Professor Augustus Van Dusen: 49 Detective Mysteries in One Edition. Jacques Futrelle
was only a touch of gray in his abundant hair and moustache. His eyes were steady and clear, and indolent.
For a long time he sat, then the draperies to his right parted and a girl entered. She was a part of the picture of which the man was a contradiction. Her lustrous black hair flowed about her shoulders; lambent mysteries lay in her eyes. Her dress was the dress of the East. For a moment she stood looking at the man and then entered with light tread.
“Varick Sahib,” she said, timidly, as if it were a greeting. “Do I intrude?” Her voice was softly guttural with the accent of her native tongue.
“Oh no, Jadeh. Come in,” said the man.
She smiled frankly and sat down on a hassock near him.
“My brother?” she asked.
“He is in the cabinet.”
Varick had merely glanced at her and then continued his thoughtful gaze into vacancy. From time to time she looked up at him shyly, with a touch of eagerness, but there was no answering interest in his manner. His thoughts were far away.
“May I ask what brings you this time, Sahib?” she inquired at last.
“A little deal in the market,” responded Varick, carelessly. “It seems to have puzzled Adhem as much as it did me. He has been in the cabinet for half an hour.”
He stared on musingly as he smoked, then dropped his eyes to the slender, graceful figure of Jadeh. With knees clasped in her hands she leaned back on the hassock deeply thoughtful. Her head was tilted upward and the flickering light fell full on her face. It crossed Varick’s mind that she was pretty, and he was about to say so as he would have said it to any other woman, when the curtains behind them were thrown apart and they both glanced around.
Another man—an East Indian—entered. This man was Adhem Singh, the crystal gazer, in the ostentatious robes of a seer. He, too, was a part of the picture. There was an expression of apprehension, mingled with some other impalpable quality on his strong face.
“Well, Adhem?” inquired Varick.
“I have seen strange things, Sahib,” replied the seer, solemnly. “The crystal tells me of danger.”
“Danger?” repeated Varick with a slight lifting of his brows. “Oh well, in that case I shall keep out of it.”
“Not danger to your business, Sahib,” the crystal gazer went on with troubled face, “but danger in another way.”
The girl, Jadeh, looked at him with quick, startled eyes and asked some question in her native tongue. He answered in the same language, and she rose suddenly with terror stricken face to fling herself at Varick’s feet, weeping. Varick seemed to understand too, and looked at the seer in apprehension.
“Death?” he exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
Adhem was silent for a moment and bowed his head respectfully before the steady, inquiring gaze of the white man.
“Pardon, Sahib,” he said at last. “I did not remember that you understood my language.”
“What is it?” insisted Varick, abruptly. “Tell me.”
“I cannot, Sahib.”
“You must,” declared the other. He had arisen commandingly. “You must.”
The crystal gazer crossed to him and stood for an instant with his hand on the white man’s shoulder, and his eyes studying the fear he found in the white man’s face.
“The crystal, Sahib,” he began. “It tells me that—that—”
“No, no, brother,” pleaded the girl.
“Go on,” Varick commanded.
“It grieves me to say that which will pain one whom I love as I do you, Sahib,” said the seer, slowly. “Perhaps you had rather see for yourself?”
“Well, let me see then,” said Varick. “Is it in the crystal?”
“Yes, by the grace of the gods.”
“But I can’t see anything there,” Varick remembered. “I’ve tried scores of times.”
“I believe this will he different, Sahib,” said Adhem, quietly. “Can you stand a shock?”
Varick shook himself a little impatiently.
“Of course,” he replied. “Yes, yes.”
“A very serious shock?”
Again there was an impatient twist of Varick’s shoulders.
“Yes, I can stand anything,” he exclaimed shortly. “What is it? Let me see.”
He strode toward that point in the draperies where Adhem had entered while the girl on her knees, sought with entreating hands to stop him.
“No, no, no,” she pleaded. “No.”
“Don’t do that,” Varick expostulated in annoyance, but gently he stooped and lifted her to her feet. “I am not a child—or a fool.”
He threw aside the curtains. As they fell softly behind him he heard a pitiful little cry of grief from Jadeh and set his teeth together hard.
He stood in the crystal cabinet. It was somewhat larger than an ordinary closet and had been made impenetrable to the light by hangings of black velvet. For awhile he stood still so that his eyes might become accustomed to the utter blackness, and gradually the sinister fascinating crystal ball appeared, faintly visible by its own mystic luminosity. It rested on a pedestal of black velvet.
Varick was accustomed to his surroundings—he had been in the cabinet many times. Now he dropped down on a stool in front of the table whereon the crystal lay and leaning forward on his arms stared into its limpid depths. Unblinkingly for one, two, three minutes he sat there with his thoughts in a chaos.
After awhile there came a change in the ball. It seemed to glow with a growing light other than its own. Suddenly it darkened completely, and out of this utter darkness grew shadowy, vague forms to which he could give no name. Finally a veil seemed lifted for the globe grew brighter and he leaned forward, eagerly, fearfully. Another veil melted away and a still brighter light illumined the ball.
Now Varick was able to make out objects. Here was a table littered with books and papers, there a chair, yonder a shadowy mantel. Gradually the light grew until his tensely fixed eyes pained him, but he stared steadily on. Another quick brightness came and the objects all became clear. He studied them incredulously for a few seconds, and then he recognized what he saw. It was a room—his study—miles away in his apartments.
A sudden numb chilliness seized him but he closed his teeth hard and gazed on. The outlines of the crystal were disappearing, now they were gone and he saw more. A door opened and a man entered the room into which he was looking. Varick gave a little gasp as he recognized the man. It was—himself. He watched the man—himself—as he moved about the study aimlessly for a time as if deeply troubled, then as he dropped into a chair at the desk. Varick read clearly on the vision-face those emotions which he was suffering in person. As he looked the man made some hopeless gesture with his hands—his hands—and leaned forward on the desk with his head on his arms. Varick shuddered.
For a long time, it seemed, the man sat motionless, then Varick became conscious of another figure—a man—in the room. This figure had come into the vision from his own view point. His face was averted—Varick did not recognize the figure, but he saw something else and started in terror. A knife was in the hand of the unknown, and he was creeping stealthily toward the unconscious figure in the chair—himself—with the weapon raised.
An inarticulate cry burst from Varick’s colourless lips—a cry of warning—as he saw the unknown creep on, on, on toward—himself. He saw the figure that was himself move a little and the unknown leaped. The upraised knife swept down and was buried to the handle. Again a cry, an unintelligible shriek, burst from