nayland Smith tugged at the lobe of his ear irritably, but made no comment; and:
“This circumstance, no doubt,” I added, “accounts for the ease with which Sir Lionel obtained possession of so large a house at such short notice. It was shut up on our arrival, and musty from long disuse. I give these details, Sir Denis, first, because you asked for them, and, second, because they have a curious bearing on the death of Van Berg.”
“I quite understand.”
“The chief related this story with tremendous gusto when we took up our residence here. You know his bloodthirsty sense of humour? But the effect on Rima was dreadful. She’s as fit as any man to cope with actual danger and hardship, but the bogey business got completely on her nerves. Personally, I treated it as what it really is—a piece of native superstition. I was altogether more worried about the real purpose of our long delay in Ispahan. I don’t know to this present hour, why Sir Lionel hung on here. But my scepticism about the Ghost Mosque got rather a jar.”
“In what way?”
“Last Thursday night—that is, two nights before his death—Van Berg aroused me. He said that he had been awakened by a sound which resembled that of a huge bird alighting upon the balcony outside his window.”
“This window?” Nayland Smith interrupted, and pointed.
“This window. The shutters were closed, but not latched, and this sound, so he told me, aroused him. He sprang out of bed, switched on the electric torch which lay beside him, and ran across to the shutters. As he did so, he heard a low moaning sound which rose to a wail and then died away. When he threw the shutters open and looked out into the street, there was nobody there.”
“Did he examine the woodwork?”
“He didn’t say so.”
Nayland Smith snapped his fingers and nodded to me to go on.
“Imagine my feelings. Sir Denis, when Rima awakened me on Saturday night saying that she had heard a cry from Van Berg’s room, almost immediately above her own (that is, the room, in which we are now), followed, as she crept out of her door to awaken me, by a moaning sound outside the house, and high up in the air!”
“Where is your room?”
“At the farther end of the same corridor below.”
“I must inspect this corridor. Go on.”
“Rima woke me up—I had been fast asleep. I won’t disguise, Sir Denis, the fact that our possession of these relics had become somewhat of a nightmare. When I learned of the disturbance in Van Berg’s room above, followed by that strange cry, which I could only suppose to be the same that he himself had heard, I feared the worst...and I was right.”
“Did Rima more particularly describe this cry?” Nayland Smith asked impatiently.
“No. But I can do so.”
“What?”
“I heard it later myself as I went along the corridor past her room.”
“Was the moon up?”
“Yes.”
“Was her door open?”
“Wide open.”
“Was there any light in her room?”
“Yes—she had opened her shutters and was listening, so I understand, for further sounds from Van Berg’s room above.”
“Was that when she heard the sound?”
“No. She heard it as she opened her door and came along to me.”
“Is there a window facing the door of her room?”
“Yes, almost immediately opposite; in fact, just below where I am standing.”
“Good!” rapped Nayland Smith. “Go on.”
I stared at him for a moment. I detected something like a glint of satisfaction in the steely gray eyes and began to wonder if he had already seen light where all around was darkness to the rest of us.
“I had just reached Rima’s door,” I went on, “when I myself heard the extraordinary sound for the first time.”
“It was not the cry of a dacoit?”
“It was not.”
“Give me some idea of it. Can you imitate it?”
“I fear that’s impossible.”
“Was it a sound made by a human being? By an animal— by some kind of musical instrument?”
“Frankly, I dare not venture to say. It began with a sort of whistling note, which rose to a shriek and died away in a kind of wail.”
Nayland Smith, who had been pacing up and down throughout the whole time that I had been speaking, accelerated his step and began tugging at the lobe of his left ear, in a state of furious irritation or deep reflection—I could not determine which. Until, since I had paused:
“Go on!” he snapped.
“Quite frankly, I was scared out of my life. I called very softly to Rima to go down to the lobby and wake Ali
