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

Robert Cairn, leaping from the car, seized both her hands and looked into her eyes, it seemed to him that the girl had almost an ethereal appearance. Something clutched at his heart, iced his blood; for Myra Duquesne seemed a creature scarcely belonging to the world of humanity⁠—seemed already half a spirit. The light in her sweet eyes was good to see; but her fragility, and a certain transparency of complexion, horrified him.

Yet, he knew that he must hide these fears from her; and turning to Mr. Saunderson, he shook him warmly by the hand, and the party of four passed by the low porch into the house.

In the hallway Miss Saunderson, a typical Scottish housekeeper, stood beaming welcome; but in the very instant of greeting her, Robert Cairn stopped suddenly as if transfixed.

Dr. Cairn also pulled up just within the door, his nostrils quivering and his clear grey eyes turning right and left⁠—searching the shadows.

Miss Saunderson detected this sudden restraint.

“Is anything the matter?” she asked anxiously.

Myra, standing beside Mr. Saunderson, began to look frightened. But Dr. Cairn, shaking off the incubus which had descended upon him, forced a laugh, and clapping his hand upon Robert’s shoulder cried:

“Wake up, my boy! I know it is good to be back in England again, but keep your daydreaming for after lunch!”

Robert Cairn forced a ghostly smile in return, and the odd incident promised soon to be forgotten.

“How good of you,” said Myra as the party entered the dining-room, “to come right from the station to see us. And you must be expected in Half-Moon Street, Dr. Cairn?”

“Of course we came to see you first,” replied Robert Cairn significantly.

Myra lowered her face and pursued that subject no further.

No mention was made of Antony Ferrara, and neither Dr. Cairn nor his son cared to broach the subject. The lunch passed off, then, without any reference to the very matter which had brought them there that day.

It was not until nearly an hour later that Dr. Cairn and his son found themselves alone for a moment. Then, with a furtive glance about him, the doctor spoke of that which had occupied his mind, to the exclusion of all else, since first they had entered the house of James Saunderson.

“You noticed it, Rob?” he whispered.

“My God! it nearly choked me!”

Dr. Cairn nodded grimly.

“It is all over the house,” he continued, “in every room that I have entered. They are used to it, and evidently do not notice it, but coming in from the clean air, it is⁠—”

“Abominable, unclean⁠—unholy!”

“We know it,” continued Dr. Cairn softly⁠—“that smell of unholiness; we have good reason to know it. It heralded the death of Sir Michael Ferrara. It heralded the death of⁠—another.”

“With a just God in heaven, can such things be?”

“It is the secret incense of Ancient Egypt,” whispered Dr. Cairn, glancing towards the open door; “it is the odour of that Black Magic which, by all natural law, should be buried and lost forever in the tombs of the ancient wizards. Only two living men within my knowledge know the use and the hidden meaning of that perfume; only one living man has ever dared to make it⁠—to use it.⁠ ⁠…”

“Antony Ferrara⁠—”

“We knew he was here, boy; now we know that he is using his powers here. Something tells me that we come to the end of the fight. May victory be with the just.”

XXI The Magician

Half-Moon Street was bathed in tropical sunlight. Dr. Cairn, with his hands behind him, stood looking out of the window. He turned to his son, who leant against a corner of the bookcase in the shadows of the big room.

“Hot enough for Egypt, Rob,” he said.

Robert Cairn nodded.

“Antony Ferrara,” he replied, “seemingly travels his own atmosphere with him. I first became acquainted with his hellish activities during a phenomenal thunderstorm. In Egypt his movements apparently corresponded with those of the khamsin. Now,”⁠—he waved his hand vaguely towards the window⁠—“this is Egypt in London.”

“Egypt is in London, indeed,” muttered Dr. Cairn. “Jermyn has decided that our fears are well-founded.”

“You mean, sir, that the will⁠—?”

“Antony Ferrara would have an almost unassailable case in the event of⁠—of Myra⁠—”

“You mean that her share of the legacy would fall to that fiend, if she⁠—”

“If she died? Exactly.”

Robert Cairn began to stride up and down the room, clenching and unclenching his fists. He was a shadow of his former self, but now his cheeks were flushed and his eyes feverishly bright.

“Before Heaven!” he cried suddenly, “the situation is becoming unbearable. A thing more deadly than the Plague is abroad here in London. Apart from the personal aspect of the matter⁠—of which I dare not think!⁠—what do we know of Ferrara’s activities? His record is damnable. To our certain knowledge his victims are many. If the murder of his adoptive father, Sir Michael, was actually the first of his crimes, we know of three other poor souls who beyond any shadow of doubt were launched into eternity by the Black Arts of this ghastly villain⁠—”

“We do, Rob,” replied Dr. Cairn sternly.

“He has made attempts upon you; he has made attempts upon me. We owe our survival”⁠—he pointed to a row of books upon a corner shelf⁠—“to the knowledge which you have accumulated in half a lifetime of research. In the face of science, in the face of modern scepticism, in the face of our belief in a benign God, this creature, Antony Ferrara, has proved himself conclusively to be⁠—”

“He is what the benighted ancients called a magician,” interrupted Dr. Cairn quietly. “He is what was known in the Middle Ages as a wizard. What that means, exactly, few modern thinkers know; but I know, and one day others will know. Meanwhile his shadow lies upon a certain house.”

Robert Cairn shook his clenched fists in the air. In some men the gesture had seemed melodramatic; in him it was the expression of a soul’s agony.

“But, sir!” he cried⁠—“are we to wait, inert, helpless? Whatever he is, he has a human body and there are bullets, there are knives, there are a