Brood of the Witch-Queen by Sax Rohmer (the top 100 crime novels of all time .TXT) 📕

the supporting arm, and turned to that corner behind the heap of debris where was the opening through which they had entered the Satanic temple.

No opening was visible!

“He has closed it!” cried Dr. Cairn. “There are six stone doors between here and the place above! If he had succeeded in shutting one of them before we⁠—?”

“My God!” whispered Sime. “Let us get out! I am nearly at the end of my tether!”

Fear lends wings, and it was with something like the lightness of a bird that Sime descended the shaft. At the bottom⁠—

“On to my shoulders!” he cried, looking up.

Dr. Cairn lowered himself to the foot of the shaft. “You go first,” he said.

He was gasping, as if nearly suffocated, but retained a wonderful self-control. Once over into the Borderland, and bravery assumes a new guise; the courage which can face physical danger undaunted, melts in the fires of the unknown.

Sime, his breath whistling sibilantly between his clenched teeth, hauled himself through the low passage, with incredible speed. The two worked their way arduously, up the long slope. They saw the blue sky above them.⁠ ⁠…

“Something like a huge bat,” said Robert Cairn, “crawled out upon the first stage. We both fired⁠—”

Dr. Cairn raised his hand. He lay exhausted at the foot of the mound.

“He had lighted the incense,” he replied, “and was reciting the secret ritual. I cannot explain. But your shots were wasted. We came too late⁠—”

“Lady Lashmore⁠—”

“Until the Pyramid of Méydûm is pulled down, stone by stone, the world will never know her fate! Sime and I have looked in at the gate of hell! Only the hand of God plucked us back! Look!”

He pointed to Sime. He lay, pallid, with closed eyes⁠—and his hair was abundantly streaked with white!

XX The Incense

To Robert Cairn it seemed that the boat-train would never reach Charing Cross. His restlessness was appalling. He perpetually glanced from his father, with whom he shared the compartment, to the flying landscape with its vistas of hop-poles; and Dr. Cairn, although he exhibited less anxiety, was, nevertheless, strung to highest tension.

That dash from Cairo homeward had been something of a fevered dream to both men. To learn, whilst one is searching for a malign and implacable enemy in Egypt, that that enemy, having secretly returned to London, is weaving his evil spells around “some we loved, the loveliest and the best,” is to know the meaning of ordeal.

In pursuit of Antony Ferrara⁠—the incarnation of an awful evil⁠—Dr. Cairn had deserted his practice, had left England for Egypt. Now he was hurrying back again; for whilst he had sought in strange and dark places of that land of mystery for Antony Ferrara, the latter had been darkly active in London!

Again and again Robert Cairn read the letter which, surely as a royal command, had recalled them. It was from Myra Duquesne. One line in it had fallen upon them like a bomb, had altered all their plans, had shattered the one fragment of peace remaining to them.

In the eyes of Robert Cairn, the whole universe centred around Myra Duquesne; she was the one being in the world of whom he could not bear to think in conjunction with Antony Ferrara. Now he knew that Antony Ferrara was beside her, was, doubtless at this very moment, directing those Black Arts of which he was master, to the destruction of her mind and body⁠—perhaps of her very soul.

Again he drew the worn envelope from his pocket and read that ominous sentence, which, when his eyes had first fallen upon it, had blotted out the sunlight of Egypt.

“… And you will be surprised to hear that Antony is back in London⁠ ⁠… and is a frequent visitor here. It is quite like old times.⁠ ⁠…”

Raising his haggard eyes, Robert Cairn saw that his father was watching him.

“Keep calm, my boy,” urged the doctor; “it can profit us nothing, it can profit Myra nothing, for you to shatter your nerves at a time when real trials are before you. You are inviting another breakdown. Oh! I know it is hard; but for everybody’s sake try to keep yourself in hand.”

“I am trying, sir,” replied Robert hollowly.

Dr. Cairn nodded, drumming his fingers upon his knee.

“We must be diplomatic,” he continued. “That James Saunderson proposed to return to London, I had no idea. I thought that Myra would be far outside the Black maelström in Scotland. Had I suspected that Saunderson would come to London, I should have made other arrangements.”

“Of course, sir, I know that. But even so we could never have foreseen this.”

Dr. Cairn shook his head.

“To think that whilst we have been scouring Egypt from Port Said to Assouan⁠—he has been laughing at us in London!” he said. “Directly after the affair at Méydûm he must have left the country⁠—how, Heaven only knows. That letter is three weeks old, now?”

Robert Cairn nodded. “What may have happened since⁠—what may have happened!”

“You take too gloomy a view. James Saunderson is a Roman guardian. Even Antony Ferrara could make little headway there.”

“But Myra says that⁠—Ferrara is⁠—a frequent visitor.”

“And Saunderson,” replied Dr. Cairn with a grim smile, “is a Scotchman! Rely upon his diplomacy, Rob. Myra will be safe enough.”

“God grant that she is!”

At that, silence fell between them, until punctually to time, the train slowed into Charing Cross. Inspired by a common anxiety, Dr. Cairn and his son were first among the passengers to pass the barrier. The car was waiting for them; and within five minutes of the arrival of the train they were whirling through London’s traffic to the house of James Saunderson.

It lay in that quaint backwater, remote from motorbus highways⁠—Dulwich Common, and was a rambling red-tiled building which at some time had been a farmhouse. As the big car pulled up at the gate, Saunderson, a large-boned Scotchman, tawny-eyed, and with his grey hair worn long and untidily, came out to meet them. Myra Duquesne stood beside him. A quick blush coloured her face momentarily; then left it pale again.

Indeed, her pallor was alarming. As