D’Arlancourt was speaking. “Secret service? Give me Ellery. Tell him it is d’Arlancourt. Yes, please. Hello — yes, this is Jeff. I want to know whether you have any reports on secret societies that bear a name like Phemaut, B’Moth, or Behemoth — a name something similar to that.” He listened for a while. “What — good heavens! We’ll be over, right away.”
He turned to me, and his face was gray. “He says there are known to be societies throughout the world going by the name Phemaut, and others with similar names, and that, after raiding them, the police have discovered bones — human bones, charred, and in many cases, buried. He says these societies have been suspected of incendiarism, dynamiting, and the like. Randall, you have put your finger upon the worst sore the human race has yet to cauterize!”
We found Ellery caressing a beautiful police dog, a pet which he had trained from puppyhood.
D’Arlancourt rapidly described to the secret service man what I had already told him. Ellery received the information, at first with a quizzical smile, but, under the accumulation of evidence that we were able to present, his face took on a grave mien. He called his secretary, and instructed him to obtain a certain address.
“And send a telegram to the secret service departments of every civilized country, in code,” he added. “Inquire if there have been any signs of an attempt — what shall I say?” he stopped, looking helplessly at us.
“Ask if there have been any overt attempts that appear to be directed by secret societies to rehabilitate the life of primitive times at the present day,” I put in suggestively.
“But they’ll think me crazy. They won’t know what I mean.”
“They’ll know well enough if they have run into anything like what we are dealing with here,” said d’Arlancourt quickly. “If they don’t, they will only think the cable has been garbled in transmission.”
“All right, put in something like that. Ask particularly if they have had any trouble from groups of people who worship any animal, or any reptile, particularly one that resembles a hippopotamus.”
“Very well, sir,” said the secretary with a slight smirk.
“That’s all,” snapped Ellery.
We left the office together, and drove to the meeting-place that the detective wished us to visit. Ugly rumors had been associated with it, and there was some probability that we should find what we sought there.
The night was fast falling as we approached the hall. It was in a squalid and miserable section of the city. We parked the car some distance away, and mingling with the motley throng that sought admission, we entered the building, and seated ourselves near the rear door.
The place was almost filled, and very soon after our entry the lights commenced to dim. They dwindled to mere dots of green flame, and there arose a chorus of meaningless babble like the chatter of apes in the forests of the Amazon. This was evidently the greeting extended to the high priest of Behemoth, who was now entering.
He was clothed in a shining green robe that was apparently made from the skin of some monster of the deep. Like decaying fish, it glowed a bluish green, and surrounded the repulsive features of a mask that he wore with a fiendish, unnatural light. Slowly he mounted the steps to the rostrum. I saw that there was before him a tank which glowed with that lambent blue fire that I had seen in the glass when the insane man had died in the German- American Hospital.
I found it impossible to repress a shudder. The place was almost dark, and except for the priest on the rostrum, we could see nothing but the tiny points of green that indicated the colored electric lights.
There appeared to be no ceremonial or ritual in connection with the business. Everybody did as he pleased, but always there was that wild jargon, that reminded me of the forest. At my left was a woman, with pendulous jowl, and huge teeth projecting from between thick lips. Her shouts almost rent my eardrums.
As the affair went forward, the crowd became ecstatic, and many threw themselves in transports upon the floor, tearing their clothes away from their bodies and dancing wildly in the darkness. Many carried tame serpents which they lovingly caressed; others had tiny monkeys which they kissed affectionately. Men and women alike threw themselves upon each other in a frenzy of mad abandon. I saw a Malay struggling in the arms of a white woman, and heard their shouts of ecstasy. I saw others sinking teeth deep into the arms, the legs, the shoulders of those nearest to them in an insane fury of primeval ferocity. There was a beautiful girl, her body stripped naked, lying in the embrace of a bronze figure, drinking in with passionate abandon the kisses he showered upon her. Apes flitted hither and thither among the crazed throng, receiving homage wherever they passed. Serpents writhed, their coils encircling the throats of the devotees. And the shouting rose to a bedlam.
The air was becoming thicker every minute. 1 could not understand it at first, but soon it was clear to me. I had seen that heavy greenish vapor before. It was the breath of that hellish atrocity that these deluded wretches worshipped. It seemed to overhang the whole hall, enveloping all in its clammy folds. I felt the sickly touch of it, and writhed as though in the grip of some loathsome Thing. My companions sat there with drawn faces, their muscles tensed in an effort to resist the awful spectacle.
The cries rapidly blended themselves into a rhythmical shouting. Into my dazed senses there was borne the sound of a single phrase: “B’Moth… Master!” It was repeated a thousand times as the heavy pall closed in upon us thicker and thicker.
The man sitting at my side spoke to me in a roar of joy. “The Master is almost ready,” he shouted above the din. “A few more days and the world will feel his power.” He beat his brows, and cried in ecstasy, “Come… B’Moth… Master, come!” I nodded in pretended agreement, and he went on with his shouting.
A woman threw her arms about me and whispered foul things into my ear. Suddenly the attention of the crowd was centered upon the priest at the rostrum. He had uncovered the tank of water upon the platform, and to my horror I saw there, with jaws agape, a huge crocodile. It seemed clothed with the sulfurous glow like everything else.
Into the pandemonium of noise there was injected a new and startling sound — a shriek, shrill and piercing in its power — the voice of a woman in mortal terror! I strained my eyes through the heavy vapor, and saw — good God! — it was a woman that this monstrous priest held aloft over the tank! His purpose was plain. He intended to feed her to the thing in the water.
I stared in horror, paralyzed. I could not lift an arm to save her! At my side there roared a deafening blast. A spurt of flame pierced the night. Ellery had fired his automatic. In fascinated horror I saw the tank splinter as the bullet pierced it. Water poured forth, iridescent and phosphorescent, covering the devotees. The crocodile slithered
to the floor, and floundered among those nearest him. His red- smeared jaws champed furiously at the arms and legs of the people in the front seats, while Ellery fired and fired.
At last he found his mark. The crocodile writhed in mortal agony, flapped his tail, striking half a dozen men who were bowing before him, and died. The priest dropped the girl, and commenced to run. In his haste, the mask which covered his face became dislodged, and fell to the ground.
I stared in stark horror at the lust-distorted visage that was revealed to me.
The girl came dashing up the aisle and disappeared into the street. We were in a dangerous position. The frenzied mob turned upon us with murderous lust, and scratching, punching, and panting we were borne to the floor. Again Ellery’s gun spat lead and flame, and the crowd edged away from him. In the lull, we dashed for the door and escaped across the street into the car.
We saw the girl standing in the street. Hastily telling her to get into the car, we drove back to the office of the detective.
When we arrived, we found the secretary in great distress. The police dog that Ellery loved so much appeared to have been taken suddenly ill. The detective excused himself, and left the room.
We heard him outside, calling the dog. There was a patter of canine feet, then a snarling growl. We heard a heavy body thud to the ground, and a cry of pain. Darting to the door, we saw a sight that sickened us.
Ellery lay upon the floor, and blood was streaming from his throat. He was dead before we reached him. And as the dog — half wolf, wholly wild — stood there, growling at us, the unspeakable enmity of those eyes, touched with a devilish light, bespoke the fiend, the devourer, Behemoth. Around him there curled a thin wisp of yellow vapor.
D’Arlancourt picked up Ellery’s revolver from the table and fired at the brute. The dog fell dead, and as he fell — was it true, or did my distraught nerves belie my senses? — I thought I heard an ominous rumble from the dark recesses of the room, as the vapor floated out of the window and vanished.
